The 20 Best Prince Songs Ever, Ranked

Erotic City is a naughty track (as was the case for most Prince joints back then), and stirred up some controversy because people didn't know if he was "funk so pretty," or the f-word. Knowing how mischievous Prince was during that time, it was probably the former, but since he never confirmed we've never gotten an answer. The B-side to "Let's Get Crazy," it's safe to say that "Erotic City" didn't make the cut for the Purple Rain movie and promo due to its lyrical content, but it's still a great song.

If you don't have "Adore" on your all-time Prince list, then we don't know what to tell you other than you might be crazy. "Adore" is one of those songs where the appreciation has grown in the years since its release as the single truly is a beautiful classic R&B smash. Despite "Adore" never being released as a single, it received regular radio airplay (and still does on certain stations), and what's more, in 2010, users of AOL voted "Adore" as the number two spot on a ranking of Prince's best songs. We can definitely see why that is.

While "1999" and "Little Red Corvette" was taking up all of the attention on Prince's 1982 album 1999, "All The Critics Love U in New York" was laid back in the cut chillin. You kind of have to be deep in the Prince trenches to know this song as it was never released as a single, but the best way to describe this single is that it puts you in a trance. Our favorite rendition of "All The Critics Love U" is when Prince performed it at a 2009 concert at the Montreux Jazz Festival. Legendary.

Somewhere around 1990/1991 Prince decided to go down the New Jack Swing route (his take on it at least because Prince never sounded like anyone else), which included him doing his own version of rapping. "Gett Off" was a different sound for the artist, but not surprising because by 1991 people were used to Prince randomly switching his sound and band up out of nowhere. "Gett Off" was the introduction to the New Power Generation band (NPG), and it started the era off with a bang.

Right before his breakout into mega superstardom with 1999, Prince experienced growing success the year before with his 1981 album Controversy. The song "Controversy" was released in September 1981 as the first single off of the album, and centered around Prince addressing all of the criticisms of him leading up to that point such as speculation surrounding his sexuality, gender, racial background, and even his religion. In short, Prince basically told his critics to screw off, and we love it.

Only Prince could make a jazz song talking about being a "Sexy MF" and have it turn out good. The video for this single is both genius and hilarious as Prince and his band were acting up big time. Honestly, as major Prince fans we can say that the Diamonds and Pearls era was a fun one as we hadn't really seen the silly side of him much up to that point. It's really cool to watch in retrospect.

If you know you know. A track from his 1987 album Sign "O" The Times, "Housequake" is the song that would get the party going as Prince would use it as the opener to a lot of his shows during that time period. If you need an example of how "Housequake" would make people react, check out this performance of Prince at the 2005 NAACP awards

In 1988, Prince released his tenth studio album Lovesexy, which was supported by the release of its first single "Alphabet St." The song peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100, and was most notably sampled by 1990s hip-hop group Arrested Development without Prince's permission on their single "Tennessee" for which they were hit with a hefty lawsuit (Prince didn't play around with sampling). "Tennessee", however, is a classic hip hop track so perhaps it was worth it in the end.

The numbers tell the full story when it comes to the success of 1991's "Cream." Number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, top ten in fifteen other countries, the music video all over MTV, VH1, and BET. Like we said, the numbers speak for themselves with this one.

Wildly catchy with a hypnotic guitar lick, "U Got The Look" was the opening track on the second disc of Sign 'O' The Times, and is an electric song that would up ten notches whenever Prince performed it live. The performances for "U Got The Look" evolved a great bit over the decades as far as how Prince played it (he was known to sometimes make his songs sound completely different from the recorded versions live), which was always interesting to hear.

We're taking back to the beginning with this one. The very beginning. Released on his 20th birthday in 1978, Prince previewed a lot of what was to come with "Soft and Wet," in terms of the direction he would go later on with his R&B ballads. Not bad for his very first single ever.

"I Ain't Got No Money," has to be one of the most hilarious opening lines in a song ever. Prince made it absolutely clear from the get-go what it was and what it wasn't, but at least he was charming enough to make you forget he started out the song talking about how much money he didn't have.

"Sign 'o' The Times," is regarded as a late 1980s anthem, and one of the songs that shaped rock 'n' roll, as it was hugely successful. Even more interesting is that the song was reportedly written on a Sunday, which is the day that Prince apparently wrote his deepest songs.

There's a reason why Sign 'o' The Times is regarded as Prince's magnum opus—it's because of his evolution as an artist and the eclectic mixture of the songs on the album, which included "If I Was Your Girlfriend." The 1990s babies probably most remember this song being covered by TLC on their sophomore album Crazy, Sexy, Cool, which was actually a major shock to many because as we mentioned earlier, Prince wasn't fond of people sampling his work and didn't allow it often. TLC was one of the very few exceptions to his strict rule.

For a brief moment we completely forgot that "Darling Nikki" was featured in the Purple Rain movie, so we take back what we said about "Erotic City" potentially being too "bold" for the film because "Darling Nikki" was definitely "bold" (especially for the time period). One thing about 80s and 90s Prince—he was going to push to the limit, and the limit was definitely pushed with "Darling Nikki."

Speaking of pushing it to the limit with subliminal messages and double entendres, we present to you "Little Red Corvette." While not as sexy as "Darling Nikki," Prince was not talking about a car. We'll leave it at that.

Dang it! We just realized that we've only got four slots left, meaning we'll have to leave out a few of the major classics, that's okay though because we said that we wanted to give love to some of Prince's work outside of what was the most "commercially successful," so we're confident with our picks. That said, "Let's Get Crazy" has to be included. It's the opening track on both the Purple Rain film and album, and we can all identify with the opening line "Dearly Beloved, We are Gathered Here Today to Get Through This Thing Called Life." Truer words have never been spoken.

We do feel guilty leaving off "1999" because of how iconic the song is, but we haven't covered anything off the Parade album, and "Kiss" is just as legendary. The Parade era was an interesting time for Prince as he turned 28-years-old, cut his hair, and began channeling the 1950s with a short cut and suit look. With the exception of the music video for "Kiss," you almost exclusively saw Prince in suits during this time period, which was certainly a switch up from the glittery purple ensembles from just a couple years prior with the Purple Rain era.

Sidenote: The intro to "Kiss" is one of the best ever in our opinion.

And then there were two. We'll go with "Purple Rain" as our number two selection. It was already iconic due to it being the defining song from the Purple Rain film, but the legendary level was increased after Prince performed this as the closing number for his 2007 Superbowl performance. To this day it's still so surreal how it actually rained during "Purple Rain." Prince was literally playing his purple guitar in the rain during "Purple Rain." Perfection.

Don't quote us, but legend has it that Prince was never quite able to replicate the guitar intro for "When Doves Cry," as he was fooling around when he created it, which is why a lot of times he would just use the recorded version of the intro for the performances. If this is true, that makes "When Doves Cry," even more brilliant in our eyes. A top ten on any Prince songs list.