.

[Edited 6/5/20 14:09pm]

lavendardrummachine said:

mediumdry said:

Was Sugar Walls a hit in the US?

It was a big hit. Also really heavy, heavy MTV airplay.

Ya couldn't get away from "Strut" or "Sugar Walls" on MTV! It was fucking great.

sexton said:

"Sugar Walls" was one of 15 songs declared obscene by the U.S. Parents Music Resource Center in 1985 and led to warning labels being stamped on records with explicit content.

I remember that list it was crazy.Songs like "In My House" by Mary Jane Girls and "Dress You Up" by Madonna were on that list.To me,those songs are just mildly suggestive,but not "obscene" or nasty.

SoulAlive said:

lavendardrummachine said:

I thought this too, but it's really just The Time, Vanity, Apples and Sheila (and Apollonia was 62 on the album charts). The first Paisley Park release was The Family and the only hit record the label had was Romance 1600. Nobody else in the camp really had hits until Pandemonium in 1990.

in 1984,Sheila E was having big success with “The Glamorous Life” single and album. The Time were having success with their ‘Ice Cream Castles’ album and its three singles. Even “Sex Shooter” became a minor hit and was popular in the clubs back then. No reason that a Jill Jones debut album would have been ignored during that time,especially with a hot lead single like “Sugar Walls”.

AND......on the heels of Her being featured in the Movie!!!

positivity88 said:

I think Jill doesn't really recall the timeline of Madonna's ascent.

Sheena Easton released A Private Heaven (with "Sugar Walls") on September 7, 1984, meaning that it was likely recorded significantly earlier.

Madonna had only a couple of hits "Holiday" and "Borderline" (with "Lucky Star" on the rise) before the infamous VMAs on September 14, 1984, when she premiered "Like a Virgin."

She really didn't become a phenonemom until the Like A Virgin album was released that November.

Through most of 1984, no one really had a clue that Madonna would become such a huge star with staying power.

So no I don't think that he gave "Sugar Walls" to Sheena to pit her against Madonna's success. But by the time the song became a big hit as the album's second album in early 1985, Madonna had indeed become really big.

Maybe Prince wanted to give the song to someone who could actually make it a hit, no offense to Jill.

Both are possible. Prince was watching Madonna. I think he knew she was about to blow up.


But overall I do agree that I think Prince wanted such a liscivous song to be a hit through someone not expectant.

OldFriends4Sale said:

But overall I do agree that I think Prince wanted such a lascivous song to be a hit through someone not expectant.

I agree and it was really cool seeing Sheena do a song like this.A few years earlier,she was doing songs like "For Your Eyes Only" it reminds me of the ending of the movie 'Grease' when Sandy becomes a bad girl.Very fun to see

SoulAlive said:

let's imagine that Jill's album was ready to go in late 1984....

Side 1-

Sugar Walls

Our Destiny

G-Spot

Side 2-

All Day,All Night

Wednesday

Baby You're A Trip

SoulAlive said:

SoulAlive said:

let's imagine that Jill's album was ready to go in late 1984....

Side 1-

Sugar Walls

Our Destiny

G-Spot

Side 2-

All Day,All Night

Wednesday

Baby You're A Trip

.

+mia bocca (from 1983, but without strings, I suppose)

SoulAlive said:

SoulAlive said:

let's imagine that Jill's album was ready to go in late 1984....

It would have helped if she still had the blonde hair for her album cover so people connected her with Purple Rain.

I like JJ but had she recorded it, it would have probably been a non-hit single.

lavendardrummachine said:

SoulAlive said:

lavendardrummachine said: in 1984,Sheila E was having big success with “The Glamorous Life” single and album. The Time were having success with their ‘Ice Cream Castles’ album and its three singles. Even “Sex Shooter” became a minor hit and was popular in the clubs back then. No reason that a Jill Jones debut album would have been ignored during that time,especially with a hot lead single like “Sugar Walls”.

They all got club and soul radio play but only the big 3 were even remotely mainstream hits like Sugar Walls.

The reason a Jill Jones record would be ignored is the same reason The Family record was ignored, and that one even had the song that went on to become a massive hit without them or Prince.

Do what I did and look at the Paisley Park releases and look at the Prince side project releases an you see a pattern.

I think the song sounds like it could have been a Jill Jones song, no doubt, but doubt she would have made it a hit. Sugar Walls was a top 10 hit out charting 1999, and his other song with Sheenah Easton rivaled his biggest successes with a #2 chart success and beat out most of his biggest songs.

That's because The Time, and most others around Prince, weren't played on white radio.

We're talking about 1985, not 1995.

SoulAlive said:

let's imagine that Jill's album was ready to go in late 1984....

Side 1-

Mia Bocca

Rosehouse Garden

Our Destiny (duet with Prince)

G-Spot

Side 2-

All Day,All Night

Wednesday

Sugar Walls

Baby You're A Trip

EnDoRpHn said:

That's because The Time, and most others around Prince, weren't played on white radio.

We're talking about 1985, not 1995.

No argument there but the conversation is still about who he could get a "crossover" hit off of then. I guess if you're saying he decided to give hits to white artists that could break through the barrier that Vanity 6 and The Time couldn't, you'd have a point.

The reality is Jill wasn't getting Sheenah Easton kind of radio play on any chart and in the 80's most people were not aware Jill is Black. The Family had two white leads on the cover and still stalled. He was crossing over though. His work was crossing over. Just not with the proteges.

lavendardrummachine said:

EnDoRpHn said:

That's because The Time, and most others around Prince, weren't played on white radio.

We're talking about 1985, not 1995.

No argument there but the conversation is still about who he could get a "crossover" hit off of then. I guess if you're saying he decided to give hits to white artists that could break through the barrier that Vanity 6 and The Time couldn't, you'd have a point.

The reality is Jill wasn't getting Sheenah Easton kind of radio play on any chart and in the 80's most people were not aware Jill is Black. The Family had two white leads on the cover and still stalled. He was crossing over though. His work was crossing over. Just not with the proteges.

The 80s was a tough decade.If you were a black/R&B artist,there was alot of pressure to crossover...especially after Thriller and Purple Rain.When Prince put The Family together,he told them "Let's go after that Duran Duran money".That type of mindset was very common back then.

lavendardrummachine said:

in the 80's most people were not aware Jill is Black.

Prince had alot of trouble promoting/marketing Jill Jones.When her album was finally released in 1987,she did some shows with Jody Watley.The audience just stood there as she performed...unsure of who she was and what she was about.When Prince was preparing her second album,he advised her to "get breast implants like Bridgette Nielson" Just another reason why her album should have came out much sooner....to take advantage of the Purple Rain hype.

SoulAlive said:

lavendardrummachine said:

No argument there but the conversation is still about who he could get a "crossover" hit off of then. I guess if you're saying he decided to give hits to white artists that could break through the barrier that Vanity 6 and The Time couldn't, you'd have a point.

The reality is Jill wasn't getting Sheenah Easton kind of radio play on any chart and in the 80's most people were not aware Jill is Black. The Family had two white leads on the cover and still stalled. He was crossing over though. His work was crossing over. Just not with the proteges.

The 80s was a tough decade.If you were a black/R&B artist,there was alot of pressure to crossover...especially after Thriller and Purple Rain.When Prince put The Family together,he told them "Let's go after that Duran Duran money".That type of mindset was very common back then.

Three of the members of The Family were white. They didn't get any pop radio airplay either.

None of the Paisley Park acts were marketed. I remember driving down Sunset back in 1988 and hearing Jill's version of G Spot being played against something else on one of the pop stations. I only heard it that one time.

mediumdry said:

Was Sugar Walls a hit in the US?

.

It's 2020 and yet plenty of you don't seem to be able to use a search engine or Wikipedia.

BartVanHemelen said:

mediumdry said:

Was Sugar Walls a hit in the US?

.

It's 2020 and yet plenty of you don't seem to be able to use a search engine or Wikipedia.

It's 2020, there's a pandemic and riots in the streets, and you're still bellyaching about people not being able to use a search engine or Wikipedia. Grow up.

BartVanHemelen said:

mediumdry said:

Was Sugar Walls a hit in the US?

.

It's 2020 and yet plenty of you don't seem to be able to use a search engine or Wikipedia.

Oh, sit down. People are having conversations. The world isn't one big wikipedia page, Bert. Some google search isn't going to relay how big a song was or how much radio played it, how often MTV rotated the song, etc. One thing posts like yours lacks is feeling and a soul.

TrivialPursuit said:

BartVanHemelen said:

.

It's 2020 and yet plenty of you don't seem to be able to use a search engine or Wikipedia.

Oh, sit down. People are having conversations. The world isn't one big wikipedia page, Bert. Some google search isn't going to relay how big a song was or how much radio played it, how often MTV rotated the song, etc. One thing posts like yours lacks is feeling and a soul.

.

Bart's right, I should have looked it up first and then the comment would have been different. Basically, I was simply surprised that a song that is a small footnote to his legacy in the Netherlands seemed to get so much attention.

.

It makes me wonder though, was Prince only looking at US sales numbers? After Purple Rain, his next three or four albums (to me his most interesting period until the mid to late 90s) were a bigger cultural influence in Europe than the US, it seemed. Certainly in my life and circle he only got bigger, culminating in 7 or 8 shows (yeah, I should look that up too) in the Netherlands in 1987. (I only attended five though)

.

The talk about "trying to get back his audience" and "being less popular" never really connected with me (sure, Under the Cherry Moon flopped here too), so the focus of some of the albums and singles had somewhat of a disconnect.

.

Prince should have stayed in Europe for a few years after filming Under The Cherry Moon and developed a bit more in that direction. The music we would have gotten! (I should write fan fiction)

mediumdry said:

It makes me wonder though, was Prince only looking at US sales numbers?

Easton was an established international name, and that had to have been part of why he worked with her.

But yeah, he's an American artist, the US was still a primary audience.

The short answer is European markets required more compromising and the indusry hadn't really figured out how to exploit the markets yet. It's a little too early. Same thing happened with Hollywood movies.

Plus it was still the era when a David Hasslehoff could be a pop star abroad, and people joked about artists being "big in Japan". It was just before people like MJ turned their sites on a international market.

Yeah, European fans were having a different experience with his music. I think it was good he had somewhere he could go and get away from worrying about the US record industries needs for hits, and have a more forgiving audience, but for us here in the US, some of that music sounded out of step and watered down, kinda dull. In a way it made it safer because the music had to translate more like kids music in some ways (and likewise he could sell some things in Europe that he wouldn't release if it was just the US). MJ's music did the same thing. Plus this was obviously pre-internet so there were cultural differences even in the US, but definitely around the world, it's not like today, trends in fashion, slang, etc. took a long time to catch on. Prince lived in LA for a while instead of Europe. Kind of the same effect. haha.

[Edited 6/9/20 0:02am]

SoulAlive said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

But overall I do agree that I think Prince wanted such a lascivous song to be a hit through someone not expectant.

I agree and it was really cool seeing Sheena do a song like this.A few years earlier,she was doing songs like "For Your Eyes Only" it reminds me of the ending of the movie 'Grease' when Sandy becomes a bad girl.Very fun to see

Yes, I always thought For Your Eyes Only was a very suggestive sexual song. and had no problem of conflict hearing her do Sugar Walls. But I was also overtaken with the electricity of the music that what she was actually singing about didn't register until later

Prince should have had her on a few PR shows doing Sugar Walls. I'm just thinking of Prince & the Revolution coving 4 Your Eyes Only........

SoulAlive said:

SoulAlive said:

let's imagine that Jill's album was ready to go in late 1984....

Side 1-

Sugar Walls

Our Destiny

G-Spot

Side 2-

All Day,All Night

Wednesday

Baby You're A Trip

I like that. All Day All Night as a Jill/Prince & the Revolution combo I think I would appreciate more

Our Destiny
Baby You're a Trip
Blue Limousine
Wednesday
Sugar Walls
G-Spot

hardwork said:

Speaking of the video for “Sugar Walls” I have always felt like that yellow shirt Sheena was wearing would have looked much better on Prince. Maybe he loaned it to her.

The video is sorta lacking in the same intensity of the song. I notice longer shots of Sheena, rather than cut aways between non-singing moments in a verse or chorus, either a different angle or a shot of her band.

But she looks fabulous. Very 80s, but her makeup is on point. The long yellow earring with the yellow blouse, the warmer pink lip and blush...so perfectly 80s.

I just want to edit the video! haha

Sheena gave face like nobody else did. Love her!

OldFriends4Sale said:

SoulAlive said:

I like that. All Day All Night as a Jill/Prince & the Revolution combo I think I would appreciate more

Our Destiny
Baby You're a Trip
Blue Limousine
Wednesday
Sugar Walls
G-Spot

without a doubt,"Blue Limousine" would have been perfect for Jill but Brenda does such a great job with it,I'd rather leave it on the Apollonia 6 album.

Y'all need some schooling.

David Bowie point blank p...ck artists

EnDoRpHn said:

Y'all need some schooling.

David Bowie point blank p...ck artists

I saw that last night and RT'd it with a thought. It'd been a minute since I saw the exchange between Bowie & Goodman. But what struck me this time was how Goodman said MTV was worried about midwesterners being "scared to death..." by "...a string of black faces." (He noted how people were already afriad of Prince, in between that thought.)

WTF is it - and this is another thread/conversation to be had - about "a string of black faces" that fucking terrifies white middle america so damn much???

I'm a believer in do what you do and your audience will find you. The right folks will get to ya.

TrivialPursuit said:

(He noted how people were already afriad of Prince, in between that thought.)

1999 and LRC did get a good amount of play (not sure of the timeline).

Prince was sorta street looking for the time, and the New Romantic stuff was edgy. That era of funk and Hip hop groups primping that we make fun of now looked so tough.

Now that I think about it, even MJ had to be out there having knife fights and strutting down a dark street. Everyone but Lionel Richie.

The entertainment industry and journalists did really want to keep middle America dumb.