on 1/6/03 10:12 AM, Steve Smith at ssmith36@sprynet.com wrote:
Oh, I completely agree, and should clarify... As I wrote before, Parade is absolutely one of my favorite Prince albums, and contains some of his best songs. Pretty much the last hurrah of the Revolution, who were a very good band if not his best. (And happily, I never saw Cherry Moon!)
During the 1999 Tour of about 1982, where Prince and the Revolution headlined, Vanity 6 opened with the Time backing them, and the Time played the middle set, it was painfully obvious that Prince needed a better band. The Time were really serious. Prince was fantastic, but he outshined his band like you wouldn't believe. When SIGN came out, it was pretty evident that he finally had a band as good as he is.
It wasn't anything about Parade (or even about Prince himself) that made me lose interest... it was just the dogmatic way that I used to form and change my musical allegiances. When I say that I started buying reggae and hardcore (and then avant-jazz and free-improv), I mean that those things are pretty much the ONLY things I bought, and they just forced Prince out for a while.
I was listening to LOVESEXY, RAIN DOGS, LL Cool J's first album, Janet Jackson's CONTROL, the first Ambitious Lovers, and FULTON STREET MAUL together continously. Probably coincides with the fact that, at the time, I was hanging so much with Uri Caine. sh