prince double album poll: sign o the times vs 1999

I've never heard a double album that wasn't "sprawling" or messy.

randomly i was thinking SOTT would be better if more of the tracks faded into each other like albums in the 70s

all my favorite albums are double albums

SOTT...the highs are higher for me on 1999 but it's more patchy than SOTT which I can listen to all the way through without hitting the skip button

sometimes i feel like double albums are kind of cursed...either they work and they're so good and big that everything the artist does after is anticlimactic, or they don't work and signal that the artist has lost grip on quality control. 1999 was an exception, in that it was Prince's biggest album to date and he immediately made one even bigger directly afterwards. then got got greedy and did another double album, and THAT one turned out even better, but then of course it made everything after it pale in comparison. and then he spurted out a couple of triple albums for good measure.

1999, i think

God, I haven't played SOTT for 20 years at least, and some of these songs are receeding in my mem.

"Beautiful night" is great where it is.

I like "The Cross", basically for being "It's alright the way that you live" merging into "sister ray" Velvet Underground(s).

"Sign O The Times" is better. Both running a bit thin towards the end, but SIOT keeps the steam all through side 3 while "1999" is starting to lose it around side 2 already.

sometimes i feel like double albums are kind of cursed...either they work and they're so good and big that everything the artist does after is anticlimactic

i think sott was prince shooting his last great wad. he recorded SO much material during that time, its like he was worried he might not have anything more to come afterwards (obv i cant ever imagine prince worrying about lack of material, but it can look like that). it was the most inspired he would ever be i think. after that, he never stopped recording as much, but in terms of quality/quantity being more or less equal, he wouldnt really get it back after that 86/87 era.

i suppose you could argue that white female musicians have been prince's most inspiring collaborators.

Of course it's 1999...one of the most revelatory albums I ever heard...can still remember listening to it for the first time and having to put it on again straight away( but quickly fast forwarding cos I couldn't wait to hear it again)...it covers every Prince base...pop Prince, rock Prince, minneapolis Prince, soul balladier Prince, just plain weird Prince and pretty much peerlessly...It's his 'A Wizard,A true Star'...SOTT is his 'Todd'...definitely a top 10 album...

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I love both but 1999 is slightly more powerful and explosive.

anyone know where i can get the "For Those of U on Valium" bootleg? ;)

oops, sorry i found it

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

dan's weird out of nowhere "it" hate upthread is killing me because that is maybe my favorite prince song

anyway i think maybe the love symbol record should have been in this poll.

i mean i know it would have lost terribly but it's kind of the other prince double lp

oh on second thought given album lengths i'd be including diamonds and pearls there

dammit it's too late to think about this

anyway had i seen this poll i would have gone for sign after thinking hard about how much i love "little red corvette" and "automatic" and "lady cab driver"

The synth riff in the chorus to 'Let's Pretend We're Married' is so Gary Numan in hurts.

*in=it

Lady...cab driver

titchy (titchyschneiderMk2)
Posted: 11 July 2011 at 18:51:16
randomly i was thinking SOTT would be better if more of the tracks faded into each other like albums in the 70s

this would be good. parade does this to great effect.

Definitely SOTT for me out of the two, but they're both astounding records.

I want to petition the BFI in London to show the sott movie on 35mm.

I would say SOTT most days, but not when I just listened to 1999. The whole back half of the album is a real career high point, where his weirdness and his virtuosity meet most productively and successfully over track after track. Also I think his funniest album? So many great asides and jokes. I love how he so deliberately frontloaded the record with hits and then just let himself do whatever we wanted for the rest of it.

Well, after going through the albums Dirty Mind though Lovesexy, SOTT was the first that seemed underwhelming. It's a lot less of a party record than the early stuff, but to my ears, also less sonically interesting than Parade (and the arrangements sound more dated). I'm guessing people really like the lyrics? Or?

(I should say Controversy also seemed a little underwhelming, but only because it was more of the same with slightly lesser songs -- SOTT just seems like a change to whole other feel)

I kind of hear what you're saying but SOTT has that inscrutable thing of summing to this pocket universe of music

SOTT is the quintessential double album, in line with Physical Graffiti, The White Album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, Tusk, Blonde on Blonde - if his other albums are a single spoke in the wheel, SOTT is the whole wheel, with all of his proclivities and idiosyncrasies explored to the fullest extent.

Except it *sounds* lesser than all the ones that preceded it -- maybe it's a production thing, although for much of it, Prince's vocals seem more subdued as well. Lovesexy beefs things up a bit. At the moment, I'm hearing SOTT more as an introduction to the next phase in his career, one less about reigning over the pop charts/leading the zeitgeist, and more about exploring his own muses. It doesn't sound like a summing up of everything Prince does to me, because nothing on it sounds like it could have been on, say, Dirty Mind or even 1999.

(but then, I only really love The White Album of the ones you mention above, others ranging from good/interesting to not my thing at all)

All CD/digital copies of SOTT sound like shit - way too quiet and flat. I listened to my vinyl copy for the first time in a while last week and thru the weekend, and I was astounded by how much better it sounds. Beefier, louder - that's one you've gotta hear on vinyl.

All CD/digital copies of SOTT sound like shit - way too quiet and flat.

Have you heard the Japanese remaster from a few years ago? Genuinely curious about this 'cause I was thinking about maybe buying one on eBay or Discogs.

I haven't, just a US CD and the copy on iTunes I bought last week.

There was a Japanese SHM CD from 2009 that I would absolutely buy if the price dropped below, say, $60. Right now the cheapest one is $114.

The Japanese shm are basically just EQ treatments of the existing CDs iirc. But they do sound better. Just not as much better as I want them to.

Man, I can't understand at all how anyone could be underwhelmed by Sign '☮' the Times. It is quintessential Prince. His crowning achievement.

https://youtu.be/kyOCgW11Ajw

not going to embed that, it's DMSR live in Detroit

Lemme get a fruit cocktail, I ain't too hungry.