purplethunder3121 said:

what are you looking at?

SPzzz said:

I was in my 20's and 30's when Prince was coming up and rose to greatness. However, he struck me wrong in the 1980's because I saw the movie "Purple Rain" and didnot like the domestic violence scenes that were in the movie. It reminded me of my own domestic violence I was going thru back then and he actually kinda scared me off from him......

It's crazy man, I now wish I would have delved deeper into him and tried to find out truths instead of all the stuff in "Purple Rain" how "that was his real story" ...alot of people referred to "Purple Rain" as his life story. You know, that movie "Purple Rain" messed up alot of peoples minds about him in his early days.

the domestic violence actually bonded him to a lot of us fans who felt like we were the only ones to deal with that shit. it wasn't talked about as much back then. then you imagine a kid like me, 16, nerdy, an outsider, no confidence, black stepdad, white mom and being have native american, a freak like Prince felt like home.

mediumdry said:

james said:

I can understand asking in '99 "What happened to Prince?", but '89? ! ! Did they not hear Alphabet St all over the radio? And then Batdance/Partyman absolutely everywhere ?

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He did something like 21 nights at Wembley Arena in '90.. So still pretty huge.

well...in 88 I heard Lovesexy and after throwing the cd (it was the first time the cd was released before the lp) across the room, I wondered what the hell happened to Prince. He never fully recovered from that unfortunate episode.

we've had reams of threads about this in the past, one that i recall was titled "when did Prince jump the shark?" many people chose lovesexy as the point of either having lost his edge or his last album before losing it. I never bought into it myself, never. so many great tunes after that.

NorthC said:

When we talk about popularity and sales figures in the 1980s, a band we shouldn't forget is Dire Straits. They didn't make the tabloids, they didn't get rave reviews, they didn't cause controversy, they're not going to go down in history as an influential or ground-breaking band, but they sold like hotcakes. They were the kind of band that was popular with the common, ordinary people.

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Good band. But... they released three albums in the '80s and only Brothers In Arms was a mega-seller...

PeteSilas said:

3y3no said:

I ask because nowadays and even when he was still with us, it seemed like a niche thing to be a Prince fan. I never heard a lick about him EVER, and i don't know why...Why wasn't he more popular? Even after all of the scandals that Michael Jackson had, he still remains insanely popular today. I don't say that to disrespect Prince or say that MJ was/is better, but because i don't see why Prince wasn't/isn't on that same level of popularity. So, it just left me wondering; How popular was he in his prime? Was he on the same level of MJ? Bigger?...

fame and how well he still sold were two different things. from the album Prince to 1999 he was gaining audience and or critical favor, however, he could still be classified as underground or cult artist even though people knew of him, most people thought of him as some wierdo. He did get attention even if people didn't listen to his music. Purple Rain was his moment, he exploded everywhere but that period was only about a year or so, and he did a lot of things to truncate that level of fame because he plainly just didn't like it. He cut short the PR tour, he also balked at doing things superstars have to do just for image like the We are the world debacle. His behavior may not have turned off his fans at the time of the ama of 85 but it definitely influenced how the general public saw him. He further alienated his audience with the innaccessible ATWIAD, he did it on purpose, he only wanted the fans he could challenge. each successive album sold less and less up to the point of lovesexy barely going gold, hence he went full circle to his dirty mind status at least saleswise. the difference was, he could still go on major tours like he did with lovesexy and he also had so much talent he could turn out commercial stuff whenever he wanted to, the businessman came out at times like Batman and Diamonds And Pearls which sold very well. but honestly, i don't think he was ever truly thought of as anything other than an oddity, even by many people who loved the PR era, it was only during the musicology era that he was given status of legend and fully accepted while he still dropped jaws in some of his performances. dude had so many layers to his talent, no one else could have survived all the machinations that he pulled without it.

Once Prince had the WB issue and left the big record label, he was going to have a harder time with product distribution & promotion. At this point forward is when you really had to search him out rather than find out what projects he was working on through the mainstream. One of the main things the big labels help with is distribution and promotion. Now Prince could have done more promotion on his own, but he chose not to. Instead he used his own labels and fan clubs. Michael, even though he had issues with Sony was always connected to a major label when he released projects - so you would hear more about them because of the label promotion/distribution behind it

In the 80s only Michael Jackson was more popular than Prince BUT among the cool kids Prince was always number one. Being a Prince fan pre-Purple Rain was almost like a password for others to know your part of a secret club.

PeteSilas said:

mediumdry said:

well...in 88 I heard Lovesexy and after throwing the cd (it was the first time the cd was released before the lp) across the room, I wondered what the hell happened to Prince. He never fully recovered from that unfortunate episode.

we've had reams of threads about this in the past, one that i recall was titled "when did Prince jump the shark?" many people chose lovesexy as the point of either having lost his edge or his last album before losing it. I never bought into it myself, never. so many great tunes after that.

Yeah, that really was a benchmark and Prince had hardly "jumped the shark" wiht that album. If anything, it was one of the most challenging and complex records I'd ever heard from him. It's not my favorite but it's hard to argue against its greatness. Sadly, a lot of it had to with the idea of Prince going "full gay" or whatever. Back then, being a "faggot" was some sort of deal breaker.

I never bought into it either and never understood it but it was papable. Liking something that was "so gay" created weird challenges for the fans. At least the insecure ones.

BalladofPeterParker said:

In the 80s only Michael Jackson was more popular than Prince BUT among the cool kids Prince was always number one. Being a Prince fan pre-Purple Rain was almost like a password for others to know your part of a secret club.

True Statement.

theres the prince fan and the prince fan who consumes bootlegs .

No question that Purple Rain made him a megastar and put him further into the mainstream, 1999 album was when he reached the superstar status; however, he was played for years on the R&B radio station that I would hear growing up. I remember hearing I Wanna Be Your Lover when I was about 8 and liked it. This was before 1999 was released though. Yes, Prince was the nasty/naughty boy that your parents didn't want you watching or listening to, LOL. I am glad though he always followed his own path and didn't chase record sales or have an obsession about being the most popular or famous, or making the same music over and over, that would've gotten boring, IMO. I think ATWIAD, SOTT, LOVESEXY and PARADE are all just phenomenal and are what made him a legend/musical genius. To think wow, he had so much creativity that maybe could've been not easy for the casual fan/mainstream audiences to keep up with. This is a very interesting thread and so many of you are making some really great points!

What made Prince stand out in the '80's was the song 1999. Which was shown on MTV. Prince was the first African American male musicain to have his music video been shown on an all White TV show. Back in '83. Michael Jackson came with this album Thriller. It was a very big hit in '83. So, Michael Jackson owned '83. But The Purple one had owned the summer and then some of '84; when he came out with the movie and album Purple Rain! It was the number 1 movie for over 13 or 15 weeks. This is how popular Prince was back in the '80's. The muisc videos from the album Purple Rain really good. The movie: Under The Cherry Moon was not quite as good. The songs and the videos was out of this world. I love the song KISS from the movie, Under The Cherry Moon. You do not have to be beautiful to turn me on is one of the lyrics of the song. 'Till thi day I do not understand why Prince would had written and sung a yunk shit song for Mayte Garcia about the, The Most Beautiful Girl In The World. Which contradicts what he had said on the song KISS!. But anyways! The contest of 1986. You could had won a date with Prince. I was not old enough. But I sure was trying to win that date with Prince by any means necesaary. This is how popular Prince was in the black community. Being an African American woman. It was love at first sight and song. The moment that I saw Prince on MTV. I was hooked!

42Kristen said:

What made Prince stand out in the '80's was the song 1999. Which was shown on MTV. Prince was the first African American male musicain to have his music video been shown on an all White TV show. Back in '83. Michael Jackson came with this album Thriller. It was a very big hit in '83. So, Michael Jackson owned '83. But The Purple one had owned the summer and then some of '84; when he came out with the movie and album Purple Rain! It was the number 1 movie for over 13 or 15 weeks. This is how popular Prince was back in the '80's. The muisc videos from the album Purple Rain really good. The movie: Under The Cherry Moon was not quite as good. The songs and the videos was out of this world. I love the song KISS from the movie, Under The Cherry Moon. You do not have to be beautiful to turn me on is one of the lyrics of the song. 'Till thi day I do not understand why Prince would had written and sung a yunk shit song for Mayte Garcia about the, The Most Beautiful Girl In The World. Which contradicts what he had said on the song KISS!. But anyways! The contest of 1986. You could had won a date with Prince. I was not old enough. But I sure was trying to win that date with Prince by any means necesaary. This is how popular Prince was in the black community. Being an African American woman. It was love at first sight and song. The moment that I saw Prince on MTV. I was hooked!

the song most beautiful girl in the world i always took to not necessarily mean physical but just how much adoration some of us men have for women. He had Marva Collins in the video and she wasn't a young pretty thing so i think he was going past the physical.