MattyJam said:

RumAndRaisin said:

Why did TGRES chart in the UK in Feb 2000 when the single was released in Nov 1999

And why was the Rave album uneligable to chart in the UK i cant remember?

The original single CD had too many remixes on the disc, making it uneligable for UK chart entry.

The song was played to death on UK radio, particularly Radio 2. It had a lot of hit potential, it's a shame they botched up the release so poorly.

A lot of mistakes were made by the record company around this time. For once, I think Prince was justified in being pissed at his label. Prince played his part, he did a shit tonne of promo, TV appearances, press interviews... and Arista couldn't even give the lead single a proper commercial release in a timely manner.

I actually think Rave was a great comeback attempt and it was a real shame it went tits up. There's some stellar stuff on that record, songs like I Love U But I Don't Trust U Anymore, TGRES, Wherever U Go Whatever U Do, Strange But True... amongst some of the best stuff he did in the 90s.

How is that? Didn't the original cd single only have 2 or 3 versions? Then they released the maxi-single? I'm in the States, but I remember seeing the UK pressing also in the import section.

SchlomoThaHomo said:

errant said:

SchlomoThaHomo said:

I remember reading a cryptic post on Prince's website at the time about Gwen not wanting to shoot a video for it because she was unhappy about her voice being too low in the final mix of the song.

If she was upset, think about poor Sheryl Crow. Even lower in the mix on Baby Knows and to add insult to injury, he butchered one of her signature songs to boot.

I would have been well insulted if I was one of these two lady singers. Why on earth would you (Prince) record a duet if you are not willing to share the vocal spotlight with your female counterpart? Ridiculous, Prince's ego is pathetic at times...

It's better than any of his 00's albums IMO.

errant said:

SchlomoThaHomo said:

I remember reading a cryptic post on Prince's website at the time about Gwen not wanting to shoot a video for it because she was unhappy about her voice being too low in the final mix of the song.

If she was upset, think about poor Sheryl Crow. Even lower in the mix on Baby Knows and to add insult to injury, he butchered one of her signature songs to boot.

I like P's version way more than the original. Actually I don't even like the original and I'm in love with P's version

But I see ur point, he took the song to such a different world that this could easily be perceived as butchering

I thought I was alone in my appreciation of Prince's cover of Everyday Is A Winding Road.

I never understood why that song got so much flak.

[Edited 9/22/13 3:03am]

MattyJam said:

I thought I was alone in my appreciation of Prince's cover of Everyday Is A Winding Road.

I never understood why that song got so much flak.

[Edited 9/22/13 3:03am]

I do: it's cos people are cold, frustrated and cynical, and they hate what's fresh, naive and happy

[Edited 9/22/13 3:37am]

I think Prince must've dug it as well. I seem to recall it being a fairly common track on the setlists around 98/99.

[img:$uid]http://pic80.picturetrail.com:80/VOL2084/9118410/23995995/405566474.jpg[/img:$uid]

If an artist gives up on a project, why should a record company continue to promote it, especially when the artist took the money and ran on a one time deal.

I think this is the first time I've seen you post in a thread about this album without posting your classic dog-shitting-on-the-Rave-CD picture.

lotta good stuff on there....if it was rleased in 1987 it wouldve been looked at differently

luvsexy4all said:

I think that there were expectations the album would be bigger and have hit singles. In the UK there was some sort of promo, I think by Tower Records (remember them) which meant that the album had a freebie with it, can't remember what but a large chunk of sales were not included as it was considered to be a bribe to buy the album. I bought the CD in the first week, without a freebie, and so presume I contributed to it's chart placing at 145 which was a huge flop, ca't have been many copies that were counted.

Then there was the Top of The Pops recordings where he went into the studio and recorded performances of The Greatest Romance and Baby Knows for future use, presume they were expected to go Top 40 as that show only showed/played hits from the top 40 chart. In the end up Greatest Romance didn't make the top 40, or top 60, and Baby Knows didn't get released. I don't think the footage was used at the time and I have a recording of it on Top of The Pops 2 a few years later when they played them as a retro/archive item.

I also remember him being asked in an interview if So Far, So Pleased would be a single and he said somtehing along the lines of 'you'll have to ask No Doubt's label about that' which makes me think there must have been an objection somewhere, not up to him to decide for himself anyway.

The whole thing just went nowhere which was a shame, there are a few great tracks on there.

[Edited 9/22/13 12:23pm]

TGRES was horrible thats why the album flopped.

the rest of the album was OK, which was a pity - but everyone basically gave up after that.

Nothing wrong with TGRES. It definitely had hit potential, it just had a fucked up release.

I really dislike TGRES, and in fact it's almost as bad as 'Betcha By Golly Wow'.

The first single from an album shouldn't be a mid-tempo snoozer with a stupid title, and I'm sorry but Prince wasn't rocking the toga during it's performances.

A shame really, as for me this is the last era where Prince looked really good (in the blue outfit and those pics of him at the spanish villa), plus his dancing was on point. If the music had matched his appearance then it could have been another iconic period for him.

Scotsman1999 said:

I really dislike TGRES, and in fact it's almost as bad as 'Betcha By Golly Wow'.

The first single from an album shouldn't be a mid-tempo snoozer with a stupid title, and I'm sorry but Prince wasn't rocking the toga during it's performances.

A shame really, as for me this is the last era where Prince looked really good (in the blue outfit and those pics of him at the spanish villa), plus his dancing was on point. If the music had matched his appearance then it could have been another iconic period for him.

I also disliked TGRES - in fact I dislike the whole Rave album. However I quite liked BBGW. In fact I loved it at the time

TGRES was the song that made me a Prince fan. I still love it to this day. Reminds me of a modern day Sign Your Name by TTD.

It's weird, cuz there's close to 40 songs on Emancipation, but no real singles, whereas it feels like 3/4 of the tracks on Rave were tailor made to be singles.

^ I agree "The Greatest Romance" is a great song.

Imo: TGRES is the best song on the album, especially the 8 minutes version from In2, this is fantastic.

Scotsman1999 said:

I really dislike TGRES, and in fact it's almost as bad as 'Betcha By Golly Wow'.

The first single from an album shouldn't be a mid-tempo snoozer with a stupid title, and I'm sorry but Prince wasn't rocking the toga during it's performances.

A shame really, as for me this is the last era where Prince looked really good (in the blue outfit and those pics of him at the spanish villa), plus his dancing was on point. If the music had matched his appearance then it could have been another iconic period for him.

^ this is how I feel about another single choice:

Te Amo Corazon. Terrible choice for a leading single.

(A bit off topic, sorry)...

LondonIrish1970 said:

I think that there were expectations the album would be bigger and have hit singles. In the UK there was some sort of promo, I think by Tower Records (remember them) which meant that the album had a freebie with it, can't remember what but a large chunk of sales were not included as it was considered to be a bribe to buy the album. I bought the CD in the first week, without a freebie, and so presume I contributed to it's chart placing at 145 which was a huge flop, ca't have been many copies that were counted.

Then there was the Top of The Pops recordings where he went into the studio and recorded performances of The Greatest Romance and Baby Knows for future use, presume they were expected to go Top 40 as that show only showed/played hits from the top 40 chart. In the end up Greatest Romance didn't make the top 40, or top 60, and Baby Knows didn't get released. I don't think the footage was used at the time and I have a recording of it on Top of The Pops 2 a few years later when they played them as a retro/archive item.

I also remember him being asked in an interview if So Far, So Pleased would be a single and he said somtehing along the lines of 'you'll have to ask No Doubt's label about that' which makes me think there must have been an objection somewhere, not up to him to decide for himself anyway.

The whole thing just went nowhere which was a shame, there are a few great tracks on there.

[Edited 9/22/13 12:23pm]

It's a known fact that ND's label indeed prevented the song from being a single, because they feared it would compete with No Doubt's own release of that same period.

databank said:

LondonIrish1970 said:

I think that there were expectations the album would be bigger and have hit singles. In the UK there was some sort of promo, I think by Tower Records (remember them) which meant that the album had a freebie with it, can't remember what but a large chunk of sales were not included as it was considered to be a bribe to buy the album. I bought the CD in the first week, without a freebie, and so presume I contributed to it's chart placing at 145 which was a huge flop, ca't have been many copies that were counted.

Then there was the Top of The Pops recordings where he went into the studio and recorded performances of The Greatest Romance and Baby Knows for future use, presume they were expected to go Top 40 as that show only showed/played hits from the top 40 chart. In the end up Greatest Romance didn't make the top 40, or top 60, and Baby Knows didn't get released. I don't think the footage was used at the time and I have a recording of it on Top of The Pops 2 a few years later when they played them as a retro/archive item.

I also remember him being asked in an interview if So Far, So Pleased would be a single and he said somtehing along the lines of 'you'll have to ask No Doubt's label about that' which makes me think there must have been an objection somewhere, not up to him to decide for himself anyway.

The whole thing just went nowhere which was a shame, there are a few great tracks on there.

[Edited 9/22/13 12:23pm]

It's a known fact that ND's label indeed prevented the song from being a single, because they feared it would compete with No Doubt's own release of that same period.

And I'll add to that that I hope the MF's who made that decision rot in hell 4 eternity. Goddamn assholes

thedance said:

Scotsman1999 said:

I really dislike TGRES, and in fact it's almost as bad as 'Betcha By Golly Wow'.

The first single from an album shouldn't be a mid-tempo snoozer with a stupid title, and I'm sorry but Prince wasn't rocking the toga during it's performances.

A shame really, as for me this is the last era where Prince looked really good (in the blue outfit and those pics of him at the spanish villa), plus his dancing was on point. If the music had matched his appearance then it could have been another iconic period for him.

^ this is how I feel about another single choice:

Te Amo Corazon. Terrible choice for a leading single.

(A bit off topic, sorry)...

I agree with you, but during that time frame, artists would release a "weak" single as like a feeler (kinda like they do now with leaks) and then the "official" first single would come out a few weeks later. Remember, "Black Sweat" was released a few weeks before 3121 dropped.

I thought "The Greatest Romance..." was about as terrible a choice for a first single as one could make...until Te Amo Corazon happened.

The Greatest Romance struck me at the time as being so incredibly formulaic...and also rather obtuse, lyrically. There is one remix version that I really like - I forget which one it is, but it was on the CD single and has a killer guitar solo at the end of it. I think they used parts of it on the extended remix on Rave In2, but to me that version is just so long, and the chorus just kills that song for me.

I think a much better choice for a first single off of Rave would have been "Strange but True." Okay, it would not have been a huge hit, but I think it would have shown people that Prince was still relevant and being experimental (which granted, is not supported by most of the other songs on the album, but still).

If he really had the urge to release a down tempo first single, then I think Man O' War was a much better choice, as that's a song that I still really like to this day. There's not much on that album that I enjoy - of course I adore the title track, but that sounds like it was from 1988 (which I'm sure is part of the reason why I love it so much) and therefore would have been an odd choice for a single.

As far as the duets go, the only one I can really stomach is "So Far, So Pleased." I agree that Gwen's vocals are criminally low in the mix, and it's nothing groundbreaking, but it's a pleasant, upbeat song. Undisputed I always wanted to like so much more than I ever have; not sure why. Chuck D seems so out of place on this track - but mostly, that "NPG! Get rowdy! Get rowdy now!" just sucks that song dry of any funk that it ever had.

As far as Baby Knows, it has never done anything for me, other than make me cringe when he sings the line about "her stuff ain't brown." Just fucking uncalled for! And I'm not a fan of Sheryl Crow, but why sing a duet if you hide the other singer's vocals in the mix? It's like My Computer, where you would never even know Kate Bush was on there (although I like that song a lot). Very odd.

Tangerine is too slight to really be called a song, and never moved me much one way or the other.

I actually like The Sun, The Moon and Stars quite a bit, despite (or perhaps because of?) his silly little reggae rap thing...just makes me smile.

How Wit U is cringeworthy now, and it was cringeworthy then. Just icky.

Everyday is a Winding Road wouldn't be so bad if not for Larry's part towards the end, but as a single it wouldn't have worked because the original was only a few years old at that point.

Silly Game is to me one of Prince's worst songs ever. I just can't stand anything about it.

Pretty Man, although I see that it gets a lot of love on here, just sounded like he was trying too hard; it's not awful but I don't find it to be very fun either. Or clever. Just kind of....forced.

I Love U, But I Don't Trust U Anymore is in my mind, leaps and bounds above almost every song on this album...just a gorgeous, heartbreaking song with meaningful lyrics. It seems a bit too melancholy to have been a good single choice, though...but is probably the only song on the album that really sounds timeless to me, like Prince's best music does.

So that leaves us with Strange But True...not one of my favorite Prince songs either, but on the extremely rare occasion that I dig this album out and decide to give it another spin to see if it was really as depressingly bad as I remember, it's easily one of the highlights, if only for the keyboard parts alone.

I think that Beautiful Strange should have been released on the original version of this album...the guitar-heavy version that was released later on Rave Un2...that might have been an interesting single choice perhaps.

Thinking about this makes me remember how excited I was about it...so many interviews, and being hyped as his best album ever, and it's the end of 1999, it's HIS YEAR!! Despite the New Master having been released recently, I had very high hopes of this album, and when I first played it I was crestfallen. This is around the time that I became heavily interested in his old bootleg studio tracks, because it was new to me and it was PRINCE...not this watered down version.

theblueangel said:

I thought "The Greatest Romance..." was about as terrible a choice for a first single as one could make...until Te Amo Corazon happened.

The Greatest Romance struck me at the time as being so incredibly formulaic...and also rather obtuse, lyrically. There is one remix version that I really like - I forget which one it is, but it was on the CD single and has a killer guitar solo at the end of it. I think they used parts of it on the extended remix on Rave In2, but to me that version is just so long, and the chorus just kills that song for me.

I think a much better choice for a first single off of Rave would have been "Strange but True." Okay, it would not have been a huge hit, but I think it would have shown people that Prince was still relevant and being experimental (which granted, is not supported by most of the other songs on the album, but still).

If he really had the urge to release a down tempo first single, then I think Man O' War was a much better choice, as that's a song that I still really like to this day. There's not much on that album that I enjoy - of course I adore the title track, but that sounds like it was from 1988 (which I'm sure is part of the reason why I love it so much) and therefore would have been an odd choice for a single.

As far as the duets go, the only one I can really stomach is "So Far, So Pleased." I agree that Gwen's vocals are criminally low in the mix, and it's nothing groundbreaking, but it's a pleasant, upbeat song. Undisputed I always wanted to like so much more than I ever have; not sure why. Chuck D seems so out of place on this track - but mostly, that "NPG! Get rowdy! Get rowdy now!" just sucks that song dry of any funk that it ever had.

As far as Baby Knows, it has never done anything for me, other than make me cringe when he sings the line about "her stuff ain't brown." Just fucking uncalled for! And I'm not a fan of Sheryl Crow, but why sing a duet if you hide the other singer's vocals in the mix? It's like My Computer, where you would never even know Kate Bush was on there (although I like that song a lot). Very odd.

Tangerine is too slight to really be called a song, and never moved me much one way or the other.

I actually like The Sun, The Moon and Stars quite a bit, despite (or perhaps because of?) his silly little reggae rap thing...just makes me smile.

How Wit U is cringeworthy now, and it was cringeworthy then. Just icky.

Everyday is a Winding Road wouldn't be so bad if not for Larry's part towards the end, but as a single it wouldn't have worked because the original was only a few years old at that point.

Silly Game is to me one of Prince's worst songs ever. I just can't stand anything about it.

Pretty Man, although I see that it gets a lot of love on here, just sounded like he was trying too hard; it's not awful but I don't find it to be very fun either. Or clever. Just kind of....forced.

I Love U, But I Don't Trust U Anymore is in my mind, leaps and bounds above almost every song on this album...just a gorgeous, heartbreaking song with meaningful lyrics. It seems a bit too melancholy to have been a good single choice, though...but is probably the only song on the album that really sounds timeless to me, like Prince's best music does.

So that leaves us with Strange But True...not one of my favorite Prince songs either, but on the extremely rare occasion that I dig this album out and decide to give it another spin to see if it was really as depressingly bad as I remember, it's easily one of the highlights, if only for the keyboard parts alone.

I think that Beautiful Strange should have been released on the original version of this album...the guitar-heavy version that was released later on Rave Un2...that might have been an interesting single choice perhaps.

Thinking about this makes me remember how excited I was about it...so many interviews, and being hyped as his best album ever, and it's the end of 1999, it's HIS YEAR!! Despite the New Master having been released recently, I had very high hopes of this album, and when I first played it I was crestfallen. This is around the time that I became heavily interested in his old bootleg studio tracks, because it was new to me and it was PRINCE...not this watered down version.

Baby Knows and My Computer are not duets. The Arms Of Orion is a duet. See the difference? Sheryl and Kate are just gust background vocalists here, the same way Chaka was a guest background vocalist on Come On. + Kate's presence on My Computer was motivated by the fact that the song is P's 90's answer to Kate's "Deeper Understanding".

I don't think that Rave is one of Prince's strongest albums,but it might have done better if these were the singles:

"So Far,So Pleased"

"Baby Knows"

"Whatever U Do,Wherever U Go"

"Silly Game" (promoted to R&B stations)

To me,these are the songs that had the best chance of getting heavy radio airplay.