Apr 24 2021

Prince – The 5 least favorite albums!

Prince - 5 Least Favorite Albums - Header (apoplife.nl)

Prince - 15 Best Albums - Header (apoplife.nl)

This article belongs to the story Prince – The 15 best albums!.

Introduction

To balance the main article, the A Pop Life Panel members also compiled a list of their least favorite Prince albums. Before going to the list, some remarks:

  • The album with the highest score wins and so on. The points are calculated as follows:
    • Number 1: 5 points
    • Number 2: 4 points
    • Etc

    All points are added up, which results in the definitive list.

  • If more than 1 album ends up with the same number of points, the sorting order is expanded with the year of initial (intended) release (old to new) and the album title (alphabetically).
  • The album has to have been released before Prince’s passing, so before April 21st, 2016.
  • Each album can be picked, this also includes live and compilation albums.
  • The number 1 is the least favorite of the 5 nominees.

Because the numbers 4, 5 and 6 ended up with the same amount of points, this top 5 is made up of 6 titles.

With pride and sincere gratitude to Bram, Edward, Herman, Leon, Rick and Vincent, these are Prince’s 15 least favorite albums!

Prince - Planet Earth (spotify.com)

Prince – Planet Earth

1. Planet Earth

(2007)

Remarks

Bram What a letdown.
(okay: Planet Earth (a bit over the top, but hey, I can live with this one), Somewhere Here On Earth, Chelsea Rodgers)
Edward I can’t discover anything here that will make my head turn.
Certainly no crowd barriers material.
Trax like Chelsea Rodgers and Lion Of Judah are rather nice still.
Erwin Completely vacuous album. Incomprehensible this came after the fantastic 3121.
Herman I guess I should have known; it came with the Mail On Sunday, a rag of a newspaper. The overall sound of this is weirdly nice, as is the art-design, but to me it’s the compositions that do not gel; they just don’t make me tick, tick bang. Two songs made it to a playlist, but the rest of them are just so forgettable.
Leon Ow… here are some random songs in the trashcan… let’s put them on a CD, add one OK song, Chelsea Rodgers, and call it an album.
Rick  
Vincent  
Prince - 20Ten (spotify.com)

Prince – 20Ten

2. 20Ten

(2010)

Remarks

Bram  
Edward  
Erwin Soulless weak album, unworthy of Prince.
Herman There is nothing on here that makes me groove; the funk sounds rather lame, on this. The lyrics sound uninteresting. Which is quite something, as Prince’s voice is my favest in the world.
Leon An album that you just forget, literally. I saw a title from that album a few times, I thought it was a new song… it turned out to be from that album. Elevator music, uninspired, vague… just not what you want to hear… not even when it comes for free with a newspaper.
Rick  
Vincent  
Prince - HITnRUN Phase One (spotify.com)

Prince – HITnRUN Phase One

3. HITnRUN Phase One

(2015)

Remarks

Bram  
Edward Fucking hell, what an incoherent mess. Terrible album!
Erwin  
Herman  
Leon  
Rick Another CD I hardly ever played. Prince is flirting with new music styles and sounds. In this case it hurts the quality of the songs. I usually like the experimental side of Prince, but not in this case. But with so many albums under his belt one bad one isn’t the end of the world. HITnRUN Phase Two was surprisingly different and better.
Vincent  
Prince - Graffiti Bridge (last.fm)

Prince – Graffiti Bridge

4. Graffiti Bridge

(1990)

Remarks

Bram  
Edward Pffff… what a huge disappointment after a run of very successful consecutive albums in the 80s. Even the two top songs The Question Of U and Joy In Repetition can’t save the day here. An album that I haven’t listened to since 1990.
Erwin  
Herman  
Leon No comment 🙂
Rick  
Vincent  
Prince - The Slaughterhouse (tidal.com)

Prince – The Slaughterhouse

5. The Slaughterhouse

(2004)

Remarks

Bram I think The Chocolate Invasion is many, many times stronger.
(okay: Y Should Do That When Can Do This?)
Edward  
Erwin  
Herman  
Leon The title itself… the music… think I played each song only once and skipped most after 15 seconds. Makes you wonder why a genius sometimes completely surprises you with rubbish.
Rick  
Vincent  
Prince - MPLSound (princeestate.com)

Prince – MPLSound

6. MPLSound

(2009)

Remarks

Bram This album is full of lame beats.
(okay: Dance 4 Me, Ol’ School Company)
Edward  
Erwin  
Herman Wedged in between two albums that I like better, this one does not contain songs or sounds I much like. Even Q-Tip can’t save this plastic pastiche.
Leon  
Rick  
Vincent  

 

Interpretation and justification

So, there it is: the 6 least favorite Prince albums according to the A Pop Life Panel. Of course, there are things to be said about the list.

A total of 20 titles were nominated, of which no less than 13 were released after 2000, 6 in the 1990s and 1 in the 1980s. With the exception of 1 album, the entire top 6 is made up of albums released after 2000.

Relation to the 15 best albums

What’s the relation to the results in the main article Prince – The 15 best albums!? Of the 20 titles named here, 12 were also nominated in the personal top 15 best albums of the A Pop Life Panel members. No less than 4 of the albums in the top 6 are also mentioned in the main article Prince – The 15 best albums!.

It’s funny to see so many different opinions and preferences on Prince’s body of work.

The complete list

For everyone that just can’t get enough, below the complete list, sorted by the number of points, year of release and song title, can be viewed. Click the text below to show the complete list.

The individual lists

All lists come with personal commentary, remarks and memories. All lists are enclosed below. Click on one or more lines below.

N.B.:
Original Dutch texts translated by their respective authors.

In closing

Of course we are curious about reactions, remarks, compliments and your opinions. Use the comment form at the bottom of this article and get in touch. It truly is highly appreciated!

Compliments/remarks? Yes, please!