stillwaiting said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

off topic: I always wonder what the Parade tour would have been like, if UTCM was success and the Family did not break up

Parade was a wonderful time, wonderful album, and awful movie except for some of us, me included. Only way it would have been successful is if the movie was good, and there were no albums after Purple Rain until 1987, and Kiss, U Got The Look, and Raspberry Beret were the first three singles

No albums after Purple Rain? until 1987

The movie would have been successful, if 1. Prince did direct it 2. had bands in the movie(remove the gigolo(Morris/Jerome aspect) have Christopher the leader of a group of eclectic musicians known among the wealthy of France. Would have made better sense for Christopher to be at Mary's Party. The Girls & Boys video should have been in place of the G&B movie scene etc

The movie would have been a success

OldFriends4Sale said:

No albums after Purple Rain? until 1987

The movie would have been successful, if 1. Prince did direct it 2. had bands in the movie(remove the gigolo(Morris/Jerome aspect) have Christopher the leader of a group of eclectic musicians known among the wealthy of France. Would have made better sense for Christopher to be at Mary's Party. The Girls & Boys video should have been in place of the G&B movie scene etc

The movie would have been a success

Believe it or not, waiting a few years for music did wonders for artists. In fact, many of the best selling album in history came out after the artist had some time to think things over.

Thriller-3 year gap from Off The Wall

Bad-3 year gap after Thriller

Songs In The Key Of Life-2 years and maybe 3 months since Fulfillingness' First Finale

Rhythm Nation- 3 year gap after control

Purple Rain- 20 months after 1999, and the longest Gap for Prince until he was already past his prime.

Hotel California-although just 18 months after One of These Nights-the longest gap in album releases

for their 70's albums

in later eras (post 60's) it was common to go years between albums but the beatles, the stones, elvis, put out all kinds of stuff, some good, some not so good and some great. some have said purple rain was so great because he waited an extra year, maybe, maybe not. His audience was ready, that much we know for sure. MJ waited way too long between projects, it was five, not three years between thriller and bad, way too long. for an artist of his stature to have less than 10 solo albums is unusual. I have been looking over Elvis' discography, it's ridiculous. live, soundtack, ep's it's a lot of work, so much that I've never heard every elvis song and i'm the biggest elvis nut there is.

stillwaiting said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

No albums after Purple Rain? until 1987

The movie would have been successful, if 1. Prince did direct it 2. had bands in the movie(remove the gigolo(Morris/Jerome aspect) have Christopher the leader of a group of eclectic musicians known among the wealthy of France. Would have made better sense for Christopher to be at Mary's Party. The Girls & Boys video should have been in place of the G&B movie scene etc

The movie would have been a success

Believe it or not, waiting a few years for music did wonders for artists. In fact, many of the best selling album in history came out after the artist had some time to think things over.

Thriller-3 year gap from Off The Wall

Bad-3 year gap after Thriller

Songs In The Key Of Life-2 years and maybe 3 months since Fulfillingness' First Finale

Rhythm Nation- 3 year gap after control

Purple Rain- 20 months after 1999, and the longest Gap for Prince until he was already past his prime.

Hotel California-although just 18 months after One of These Nights-the longest gap in album releases

for their 70's albums

jaawwnn said:

Also best at what? He'd have looked pretty tired still doing the 1999 shtick for the rest of his life. It still looks fresh now because he didn't milk it.

No one said to keep doing the same tour over and over again.

stillwaiting said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

No albums after Purple Rain? until 1987

The movie would have been successful, if 1. Prince did direct it 2. had bands in the movie(remove the gigolo(Morris/Jerome aspect) have Christopher the leader of a group of eclectic musicians known among the wealthy of France. Would have made better sense for Christopher to be at Mary's Party. The Girls & Boys video should have been in place of the G&B movie scene etc

The movie would have been a success

Believe it or not, waiting a few years for music did wonders for artists. In fact, many of the best selling album in history came out after the artist had some time to think things over.

Thriller-3 year gap from Off The Wall

Bad-3 year gap after Thriller

Songs In The Key Of Life-2 years and maybe 3 months since Fulfillingness' First Finale

Rhythm Nation- 3 year gap after control

Purple Rain- 20 months after 1999, and the longest Gap for Prince until he was already past his prime.

Hotel California-although just 18 months after One of These Nights-the longest gap in album releases

for their 70's albums

Prince wasn't really like any of those artists, though. Dude was always writing new shit and wanted to keep the train moving - milking an album for hits like Michael and Janet (or any of the other big popstars of the era) just wasn't in the cards for Prince.

But yeah, from a commercial standpoint releasing albums in a relatively rapid succession for the time did hurt him. I'm sure if MJ released Purple Rain he would have milked it into 1986 to reach 40x Platinum and released Baby I'm A Star as a single. But for Prince that would have been unconscionable, and it's what made him such a cool and unique artist to follow.

And Bad was 5 calendar years after Thriller. You could probably make the argument that long of a gap hurt Mike too, but that's a story for another thread.

rdhull said:

feeluupp said:

Ummm have all of u gone looney?

One person puts Lovesexy at #4.... Uhhh no.

Lovesexy is the best Prince tour of all time. Period.

SOTT tour was better

Mikado said:

MotownSubdivision said:

Mikado said:

Prince wasn't really like any of those artists, though. Dude was always writing new shit and wanted to keep the train moving - milking an album for hits like Michael and Janet (or any of the other big popstars of the era) just wasn't in the cards for Prince.

But yeah, from a commercial standpoint releasing albums in a relatively rapid succession for the time did hurt him. I'm sure if MJ released Purple Rain he would have milked it into 1986 to reach 40x Platinum and released Baby I'm A Star as a single. But for Prince that would have been unconscionable, and it's what made him such a cool and unique artist to follow.

And Bad was 5 calendar years after Thriller. You could probably make the argument that long of a gap hurt Mike too, but that's a story for another thread.

Not saying you are but you shouldn't hold it against an artist for milking their work for as long as they can. I wouldn't blame P if he rode the PR train till '86 or for however long he could. He (and other artists) put in a ton of time and work into their projects and deserve to reap all the possible benefit from then. However, doing so simply wasn't his style because it bored him. Prince didn't have the patience to ride a wave as long as possible and there's nothing wrong with that either.

Kind of wierd people see playing or promoting there own music as milking it.

It's a shame there is no High Quality 1999 Tour video circulating. But, from hearing and seeing the low quality versions out there, I would say that's my favorite tour. My favorite Prince sound is the combination of Linn Drums, Synths, and Guitars. So, everything between '82-'84 is Gold for me. 1999 Tour, in my opinion, is peak vintage Prince sound.

JorisE73 said:

MotownSubdivision said:

JorisE73 said:

Kind of wierd people see playing or promoting there own music as milking it.

It is milking but there isn't anything inherently wrong with that. I agree with what you're saying though. Why shouldn't an artist not fully capitalize on the profit of their art? P chose not to and that was his decision but that shouldn't be expected of everyone else. I'll even say that while it did scratch that creative itch he had, in retrospect P may have regretted taking the wind out of the PR sales. As far as MJ is concerned, you have to remember the dude was everywhere between '82 and '85. He needed to step back or risk overexposure. While Mike was nowhere near Prince's level of prolificness (is that a word?), the dude was busy as hell in that time span: a multitude of Top 40 hits (his own as well as a number written for other artists like Diana Ross and his family), many music videos and a record breaking tour and his involvement with "We Are The World" among other things. You can even extend that timespan as early as'81 (E.T. soundtrack) and as late as '86 (Captain EO). It's not like he dropped Thriller in (very late) '82 and then Bad in '87 with nothing in between.

he was creative in that period, wrote muscles for diana, centipede for his sister, collabed with mick jagger on state of shock, we are the world etc.., but he was still taking too long between albums, five years is too damned long for an artist of his stature, most assumed it was the pressure to follow up thriller but in hindsight, it just seemed to be the way he worked, perfectionistic and always trying to use the newest technology and assimilate newer music trends into his music, (that part had mixed results, some of the stuff he did didn't age very well while off the wall, the least pretentious of his albums is still many people's favorite, sans bells and whistles). Captain eo was limited to people who visited the california disneyland. A great artist and he did plenty of quality work but his fans, of who I've always been one, wanted more.

PeteSilas said:

Bishop31 said:

It's a shame there is no High Quality 1999 Tour video circulating. But, from hearing and seeing the low quality versions out there, I would say that's my favorite tour. My favorite Prince sound is the combination of Linn Drums, Synths, and Guitars. So, everything between '82-'84 is Gold for me. 1999 Tour, in my opinion, is peak vintage Prince sound.

the houston is pretty good..why no??

jfenster said:

Bishop31 said:

It's a shame there is no High Quality 1999 Tour video circulating. But, from hearing and seeing the low quality versions out there, I would say that's my favorite tour. My favorite Prince sound is the combination of Linn Drums, Synths, and Guitars. So, everything between '82-'84 is Gold for me. 1999 Tour, in my opinion, is peak vintage Prince sound.

the houston is pretty good..why no??

I can't remember if I saw that one. I'll have to go through my files this evening. Is it Pro-shot??

Bishop31 said:

jfenster said:

the houston is pretty good..why no??

I can't remember if I saw that one. I'll have to go through my files this evening. Is it Pro-shot??

yes..not shot by prince's people

jfenster said:

Bishop31 said:

I can't remember if I saw that one. I'll have to go through my files this evening. Is it Pro-shot??

yes..not shot by prince's people

Awesome. I'll definitely check that show out. Thanks for the heads up.

MotownSubdivision said:

5 years between albums is a long time and as a fan myself, in retrospect, I wish he did make more music. However, if I dropped an album that was selling a million a week, spending almost 40 weeks at #1 and producing 7 Top 10 singles, I'd take that as far as I could too.

I never said Prince should wait 5 years between albums. I gave a few examples of what the top selling artists of the day were doing. What Prince and Warners did as a team, was make certain that Prince's albums sold less than the one before, and that his career would languish with declining sales. It's pretty difficult to get an album as great as SOTT sell under a million, but they did it. It did have platinum status due to being a double record.

Was Prince's career awful because of this, no, but the glow from Purple Rain only lasted so long. An album every 3 years would have kept him from overflowing the market, and if each album from 1987-1996 was released every 3 years, there likely would have been at least 3 Top 40 or more singles for each one, keeping him in the limelight for 60-90 weeks per album.

With even greater focus on his career, he could have actually released MORE muisc and LESS albums. After Purple Rain: 1987, 1990, 1993, 1996...just 4 albums. But what if in 1996, he and

Warners released a 10 cd box set with the leftovers? That could be around 15 hours of music...and if you can throw away your great memories of Glam Slam and New Power Generation as second single disasters, imagine SOTT being the follow up to Purple Rain with 5 Top 10 Singles:

Kiss, U Got The Look, SOTT, Raspberry Beret, I Could Never

and maybe even 3 more Top 40 hits: Starfish & Coffee, Forever In My Life, Paisley Park

Sure, we will never know, but nobody can possibly insist Prince did it perfect. Not saying my ideas

for his career would have made him the biggest star EVER, but my vision for what would have been best for him, would've been albums not just made to fit the same sonic landscape, but simply the best songs on each album. Old Friends 4 Sale(Original Version), Witness, She's Always In My Hair,

Crystal Ball, In A Large Room With No Light....all would have been album tracks....where Jughead, Daddy Pop, Graffiti Bridge, and The Flow would have not...

I went to the 1999 tour. It was wierd,

The Time show was fun, engaging and was funky as hell.

Prince's set was intentionally different. The music selection and he was building a persona/ mistique.

My opinion is that these were not his "best" shows.

I bleive the SOTT and Lovesexy shows were the best tours.

we weren't privy to what we are now, Prince did plenty of shooting himself in the foot, poorly planned things like utcm (movie mainly but the album has it critics from a commercial perspective) Sott which could have done so much better with better singles choices and a supporting tour instead of a feature film of a tour. Lovesexy had that naked photo on the album of him which many stores didn't even carry and he was getting more and more into the wierd gibberish while his songs on lovesexy at least, had a lot of arrangements and not substantial songs for radio. Susan rogers has said that he also worked at such a pace that he didn't polish his music, never mattered to me personally but overall, I doubt that type of approach helped when applied to everything he did. It wasn't just the commercial glut of material, as I stated, the people he was partially emulating released lots of music in their era, the beatles, the stones, james, elvis, they all put out lots of stuff and even if everything wasn't a hit, there is more than enough where their fans can be familiar and even have favorites that are obscure. So, I don't know if the releasing an album per year couldn't have been done better, I'm not convinced it couldn't have. As a fan, I've always been proud of his workrate, always, and after he died, I've said several times that he went a few years without albums and what does he do before he checks out? he cranks out four albums to make up for it before he leaves the planet, amazing to me. It's not easy producing music, it's time consuming, frustrating, draining and shit is constantly changing, he did fine all things considered.

stillwaiting said:

MotownSubdivision said:

5 years between albums is a long time and as a fan myself, in retrospect, I wish he did make more music. However, if I dropped an album that was selling a million a week, spending almost 40 weeks at #1 and producing 7 Top 10 singles, I'd take that as far as I could too.

I never said Prince should wait 5 years between albums. I gave a few examples of what the top selling artists of the day were doing. What Prince and Warners did as a team, was make certain that Prince's albums sold less than the one before, and that his career would languish with declining sales. It's pretty difficult to get an album as great as SOTT sell under a million, but they did it. It did have platinum status due to being a double record.

Was Prince's career awful because of this, no, but the glow from Purple Rain only lasted so long. An album every 3 years would have kept him from overflowing the market, and if each album from 1987-1996 was released every 3 years, there likely would have been at least 3 Top 40 or more singles for each one, keeping him in the limelight for 60-90 weeks per album.

With even greater focus on his career, he could have actually released MORE muisc and LESS albums. After Purple Rain: 1987, 1990, 1993, 1996...just 4 albums. But what if in 1996, he and

Warners released a 10 cd box set with the leftovers? That could be around 15 hours of music...and if you can throw away your great memories of Glam Slam and New Power Generation as second single disasters, imagine SOTT being the follow up to Purple Rain with 5 Top 10 Singles:

Kiss, U Got The Look, SOTT, Raspberry Beret, I Could Never

and maybe even 3 more Top 40 hits: Starfish & Coffee, Forever In My Life, Paisley Park

Sure, we will never know, but nobody can possibly insist Prince did it perfect. Not saying my ideas

for his career would have made him the biggest star EVER, but my vision for what would have been best for him, would've been albums not just made to fit the same sonic landscape, but simply the best songs on each album. Old Friends 4 Sale(Original Version), Witness, She's Always In My Hair,

Crystal Ball, In A Large Room With No Light....all would have been album tracks....where Jughead, Daddy Pop, Graffiti Bridge, and The Flow would have not...

stillwaiting said:

Bishop31 said:

jfenster said:

the houston is pretty good..why no??

I can't remember if I saw that one. I'll have to go through my files this evening. Is it Pro-shot??

yes pro shot

MotownSubdivision said:

stillwaiting said:

I never said Prince should wait 5 years between albums. I gave a few examples of what the top selling artists of the day were doing. What Prince and Warners did as a team, was make certain that Prince's albums sold less than the one before, and that his career would languish with declining sales. It's pretty difficult to get an album as great as SOTT sell under a million, but they did it. It did have platinum status due to being a double record.

Was Prince's career awful because of this, no, but the glow from Purple Rain only lasted so long. An album every 3 years would have kept him from overflowing the market, and if each album from 1987-1996 was released every 3 years, there likely would have been at least 3 Top 40 or more singles for each one, keeping him in the limelight for 60-90 weeks per album.

With even greater focus on his career, he could have actually released MORE muisc and LESS albums. After Purple Rain: 1987, 1990, 1993, 1996...just 4 albums. But what if in 1996, he and

Warners released a 10 cd box set with the leftovers? That could be around 15 hours of music...and if you can throw away your great memories of Glam Slam and New Power Generation as second single disasters, imagine SOTT being the follow up to Purple Rain with 5 Top 10 Singles:

Kiss, U Got The Look, SOTT, Raspberry Beret, I Could Never

and maybe even 3 more Top 40 hits: Starfish & Coffee, Forever In My Life, Paisley Park

Sure, we will never know, but nobody can possibly insist Prince did it perfect. Not saying my ideas

for his career would have made him the biggest star EVER, but my vision for what would have been best for him, would've been albums not just made to fit the same sonic landscape, but simply the best songs on each album. Old Friends 4 Sale(Original Version), Witness, She's Always In My Hair,

Crystal Ball, In A Large Room With No Light....all would have been album tracks....where Jughead, Daddy Pop, Graffiti Bridge, and The Flow would have not...

I think you quoted the wrong person.

I quote the wrong person all the time. I even make mistakes on purpose to see if Bart Van Halen gets upset.

stillwaiting said:

MotownSubdivision said:

stillwaiting said: I think you quoted the wrong person.

I quote the wrong person all the time. I even make mistakes on purpose to see if Bart Van Halen gets upset.

stillwaiting said: