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Prince & Kate Bush One of the reasons I got into Kate Bush was that Prince joined her on the Red Shoes album, which I really like by the way. What I heared was that Prince was asked to sing a little part on Why Should I Love You, but instead overloaded the track with instruments and did everything he could with it except sing the small vocal part he was asked to do. Is this true? Does anybody know more about the Prince/Kate collaboraton? | |
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This was posted by lolife (Michael Koppelman ) on the org February 15, 2005 05:21 PM
"Article: Engineer about Kate Bush/Prince Someone pointed out that Kate Bush's new album is almost done and in looking through the material I was reminded of something I wrote a long time ago about Kate Bush and Prince. The orginial piece seems to be lost to the net so I am posting it here. On Mon, 2 Oct 1995 kln@crl.com wrote: > > lolife@bitstream.net (LoLife) writes: > > I've begged her to let me record or mix something for years (that's what > > I do for a living). My wish came true when I worked on Why Should I > > Love You when I worked for Prince, but I hated what he did to that song > > so much it killed me. > > > > So, lolife, tell us about this experience. We're curious little animals, the Love Hounds. > > Did you ever get to talk to Kate in person? I did, but only for a short moment. I was at home and the phone rang. I didn't always answer the phone in those days, because I was severly overworked. So my answering machine picked it up and I heard Julie, from Paisley Park, saying "Mike, I got Kate Bush on the phone and she has some questions about what format they should send things over on, and I thought it would be best if she talked to you. I, being an admitted Kate Bush fan, freaked, but picked up the phone and talked to Julie. She says, Kate, I have Prince's engineer Michael Koppelman on the phone and he can answer your questions. Meanwhile, my answering machine is still recording it all, and blaring loudly. I tell my then girlfriend to shut if off just as Kate comes on and says Hello Michael? (so to this day, if I could find it, i have a tape of Kate saying hello to me...). The conversation consisted only of her asking me if they could send 24-track tapes and what series SSL computer disks. I also asked her if she was going to come to Minneapolis, and she said I don't think I'm wanted out there right now. Then we basically said good-bye and hung up. It's funny because Prince knew I was a huge KB fan. He was too, but not like me. The first time I asked him if he liked Kate Bush he said, she's my favorite woman. I also made him a tape of all the KB b-sides, which fucking rule. When The Sensual World came out he had someone go get it and we listened to it in the studio. He didn't dig it that much, but I knew you can't always tell right away with a Kate album. TSW grew on me, but it is still not her best effort. This Woman's Work is a masterpiece, though, and makes the whole album worth it. But I digress. Prince is weird, and a couple stories in this post prove it. I may be tooting my own horn here, but Prince has a weird ego. I think *part* of his motivation to work with Kate was the fact that I worshipped her, and he knew it would impress me that he could call her on the phone and work on her music and shit. ANYWAY, what led up to the phone conversation above: one day Prince's assistant, Therese, told me as we were talking on the phone that Kate Bush had called. Therese also knew I was a big Kate fan. Then, in the studio that day, Prince said, guess who I talked to today. Me, being stupid and unable to keep my mouth shut, said, Kate Bush? Prince got a little miffed, and said How did you know that? And I said Therese told me, and he said, hmm, I should dock here for that. At that point I knew I fucked up and tried to say, no, she just knew I'm a big fan. As a side note, I told Therese that Prince was a little pissed that she had told me that, and she apologized to him. Therese is a really cool person. So, Prince tells me that he and Kate are going to work on a tune together. He also told me that while they were talking he told her that his engineer would rather work with her than him. (I thought, wow, Prince and Kate Bush talking about me!) ANYWAY, Eventually the phone call above occured and the tapes arrived and I put them up and got a rough mix up. I still have a cassette of it. It fucking rules. It is 1 million times better than the lame diso Prince put on it. There was, of course, no disco on it before Prince got his hands on it. So Prince comes in and listens to it. And the brutality began. First we sampled the drum thing and synced it up to my Powerbook so we could do MIDI. At that point, we essentially created a new song on a new piece of tape and then flew all of Kate's tracks back on top of it. So now we could run the sequencer and add all the keyboards that Prince put on. So Prince stacked a bunch of keys, guitars, basses, etc, on it and then went to sing background vocals. When Prince does vocals, he sits right at the recording console with a microphone hanging over it and does his own punching in and out. So he kicks everyone out of the room when he sings. It took him a few hours and then he called me back in and played me the thick, multi-tracked background vocals he had put on. Now, as we all know, the song in question goes "Of all the people in the world why should i love you". When Prince called me back in and played me what he had done, he had sung "All of the people in the world", instead of Of All. I said, isn't it OF all the people in the world? Not ALL of? He said, no, we had a little talk about that, in his cocky way, as if to say he had talked with Kate about changing the words to "all of" instead of "of all". The next day, I was waiting at my hotel room for the call to go to the studio when the assistant engineer, Sylvia Massy, called and said Prince was in the studio doing vocals. I was surprised; i was always called well in advance of Prince going into the studio. When I got there he was changing all the vocals to "Of All", and was sampling them in himself, which is something he would normally never do himself. My interpetation? He made a mistake, as humans do, and didn't have the guts to admit it. That's weird. So I sorta poked my head in at one point and asked him if he needed any help, and we went on with the day. Eventually he had me do a rough mix, and when he had approved it, we sent it to Kate. I got a call from Therese a few days (or weeks, I forget) later. She said, Kate Bush said to destroy all copies of that mix. I said, huh? Did she not like it or something? (my heart rejoiced, because I hated what Prince did to it) She said, I don't know, she just said to destroy them. Later on Prince told me, Kate Bush liked what we did. She said it sounded very American. So at that point I wasn't sure if she was even going to use it. We sent the tapes back and she sort of split the difference with what he sent and what's on the record. Kate, if you read this, stick the pre-Prince version of Why Should I Love You out on something. And let me do a remix of Not This Time. Later, LoLife aka Michael Koppelman lolife@bitstream.net http://www.bitstream.net/gods/lolife DISCLAIMER: The above is my perception of what occured. I was there, and that's what I thought of it. I did not intend to invade anyone's privacy, nor have I signed a non-disclosure agreement with any of the parties mentioned. I also want to add that I truly enjoyed my years working for Prince, but the man treats people as if he thinks he is actually "better" than them, like he's royalty or something, and that makes it hard to look back on working with him fondly. " | |
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In case you don't know...
Kate Bush is mentioned in the thank you notes to the Diamonds & Pearls album, 1991...
And Prince played the Kate Bush song "Love & Anger" on his New Power Generation radio show,
in december (?) 1989.
I am sure others can comment on this w more details.. Prince 4Ever.  | |
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Kate sings with Prince on the track My Computer from Emancipation. [Edited 4/20/12 4:43am] RIP  | |
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My two favourites of all time.
A part of me would love a duet, but a part of me doesn't. I wouldn't want Prince to be in production mode which he has to be when working with someone on such a magnitude. Not that he's incapable, but Kate is Kate.
A piano duet i think would be best, sorta like the Elton John featured Snowed In At Wheeler Street. [Edited 4/20/12 7:16am] This Post is produced, arranged, composed and performed by WetDream | |
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Koppelman personally leaked the original version of Why Should I Love You as sent to Prince by Kate, as he thought Prince ruined it. The original track is an absolute must own for Kate and Prince fans. It was absolutely stunning to begin with, before Prince turned it into something else. Not entirely, but he put his stamp on the chorus beyond question. Enough to justify being the only producer credited on a Kate Bush record for 25 years+.
Although I wouldn't be overly defensive against the argument that the track was better to begin with, the fact that Prince transformed it like that in a few knocked off sessions is a testament to how great he was at the time. Everyone keeps banging on about the screeching guitar. It's the bass, that's his strongest contribution to the track. Very much in the same vein as the bass parts he was writing around that time (see Martika's Kitchen).
And for those who adore the original and hate Prince's souped-up chorus, the question remains: what exactly did Kate Bush want from him?
EDIT: It's also worth noting that Kate had the perfect opportunity to right the wrong and remove Prince from the track without causing any offence on her Director's Cut album. She didn't. [Edited 4/20/12 6:24am] | |
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According to the first thing on this thread, I sounded like she wanted him to sing a simple line only. | |
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Del Palmer (Bush's former partner and still current engineer) indicated that he thought Prince would overdub a huge chunk, if not all of it (although they could always take it or leave it). And it sounds like she took most of it.
Maybe a simple line was the expectation - that's all Kate gave him when she returned the favour on his Bush-inspired Emancipation track.
According to Palmer, he wasn't given explicit instructions at all - they just assumed he'd record his own vocals, and add parts. They really wanted him to sing the section Lenny Henry eventually sang, but maybe Prince thought he was set-up to sound like a parody of himself and wisely gave it a wide berth. The first two lines are: 'the fine purple, the purest gold', which at the time were the colours of Prince's biggest project and the one then nearest and dearest to him (and colours which he'd later combine himself for his latter day classic Purple And Gold). | |
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listen for yourself. This is absolutely stunning. Purplehead | |
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LOL
I find it funny that Lenny Henry appears with Prince on a record
Fuck the funk - it's time to ditch the worn-out Vegas horns fills, pick up the geee-tar and finally ROCK THE MUTHA-FUCKER!! He hinted at this on Chaos, now it's time to step up and fully DELIVER!!
KrystleEyes 22/03/05 | |
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Didn't Prince say in an interview post-Emancipation, that he had duets in the vault with Kate among others? I think it was in Q magazine. Would love to hear that one. Green virgin teenager, or filthy rich yuppy. Pussy cat pussy cat, where for out thou puppy |
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Fixed your link for you. (although I wouldn't be surprised if it breaks again due to the org link glitch/feature) Lemmy, Bowie, Prince, Leonard. RIP. |
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The only 2 songs I know are "Why Should I Love You?" & "My Computer", but these two artists are by far my favorits so I wanted this 2b my first post :p. Hello 2 everyone and I am glad 2b here. I wish there were more collaborations as I believe they have a similar way of going about their art which is highly individualistic something that I think is not so much a part of the current music. ~Ixt After
"Why can't I fly away in a special sky?
If I don't find my destiny soon I'll die in your arms under the cherry moon" "Pardon me 4 breathing, can we borrow some of your air? " | |
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overbearing backing vocals ruined it, instead of complimenting kate's hushed, breathy lead it clashed. prince started using harsh, unorganic backing vox during graffiti bridge and it continued right through to gold. don't play me...i'm over 30 and i DO smoke weed.... | |
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Just listened to both back to back and Prince's work is not the disasterous hatchet job it's made out to be.It's definatly not a sensative take on it but it has it's merits none the less
It would have made a good remix on a single or bonus track although the version on the album has some considerable work from Kate's team.
You never know she might have been inspired by it because Rubber Band Girl from the same album has the same kind of groove. Do we know which came first as they were recorded around the same time.
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That's because Kate and Del Palmer worked on the track on and off for nearly two years to make the track as it sounds on the album.
From Graeme Thompson's "Under The Ivy - The Life & Music Of Kate Bush." Re: Why Should I Love You? In the words of Del Palmer, "it (the track) returned from Paisley Park covered in vocals, guitar solos and keyboards." Prince's engineer Michael Koppelman was less diplomatic, calling his contribution "lame disco." It was certainly wildly ober the top and unrestrained, and it took Bush and Palmer a further two years to negotiate his maze of overdubs and retain some sense of the original track. | |
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Thanx for the info, guys. | |
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Never listens to any Kate bush b4...but I see how the sound for my computer was arrived at now. | |
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