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from http://mixonline.com/mag/...nces_kiss/
_____ “Kiss” was originally intended for Maserati and came into the studio in the form of one verse and a chorus, on a cassette tape, written, sung and played on an acoustic guitar by Prince, who assured Z that the rest of the song would be forthcoming. It wasn't an auspicious start. “The song sounded like a folk song that Stephen Stills might have done,” Z recalls. “I didn't quite know what to do with it and neither did the group.” Z began in his usual manner by creating a beat on a Linn 9000 drum machine. “The groove began to get complex, especially the hi-hat pattern,” he says. “I ran the hat through a delay unit, set about 150 milliseconds, printed that to tape and printed the original hat to another track and then alternated between ‘source’ and ‘blend’ on the delay unit, recording those passes. It created a pretty cool rhythm that was constantly changing in tone and complexity but was still steady. Then I played some guitar chords and gated them through a Kepex unit and used that to trigger various combinations of the hi-hat tracks. That gave us the basic rhythm groove for the song.” Session bassist Mark Brown laid down a bass part, and one of the members of Maserati recorded a piano part that Z says he copped from an old Bo Diddley song called “Hey, Man.” The group's singer put down a lead vocal track an octave lower than Prince's original tenor, and some background vocal parts were invented, based on some ideas Z says he remembered from Brenda Lee's “Sweet Nothings.” “This is what we had at the end of the first couple of days,” Z says with a sigh. “We were trying to build a song out of nothing, piece by piece. It was just a collection of ideas built around the idea of a song that wasn't finished yet. We didn't know where it was going. We were getting a little frustrated, we were exhausted, so we all went home for the night.” That, however, would prove to be enough. At least for Prince. When Z returned to the studio the next day, he found Prince waiting for him. Sometime that morning, The Artist had apparently come into the studio, asked an assistant to put the track up and then recorded his own vocal and electric guitar part. Z was stunned. “I asked him what was going on. He said to me, ‘This is too good for you guys. I'm taking it back.’” From that moment on, “Kiss” became a Prince record. Z remained with him in the studio as Prince took what sparse elements there already were on the track and made it even more minimalist. “He said, ‘We don't need this,’ and pulled the bass off,” Z says. The low end was filled up instead by using a classic Prince trick: running the kick drum through an AMS 16 reverb unit's reverse tube program. “It fills up the bottom so much you really don't miss the bass part, especially if you only use it on the first downbeat,” says Z. The hi-hat track was similarly dispatched, leaving only nine tracks of instruments and vocals on the record, which certainly made it easier to mix. Z recalls, only half jokingly, that the mix, which was done on an API console, took about five minutes. Prince's vocals had been recorded using a Sennheiser 441 microphone. According to Z, Prince's preference for that particular mic stems from a conversation he had with singer Stevie Nicks, who had suggested it to him. “There's a roll-off on that microphone that actually ends up boosting the high end, spiking it around 3 kHz,” Z explains. “It also has good directionality; Prince liked to sing in the control room, so he would set it up on a stand right by the console. When he wanted to sing, he would just put on headphones. He also liked doing his own punches, too.” The track was left as ambiently dry as it was elementally sparse. In the mix, Z says the starkness of the track actually made him a little uneasy. “I reached over and snuck in a little bit of the piano back in,” he says. A small amount of tape delay was also put on the guitar track. “Otherwise, the mix was just a matter of Prince pulling back and turning off faders. It's more than the bass that you're not hearing on that track.” Z says he recalls being alternately fascinated and excited by this turn of events. Maserati was to be his first full production for Prince's company. (Z had recorded parts of records for Prince in the past, as well as having recorded his original demos in Minneapolis and being the engineer at the live benefit recording that ultimately became Purple Rain.) In the course of an evening, while he had been sleeping, he was now Prince's co-producer for at least one track. In addition, the deletion of the bass was stirring. It added an element of danger, a frisson to the record-making process. In fact, it did produce some drama before it was released. Z says the feedback that came to him from Prince's record label, Warners, was palpably negative. “The A&R guy said it sounded like a demo,” Z remembers. “No bass, no reverb. I was devastated. But Prince had been selling big numbers, and he had a kind of power that few artists at that time did, probably more than any artist ever will again. He told Warners that that's the single they were getting, that that's the one they were putting out. He basically forced Warners to put it out.” Lucky Warners. The record went to Number One in the spring of 1986, and solidified Prince's stature as The Artist To Be Reckoned With. My art book: http://www.lulu.com/spotl...ecomicskid
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But this doesn't really support yours and others theory that Kiss is somehow not Prince's track.
Prince drops a verse and a chorus vocal and guitar demo. Engineer adds a rhythm and some production, a bass line is added, some piano and vocals. And, after just a few days, engineer admits its not really going anywhere and nobody knew where it was going to go. But, Prince hears something in it. Re-records vocals, makes major changes to the arrangement and - bang, there you have it. Prince started it, let someone play with it a little and then took it back and made it the monster track it is. I agree with Databank and some others here - the assertion that Prince incorrectly credits his stuff to make him look like a legendary genius - puhleaasse! Do you realise just how retarded that sounds? Confusion over credits happens all the time in bands - its so hard when its intellectual property and where a band may be jamming a groove. Did the bass player come up with that line on his own, or was it because of the rhythm the drummer was playing? It just shows that most of you really have no idea about the creative process and the adminstering of rights thereafter. ...we have only scratched the surface of what the mind can do...
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Giovanni777 said: What about all of the credits he gave away on The Time, Sheila E, etc albums?
The albums that have entire bands on the instruments in the credits, but R all P. The few little stray incidents that R known represent nothing in comparison 2 the volume of his choices 2 credit someone else. Even with some significant albums of his own, he has credited his band members, where he was playing/recording most or all parts. But U ask about athoring, so... 2 answer your question specifically... I would estimate that anywhere from 99%-100% of Prince's material is Prince authored. . [Edited 4/1/10 14:34pm] Be your own man, get off Prince's dick. Why are you typing in Prince-speak? | |
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When you're a 'work for hire', your work is your employer's, not your own. I don't know for sure if the band was always considered as such, but I recall hearing they were.
It's like Dale Chihuly, he hasn't blown glass in eons, but that's whose name is credited, not each artist that helped design and blow the glass. | |
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Mindflux said: But, Prince hears something in it. Re-records vocals, makes major changes to the arrangement and - bang, there you have it.
Not totally true. The changes were minor in comparison to the breadth of the production from the original crappy demo the full-fledged song Rivkin came up with. He omitted the bass line, added a guitar part, and replaced Casey's lead vocal with his own, singing the song an octave higher. Rivkin basically developed Prince's germ of an idea into a fully produced song, yet he had to settle for an arrangement credit since Prince took the songwriting credit for 'Kiss'' on Parade. | |
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Mindflux said: But this doesn't really support yours and others theory that Kiss is somehow not Prince's track.
Prince drops a verse and a chorus vocal and guitar demo. Engineer adds a rhythm and some production, a bass line is added, some piano and vocals. And, after just a few days, engineer admits its not really going anywhere and nobody knew where it was going to go. But, Prince hears something in it. Re-records vocals, makes major changes to the arrangement and - bang, there you have it. Prince started it, let someone play with it a little and then took it back and made it the monster track it is. I agree with Databank and some others here - the assertion that Prince incorrectly credits his stuff to make him look like a legendary genius - puhleaasse! Do you realise just how retarded that sounds? Confusion over credits happens all the time in bands - its so hard when its intellectual property and where a band may be jamming a groove. Did the bass player come up with that line on his own, or was it because of the rhythm the drummer was playing? It just shows that most of you really have no idea about the creative process and the adminstering of rights thereafter. You can hear the original demo, than you can hear the actual song, then you can hear the reworking of it by Prince for the Parade version. "We were trying to build a song out of nothing, piece by piece." Certainly in most cases Prince is the sole author of many songs, but not in this case. And the whole thing with David Z being happy that Prince paid him back by pushing him into the music business... paid him back for what? For taking credit for the song! There is no confusion in this case. And I know about the creative process. Do you? How about I strum one lyric and a chorus (one word? Is that what you are naming as a chorus?) on a basic chord with no indication of style. And I tell you to make it into a modern pop song with a beat, structure, lyrics, and full band arrangement for every instrument. I would say that you are being asked to make up the song. What I gave you is a one in a million generic featureless song fragment. My art book: http://www.lulu.com/spotl...ecomicskid
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ufoclub said: from http://mixonline.com/mag/...nces_kiss/
_____ “Kiss” was originally intended for Maserati and came into the studio in the form of one verse and a chorus, on a cassette tape, written, sung and played on an acoustic guitar by Prince, who assured Z that the rest of the song would be forthcoming. It wasn't an auspicious start. “The song sounded like a folk song that Stephen Stills might have done,” Z recalls. “I didn't quite know what to do with it and neither did the group.” Z began in his usual manner by creating a beat on a Linn 9000 drum machine. “The groove began to get complex, especially the hi-hat pattern,” he says. “I ran the hat through a delay unit, set about 150 milliseconds, printed that to tape and printed the original hat to another track and then alternated between ‘source’ and ‘blend’ on the delay unit, recording those passes. It created a pretty cool rhythm that was constantly changing in tone and complexity but was still steady. Then I played some guitar chords and gated them through a Kepex unit and used that to trigger various combinations of the hi-hat tracks. That gave us the basic rhythm groove for the song.” Session bassist Mark Brown laid down a bass part, and one of the members of Maserati recorded a piano part that Z says he copped from an old Bo Diddley song called “Hey, Man.” The group's singer put down a lead vocal track an octave lower than Prince's original tenor, and some background vocal parts were invented, based on some ideas Z says he remembered from Brenda Lee's “Sweet Nothings.” “This is what we had at the end of the first couple of days,” Z says with a sigh. “We were trying to build a song out of nothing, piece by piece. It was just a collection of ideas built around the idea of a song that wasn't finished yet. We didn't know where it was going. We were getting a little frustrated, we were exhausted, so we all went home for the night.” That, however, would prove to be enough. At least for Prince. When Z returned to the studio the next day, he found Prince waiting for him. Sometime that morning, The Artist had apparently come into the studio, asked an assistant to put the track up and then recorded his own vocal and electric guitar part. Z was stunned. “I asked him what was going on. He said to me, ‘This is too good for you guys. I'm taking it back.’” From that moment on, “Kiss” became a Prince record. Z remained with him in the studio as Prince took what sparse elements there already were on the track and made it even more minimalist. “He said, ‘We don't need this,’ and pulled the bass off,” Z says. The low end was filled up instead by using a classic Prince trick: running the kick drum through an AMS 16 reverb unit's reverse tube program. “It fills up the bottom so much you really don't miss the bass part, especially if you only use it on the first downbeat,” says Z. The hi-hat track was similarly dispatched, leaving only nine tracks of instruments and vocals on the record, which certainly made it easier to mix. Z recalls, only half jokingly, that the mix, which was done on an API console, took about five minutes. Prince's vocals had been recorded using a Sennheiser 441 microphone. According to Z, Prince's preference for that particular mic stems from a conversation he had with singer Stevie Nicks, who had suggested it to him. “There's a roll-off on that microphone that actually ends up boosting the high end, spiking it around 3 kHz,” Z explains. “It also has good directionality; Prince liked to sing in the control room, so he would set it up on a stand right by the console. When he wanted to sing, he would just put on headphones. He also liked doing his own punches, too.” The track was left as ambiently dry as it was elementally sparse. In the mix, Z says the starkness of the track actually made him a little uneasy. “I reached over and snuck in a little bit of the piano back in,” he says. A small amount of tape delay was also put on the guitar track. “Otherwise, the mix was just a matter of Prince pulling back and turning off faders. It's more than the bass that you're not hearing on that track.” Z says he recalls being alternately fascinated and excited by this turn of events. Maserati was to be his first full production for Prince's company. (Z had recorded parts of records for Prince in the past, as well as having recorded his original demos in Minneapolis and being the engineer at the live benefit recording that ultimately became Purple Rain.) In the course of an evening, while he had been sleeping, he was now Prince's co-producer for at least one track. In addition, the deletion of the bass was stirring. It added an element of danger, a frisson to the record-making process. In fact, it did produce some drama before it was released. Z says the feedback that came to him from Prince's record label, Warners, was palpably negative. “The A&R guy said it sounded like a demo,” Z remembers. “No bass, no reverb. I was devastated. But Prince had been selling big numbers, and he had a kind of power that few artists at that time did, probably more than any artist ever will again. He told Warners that that's the single they were getting, that that's the one they were putting out. He basically forced Warners to put it out.” Lucky Warners. The record went to Number One in the spring of 1986, and solidified Prince's stature as The Artist To Be Reckoned With. Thanks a lot for this detailed article: i knew the story from Per Nielsen's DMSR but this adds many details  A COMPREHENSIVE PRINCE DISCOGRAPHY (work in progress ^^): https://sites.google.com/...scography/ |
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So basically all of you knuckleheads are arguing over who gets "credit" for ripping off James Brown. Who cares who got credit for that. David Z got some credit so we know Prince didn't make the song by himself and didn't claim to.
Every artist uses ideas that he/she didn't originate and we don't credit everybody unless it's significant. Not every guitar strum or keyboard flourish entitles one to credit for songwriting. There's a difference from embellishment and contributing to the genesis and structure of a song. I imagine Prince pretty much ignores the former in most cases unless he's feeling generous. |
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whodknee said: So basically all of you knuckleheads are arguing over who gets "credit" for ripping off James Brown. Who cares who got credit for that. David Z got some credit so we know Prince didn't make the song by himself and didn't claim to.
Every artist uses ideas that he/she didn't originate and we don't credit everybody unless it's significant. Not every guitar strum or keyboard flourish entitles one to credit for songwriting. There's a difference from embellishment and contributing to the genesis and structure of a song. I imagine Prince pretty much ignores the former in most cases unless he's feeling generous. Exactly! That's why it's odd that Prince took credit for Kiss when he just added a little part here and there and so on. You made my point! My art book: http://www.lulu.com/spotl...ecomicskid
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ufoclub said: Mindflux said: But this doesn't really support yours and others theory that Kiss is somehow not Prince's track.
Prince drops a verse and a chorus vocal and guitar demo. Engineer adds a rhythm and some production, a bass line is added, some piano and vocals. And, after just a few days, engineer admits its not really going anywhere and nobody knew where it was going to go. But, Prince hears something in it. Re-records vocals, makes major changes to the arrangement and - bang, there you have it. Prince started it, let someone play with it a little and then took it back and made it the monster track it is. I agree with Databank and some others here - the assertion that Prince incorrectly credits his stuff to make him look like a legendary genius - puhleaasse! Do you realise just how retarded that sounds? Confusion over credits happens all the time in bands - its so hard when its intellectual property and where a band may be jamming a groove. Did the bass player come up with that line on his own, or was it because of the rhythm the drummer was playing? It just shows that most of you really have no idea about the creative process and the adminstering of rights thereafter. You can hear the original demo, than you can hear the actual song, then you can hear the reworking of it by Prince for the Parade version. "We were trying to build a song out of nothing, piece by piece." Certainly in most cases Prince is the sole author of many songs, but not in this case. And the whole thing with David Z being happy that Prince paid him back by pushing him into the music business... paid him back for what? For taking credit for the song! There is no confusion in this case. And I know about the creative process. Do you? How about I strum one lyric and a chorus (one word? Is that what you are naming as a chorus?) on a basic chord with no indication of style. And I tell you to make it into a modern pop song with a beat, structure, lyrics, and full band arrangement for every instrument. I would say that you are being asked to make up the song. What I gave you is a one in a million generic featureless song fragment. What do you mean "do you?" - is your memory that short? (you and I both produce music and have discussed this before). BTW, that last paragraph I wrote was general, not aimed at you. I commented on what I thought about the piece you posted beforehand in my original post - I then moved on to the "credits" point, so that wasn't aimed at you mate [Edited 4/5/10 5:45am] ...we have only scratched the surface of what the mind can do...
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Mindflux said: ufoclub said: You can hear the original demo, than you can hear the actual song, then you can hear the reworking of it by Prince for the Parade version. "We were trying to build a song out of nothing, piece by piece." Certainly in most cases Prince is the sole author of many songs, but not in this case. And the whole thing with David Z being happy that Prince paid him back by pushing him into the music business... paid him back for what? For taking credit for the song! There is no confusion in this case. And I know about the creative process. Do you? How about I strum one lyric and a chorus (one word? Is that what you are naming as a chorus?) on a basic chord with no indication of style. And I tell you to make it into a modern pop song with a beat, structure, lyrics, and full band arrangement for every instrument. I would say that you are being asked to make up the song. What I gave you is a one in a million generic featureless song fragment. What do you mean "do you?" - is your memory that short? (you and I both produce music and have discussed this before). BTW, that last paragraph I wrote was general, not aimed at you. I commented on what I thought about the piece you posted beforehand in my original post - I then moved on to the "credits" point, so that wasn't aimed at you mate
[Edited 4/5/10 5:45am] sorry! I just get bored working on stuff and take breaks by posting frantically. Sometimes I forget to check details! My art book: http://www.lulu.com/spotl...ecomicskid
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ufoclub said: whodknee said: So basically all of you knuckleheads are arguing over who gets "credit" for ripping off James Brown. Who cares who got credit for that. David Z got some credit so we know Prince didn't make the song by himself and didn't claim to.
Every artist uses ideas that he/she didn't originate and we don't credit everybody unless it's significant. Not every guitar strum or keyboard flourish entitles one to credit for songwriting. There's a difference from embellishment and contributing to the genesis and structure of a song. I imagine Prince pretty much ignores the former in most cases unless he's feeling generous. Exactly! That's why it's odd that Prince took credit for Kiss when he just added a little part here and there and so on. You made my point! You seem to see what you want to see. My point is that James Brown should get credit for Kiss, but if we're to believe he wasn't ripped off then since it was Prince that made it a hit he deserved most of the credit. Maybe he gave David Z the wrong credit as an arranger but only nerds give a damn about that. If David Z is fine with it then so am I. Looking at it from Prince's shoes: you come up with an idea and turn it over to one of YOUR groups. They flesh it out and you hear potential in it. So you reclaim it, get rid of the superfluous crap they've got on it, add a few things, come up with lyrics, and cut the track. I'm not so sure David Z wasn't properly credited. It's not like he wrote it, Prince heard it, took it, and then replaced the lead vocals with his own. The gray area is the producing and arranging part. I suppose since Prince started it and finished it he considered himself the producer.  |
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whodknee said: ufoclub said: Exactly! That's why it's odd that Prince took credit for Kiss when he just added a little part here and there and so on. You made my point! You seem to see what you want to see. My point is that James Brown should get credit for Kiss, but if we're to believe he wasn't ripped off then since it was Prince that made it a hit he deserved most of the credit. Maybe he gave David Z the wrong credit as an arranger but only nerds give a damn about that. If David Z is fine with it then so am I. Looking at it from Prince's shoes: you come up with an idea and turn it over to one of YOUR groups. They flesh it out and you hear potential in it. So you reclaim it, get rid of the superfluous crap they've got on it, add a few things, come up with lyrics, and cut the track. I'm not so sure David Z wasn't properly credited. It's not like he wrote it, Prince heard it, took it, and then replaced the lead vocals with his own. The gray area is the producing and arranging part. I suppose since Prince started it and finished it he considered himself the producer. Well the story is detailed out, and the bootlegs document the process in three recordings... so it's up to you to decide who you feel is the main author and who is the editor. Obviously, Prince has written 1000+ songs all by himself, so normally he is the creditable creator. In my opinion he is not the auteur of this one song. And that was the opposite percentage of the title of this thread, and a response to any ghostwritten work for Prince. On a side note: Did you know "Star Wars" the novelization of the movie was not written by George Lucas even though it plainly says that on the front of the book? My art book: http://www.lulu.com/spotl...ecomicskid
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databank said: Prince indeed used an André Cymone composition, which itself was more or less stolen from a Eddie Hazel song, for "Do Me, Baby". He also took away Jesse Johnson's royalties out of "The Bird" and "Jungle Love" (though Prince didn't credit himself for them on the record's credits) and a few Chris Moon lyrics also were uncredited. Jesse stole the arrangements Prince had done on "Do Yourself A Favor" in retaliation (and got co-writers royalties for them), and Chris stole "Make It Through The Storm" for Sue-Ann in retaliation, too (which led Prince to copyright the song, most likely after Sue Ann released it).
Kiss was arranged, not composed, by David Z and Mazarati, and David Z was credited for that on "Parade": i know Mazarati were a bit pissed off that they got no writing credits for that arrangement, but David Z said that he was totally satisfied with this because he owed his whole career to Prince. On the other hand Prince wrote the lyrics for 2 Mazarati songs but since Brownmark was writing the whole album, Mark got the credits and royalties for that 
As for "Partyup" it wasn't "stolen" to Morris but traded against being The Time's singer (Morris was supposed to be the drummer at this stage) so Morris was totally ok with that, and Prince is said to have changed the lyrics quite a lot so he could be considered co-writer anyway. There might be a few other doubtful songs here and there ("Well Done" comes to mind) but it's totally insane how a man who composed, arranged and recorded more than 1000 songs is accused of being "ghostwritten" or to have an habit of stealing ideas where there actually are less than 10 known dubious cases. And that's without mentionning the credits and royalties Prince offered to Sheila for the whole "Romance 1600" album, the credits and royalties he possibly gave to his father who is said not to ever have written a line on any Prince songs, and the multiple cases where Prince gave credits for composing, playing instruments and arranging songs to other people (Madhouse, The Family, The Time, Vanity 6, Apollonia 6, Sheila E., Jill Jones, Taja Sevelle...), not to mention the times he hid behind pseudonyms. Besides, anyone who's been involved in collaborative works of art know that it's quite difficult to isolate who did what after some time. This debate, which is regularly re-opened here, is a bit ridiculous. . [Edited 4/2/10 8:43am] excellent post databank | |
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ufoclub said: Did you know "Star Wars" the novelization of the movie was not written by George Lucas even though it plainly says that on the front of the book?
 Alan Dean Foster. | |
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If David Z co-wrote and produced Kiss, then Ricky Peterson Co-wrote and produced most of The Gold Experience.
or Wendy and Lisa wrote Purple Rain, or Kirk Johnson Wrote Emancipation. ..... | |
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lotusflw3r said: If David Z co-wrote and produced Kiss, then Ricky Peterson Co-wrote and produced most of The Gold Experience.
or Wendy and Lisa wrote Purple Rain, or Kirk Johnson Wrote Emancipation To quote Wendy, "So did Wendy & Lisa write "Purple Rain"? No. But did we help? Yes." | |
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So are guys saying Prince is very much like Led Zeppelin? I still play pokemon. I play warcraft. And I'm awesome. | |
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lotusflw3r said: If David Z co-wrote and produced Kiss, then Ricky Peterson Co-wrote and produced most of The Gold Experience.
or Wendy and Lisa wrote Purple Rain, or Kirk Johnson Wrote Emancipation. ..... The recordings prove what happened, you can decide for yourself by listening to them. My art book: http://www.lulu.com/spotl...ecomicskid
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- [Edited 4/7/10 2:32am] | |
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If I may, I have to say this reminds me of the case in physical sciences in which there are multiple folks working on the same problem, even using the basic framework of the same formula. In physics, the one who comes up with the expression (even a re-working of ideas already on the table) of a particular variable for example that makes the whole formula (finally) make sense, then publishes/applies/demystifies the formula's meaning is said to be the one who developed the formula. There may even be 35 names listed as author, but its by the lead name is how this seminal paper will be referred to. And all the other authors understand why they are secondary authors 99% of the time, lol.
If the concept never comes to its full fruition, without that key bit of creativity/insight... can you say that it was 'finished'?  ********************************************
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Not that anyone's opinion here is right or wrong but we seem to being arguing many different points of view simultaneously. Having been in bands before (as I'm sure many of you have) the concept of who "wrote" a song really often depends on who you ask.
In some bands one member will come in with a melody or riff, the other members develop their parts, the singer composes lyrics and the credit is shared equally. Then again in that same scenario full credit sometimes goes to the individual who came up with the original concept (as JumpUpOnThe1 mentioned earlier). When you have an individual fronting a band, sometimes ideas emerge from lengthy jam sessions; the group leader will listen to hours of tape and will develop a full song around nuggets lifted from these sessions. Of course there are those who can pull snippets of ideas from several sources (that is other artists material) to create something entirely new. My opinion is that no artist ever has created 100% of their compositions in a vacuum with no input or influence from anyone or anything -- everything is inspired by something after all. In Prince's case we've heard that Do Me Baby was taken from an Andre Cymone bass riff, that the songs on Dirty Mind emerged from jam sessions with the band and his Joni Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix, Sylvester, Sly Stone, etc. influences are obvious. Sure the ethical thing would be to acknowledge those who helped along the way but I have to ask myself, would Andre really have been able to develop his bass riff into the masterpiece that Prince created? Plagiarist, hack, thief -- maybe that's a bit harsh but like every other pop culture "genius" Prince has had his share of uncredited help. | |
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peter430044 said: In the case of Do Me Baby, if princevault.com is correct, it was written by André Cymone but credited to Prince. Question is, why would Cymone agree to that?
Right - and I have never heard Andre claim it. I have never bought any of the "Prince stole my song" stories - especially when most of them are about artists who have never written a song nearly as good as the one that Prince supposedly took from them. | |
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Brofie said: peter430044 said: In the case of Do Me Baby, if princevault.com is correct, it was written by André Cymone but credited to Prince. Question is, why would Cymone agree to that?
Right - and I have never heard Andre claim it. I have never bought any of the "Prince stole my song" stories - especially when most of them are about artists who have never written a song nearly as good as the one that Prince supposedly took from them. That's all a matter of opinion on who wrote as well as as another artist.I think André did GREAT tunes for himself and for Jodi Watley. Certainly they were polished differently than Prince might have but the tunes were solid. As were Jimmy Jam And Terry Lewis's tunes. So people around him could write as well as he does. I'd bring up that Wendy and Lisa have written songs as well as Prince imo, but I know how you feel about THAT topic. How "good" a song is is personal taste anyway. Some people think the stuff Prince is writing today is as good as what he wrote up through the 90s - which tells me it is all really subjective. I do know Sexy MF hook was something Levi sung around PP and Prince built out on that for the song. In my opinion the "hook" is what drove that song. So who wrote it? Prince creates best when not in a vacuum. Which means people "help" in various forms. Some in tangible ways, some intangible. If half (and i am in no way implying this is the case) of any artists work was written by someone else, and they did the other 50% - well 50% of a career the length and awesomeness of Prince's is bloody amazing. |
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ernestsewell said: mike123 said: thanks 4 the spelling lookout, can u tell me all the songs that were ghostwritten 4 Prince.
Ghost written? None. Stolen by him? Plenty. All the words you´re using in your sentences are stolen by you. | |
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From an Eric Leeds interview:
"I love Wendy and Lisa's song, "Mountains." [also on Parade] There's a song which I don't know has ever been released. It was a song of Wendy and Lisa's and it's known by various titles [including] "Welcome To The Rat Race," but was actually called "Life Is Like Looking For A Penny In A Large Room With No Light," It was Sheila, Wendy, Lisa, Prince, myself and a couple of horns and that was one my favourite songs." |
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ernestsewell said: ufoclub said: Manic Monday is ghostwritten by Prince... so are the Time's songs... No, he said what were written FOR Prince, not BY Prince, as in someone writing a song for Prince to claim as his own. You know....like Beyonce's whole career. OMG, Ernest.  | |
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databank said: Prince indeed used an André Cymone composition, which itself was more or less stolen from a Eddie Hazel song, for "Do Me, Baby". He also took away Jesse Johnson's royalties out of "The Bird" and "Jungle Love" (though Prince didn't credit himself for them on the record's credits) and a few Chris Moon lyrics also were uncredited. Jesse stole the arrangements Prince had done on "Do Yourself A Favor" in retaliation (and got co-writers royalties for them), and Chris stole "Make It Through The Storm" for Sue-Ann in retaliation, too (which led Prince to copyright the song, most likely after Sue Ann released it).
Kiss was arranged, not composed, by David Z and Mazarati, and David Z was credited for that on "Parade": i know Mazarati were a bit pissed off that they got no writing credits for that arrangement, but David Z said that he was totally satisfied with this because he owed his whole career to Prince. On the other hand Prince wrote the lyrics for 2 Mazarati songs but since Brownmark was writing the whole album, Mark got the credits and royalties for that
As for "Partyup" it wasn't "stolen" to Morris but traded against being The Time's singer (Morris was supposed to be the drummer at this stage) so Morris was totally ok with that, and Prince is said to have changed the lyrics quite a lot so he could be considered co-writer anyway. There might be a few other doubtful songs here and there ("Well Done" comes to mind) but it's totally insane how a man who composed, arranged and recorded more than 1000 songs is accused of being "ghostwritten" or to have an habit of stealing ideas where there actually are less than 10 known dubious cases. And that's without mentionning the credits and royalties Prince offered to Sheila for the whole "Romance 1600" album, the credits and royalties he possibly gave to his father who is said not to ever have written a line on any Prince songs, and the multiple cases where Prince gave credits for composing, playing instruments and arranging songs to other people (Madhouse, The Family, The Time, Vanity 6, Apollonia 6, Sheila E., Jill Jones, Taja Sevelle...), not to mention the times he hid behind pseudonyms. Besides, anyone who's been involved in collaborative works of art know that it's quite difficult to isolate who did what after some time. This debate, which is regularly re-opened here, is a bit ridiculous. . [Edited 4/2/10 8:43am] You are so right databank. BTW ernestsewell You Just Got OWNED!!!! "I have so much love for Prince. But why don't they look at me that way"- MJ | |
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ufoclub said: from http://mixonline.com/mag/...nces_kiss/
_____ “Kiss” was originally intended for Maserati and came into the studio in the form of one verse and a chorus, on a cassette tape, written, sung and played on an acoustic guitar by Prince, who assured Z that the rest of the song would be forthcoming. It wasn't an auspicious start. “The song sounded like a folk song that Stephen Stills might have done,” Z recalls. “I didn't quite know what to do with it and neither did the group.” Z began in his usual manner by creating a beat on a Linn 9000 drum machine. “The groove began to get complex, especially the hi-hat pattern,” he says. “I ran the hat through a delay unit, set about 150 milliseconds, printed that to tape and printed the original hat to another track and then alternated between ‘source’ and ‘blend’ on the delay unit, recording those passes. It created a pretty cool rhythm that was constantly changing in tone and complexity but was still steady. Then I played some guitar chords and gated them through a Kepex unit and used that to trigger various combinations of the hi-hat tracks. That gave us the basic rhythm groove for the song.” Session bassist Mark Brown laid down a bass part, and one of the members of Maserati recorded a piano part that Z says he copped from an old Bo Diddley song called “Hey, Man.” The group's singer put down a lead vocal track an octave lower than Prince's original tenor, and some background vocal parts were invented, based on some ideas Z says he remembered from Brenda Lee's “Sweet Nothings.” “This is what we had at the end of the first couple of days,” Z says with a sigh. “We were trying to build a song out of nothing, piece by piece. It was just a collection of ideas built around the idea of a song that wasn't finished yet. We didn't know where it was going. We were getting a little frustrated, we were exhausted, so we all went home for the night.” That, however, would prove to be enough. At least for Prince. When Z returned to the studio the next day, he found Prince waiting for him. Sometime that morning, The Artist had apparently come into the studio, asked an assistant to put the track up and then recorded his own vocal and electric guitar part. Z was stunned. “I asked him what was going on. He said to me, ‘This is too good for you guys. I'm taking it back.’” From that moment on, “Kiss” became a Prince record. Z remained with him in the studio as Prince took what sparse elements there already were on the track and made it even more minimalist. “He said, ‘We don't need this,’ and pulled the bass off,” Z says. The low end was filled up instead by using a classic Prince trick: running the kick drum through an AMS 16 reverb unit's reverse tube program. “It fills up the bottom so much you really don't miss the bass part, especially if you only use it on the first downbeat,” says Z. The hi-hat track was similarly dispatched, leaving only nine tracks of instruments and vocals on the record, which certainly made it easier to mix. Z recalls, only half jokingly, that the mix, which was done on an API console, took about five minutes. Prince's vocals had been recorded using a Sennheiser 441 microphone. According to Z, Prince's preference for that particular mic stems from a conversation he had with singer Stevie Nicks, who had suggested it to him. “There's a roll-off on that microphone that actually ends up boosting the high end, spiking it around 3 kHz,” Z explains. “It also has good directionality; Prince liked to sing in the control room, so he would set it up on a stand right by the console. When he wanted to sing, he would just put on headphones. He also liked doing his own punches, too.” The track was left as ambiently dry as it was elementally sparse. In the mix, Z says the starkness of the track actually made him a little uneasy. “I reached over and snuck in a little bit of the piano back in,” he says. A small amount of tape delay was also put on the guitar track. “Otherwise, the mix was just a matter of Prince pulling back and turning off faders. It's more than the bass that you're not hearing on that track.” Z says he recalls being alternately fascinated and excited by this turn of events. Maserati was to be his first full production for Prince's company. (Z had recorded parts of records for Prince in the past, as well as having recorded his original demos in Minneapolis and being the engineer at the live benefit recording that ultimately became Purple Rain.) In the course of an evening, while he had been sleeping, he was now Prince's co-producer for at least one track. In addition, the deletion of the bass was stirring. It added an element of danger, a frisson to the record-making process. In fact, it did produce some drama before it was released. Z says the feedback that came to him from Prince's record label, Warners, was palpably negative. “The A&R guy said it sounded like a demo,” Z remembers. “No bass, no reverb. I was devastated. But Prince had been selling big numbers, and he had a kind of power that few artists at that time did, probably more than any artist ever will again. He told Warners that that's the single they were getting, that that's the one they were putting out. He basically forced Warners to put it out.” Lucky Warners. The record went to Number One in the spring of 1986, and solidified Prince's stature as The Artist To Be Reckoned With. Interesting article.I wonder how Mazarati felt about losing this song? I love their album anyway.They had enough good songs,imo. | |
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Giovanni777 said: What about all of the credits he gave away on The Time, Sheila E, etc albums?
The albums that have entire bands on the instruments in the credits, but R all P. The few little stray incidents that R known represent nothing in comparison 2 the volume of his choices 2 credit someone else. Even with some significant albums of his own, he has credited his band members, where he was playing/recording most or all parts. But U ask about athoring, so... 2 answer your question specifically... I would estimate that anywhere from 99%-100% of Prince's material is Prince authored. . [Edited 4/1/10 14:34pm] ----- Co-Sign Let's be honest all the people that have bitched about being ripped off could have sued and even so P is not produced by other people are walking around pretending to be a musician like a lot of folks these days. He is the last real producer/songwriter/musician/singer all around work horse. | |
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