I've always been interested by Prince's battle with Warners and the 'slave' thing. I've read many threads discussing whether Prince was in the right or Warners. I thought I would edit together relevant passages on the matter contained in Uptown's 'The Vault' book (which few would dispute is one of the best sources of info on all things Princely). I think it is interesting reading if you can be bothered! If anybody wants to comment, cool, but I wouldn't reply with the body of the text included, it takes up a lot of space!


31st August 1992

Prince signs a new recording contract with Warner Bros. His existing contract was extended, and the reconfigured contract called for $10 million in advances per record, wih a royalty rate or around 20 per cent, a figure that placed Prince near the top of music industry artists. However, the deal was structured so that if an album doesn't sell 5 million copies worldwide, he won't receive a $10 million advance for his following album. As part of the deal, Paisley Park Records became a joint venture between Prince and Warner Bros. Previously, Prince would deliver the master and Warners would do the rest: manufacture, distribute and market the records. Under the new agreement, Paisley Park Records would decide how much to spend on videos and promotional activities. Warners and Prince would operate as partners, sharing investments and profits.

The deal also included two new publishing agreements for Prince, providing that Warner Chappell Music and Prince would establish a new joint venture music publishing company tht would 'actively seek to discover and promote young songwriters.' In addition, Prince's existing Controversy Music entered into separate administrative agreements with Warner Chappell. As part of the deal, Prince was hired as a vice president of Warner Bros. Records and would maintain an office in Los Angeles to supervise his labels and to advise Warner Bros. on it's own artists. The reason for this unusual aspect of the deal was, according to a source, that Prince wanted Time-Warners stock options.

The entire deal was brokered by Gary Stiffleman of the law firm Ziffrin, Brittenham and Branca, which had negotiated multi-million deals for the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith and ZZTop. Prince was closely involved with each step fo the negotiations along with his long-time companion Glibert Davison, President of Paisley Park Enterprises.

4 September 1992

Details about Prince's new contract and joint ventures with Warner Bros. are made public. Jill Willis, Vice President of Paisley Park Enterprises, said that the deal was worth 'a little over $100 million for all four agreements.' It was described as an unprecedented contract, making Prince one of the highest paid artists in pop music. However, the claims by Prince's organisation were greeted by the music industry with a great deal of scepticism. One published report put the actual value of the deal closer to $30 million, while others speculated that the most Prince would earn was $10 million per album.

Earlier in the year, Michael Jackson had signed with Sony Music and Madonna with Warner Bros., each for about $60 million. The Prince, Jackson, and Madonna contracts were substantially different, however, making comparisons difficult. Jacksons's deal involved six albums, an entertainment complex and potential for movies. Madonna's included six albums and her own entertainment company, including a record label and a film company. It was argued that, in terms of bankability, Prince didn't rate with Madonna or Jackson. He simply didn't sell as many records. Since 1983, Madonna had released eight albums, with combined worldwide sales of 76 million at the time, or an average of 9.5 million each. Prince's 13 albums had sold around 52 million, or an average of 4 milion each. Two of Jackson's four solo albums, Thriller and Bad, had combined sales of 73 million.

Bob Merlis, Warner Bros. Vice President of publicity called Prince's deal generous, "If his sales continue the way they have for Diamonds and Pearls, We're all going to make money from the deal. If they go up appreciably, obviously he'll make a lot more money." At the time of the contract, Diamonds and Pearls had sold 5.8 million copies worldwide. However, it became Prince's last huge success of the 90's; none of the albums released after Diamonds And Pearls has sold more than circa 3 million copies.

13 October 1992

Release of Prince's 14th album, which was titled simply and mysteriously by an unpronounceable symbol....The Symbol album didn't attain the same level of success as Diamonds and Pearls, as both the US and international sales were halved in comparison to the predecesosor... Frank Dileo had initally worked with Warner Bros. on the promotion of the album, but he was fired after taking sides with the record company executives against Prince in a discussion about the choice of singles. For Prince, The Symbol Album was a huge disappointment, coming after the tremendouus worldwide success of Diamonds and Pearls. He blamed Warner Bros. for failiing to support the album adequately. The general feeling at the record company was that the album's lack of spectacular success was due primarily to over-exposure. With five singles released from Diamonds and Pearls within seven months, Warner Bros. noticed an increased resistance from radio stations to play the singles from The Symbol Album, clearly indicating that the audience couldn't absorb much more music from Prince for the time being. Unquestionably, a contributing factor was that The Symbol Album didn't contain as many catchy, radio-friendly songs as Diamonds and Pearls.

Prince's career took a downhill slide after the release of The Symbol Album. In fact, the record became the last Prince album (of new music) of the '90s to sell in excess of 1 million copies in the US. His later albums, excluding The Hits/The B-Sides compilation and the independently releasesd Crytal Ball set, have averaged less than 350,000 copies each. The disagreements between Prince and Warner Bros. developed into a public feud. It would take four more years until he finally gained freedom from the artistic 'slavery' he felt the record company had imposed upon him.

9 February 1993

Release of Carmen Electra on Paisley Park Records. The album as for all purposes recorded by Prince, who wrote or co-wrote seven of the 11 tracks.

Warner Bros. initially treated Carmen Electra as an important 'big push' record. However, the promotional campaign got off to a false start in April 1992 when Rolling Stone carried an advertisement that only showed a picture of Carmen without mentioning her name, which caused confusion since few knew who Carmen was...It was estimated that Warner Bros. spent over $2 million on the campaign, half of which came staight out of Paisley Park Records' pocket. Half a year later, when the album was eventually released, Warner Bros.' enthusiasm had waned considerably and the record company decided to reduce is promotional efforts to a bare minimum. The reviews were lacklustre and the album didn't sell well.

27 April 1993

Prince's publicity firm announces that Prince is retiring from studio recording to concentrate on new forms of 'alternative media.' According to the statement, Prince would fulfill the remainder of his six album contract with Warner Bros. with old songs from his 'library of 500 unreleased recordings.' He would not stop producing songs for other artists or continuing other aspects of his career, including touring and operating Paisley Park. The announcement resulted in a great deal of speculation and confusion. Many were sceptical and believed it was just another promotional hype.

Earlier in the day, Gilbert Davison had informed Warner Bros.' chiefs Mo Ostin and Lenny Waronker that Prince would not be delivering any more new studio albums to the company. Despite an official attiude of 'amused scepticism' many Warner Bros. top-level executives were shocked by the announcement, fearing that they would not get any new music from one of their best selling artists.

Hesitant to give Warners a new album, Prince was increasingly thinking of new means of getting his music to the public. He had ambitions to do a Broadway musical... Another project was Glam Slam Ulysses, a show combining dancing and videos that would feature brand new music by Prince.

7 June 1993

In a bewildering press release on Prince's 35th birthday, Prince's publicity firm announces that Prince has changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol. The announcement also stated that Prince was 'separating from The NPG.'

Prince's intentiion was to fulfil his Warner Bros. contract with 'Prince' recordings from the vault while continuing to record and release new material as 'O/+>'.

14 September 1993

Release of the first-ever collection of Prince's greatest hits...Prince contributed the six previously unavailable songs but otherwise had very little interest or involvement in the compilation... Prince expressed some interest in taking on a more active role in the project, but Warner Bros., already behind schedule, preferred to avoid further delays. The record company actually paid Prince not to get involved.

5 December 1993

In early 1994, Prince privately manufactured a record of The Undertaker. It was a picture CD in around 1,000 copies... However, when the sleeve cover was at the printers office, Warner Bros. heard of the record and told Prince to destroy the whole edition.

1 February

Warner Bros. and Paisley Park Enterprises announce that they are terminating Paisley Park Records. The label became a joint venture between Prince and Warner Bros. upon the signing of Prince's last recording contract in 1992. While under Prince's sole aegis, the label could probably have survived for as long as he saw fit, but with Warner Bros. holding the purse strings, the financial burden proved too great. Few of the label's releases had been big sellers.

14 February 1994

The Most Beaufiful Girl In The World' is released as the first single by Prince using the symbol as his name. The single became a huge worldwide success.

The single was released by Prince's new NPG Records and was distributed independently in the US by Bellmark Records. Warner Bros. stated that they were 'accommodating Prince's desire to experiment with independent distribution.' The song was also distributed by small independent companies in many European countries.

11 March 1994

Prince's original version of Come is submitted to Warner Bros... top level executives weren't completely satisfied with the album.

19th May 1994

Warner Bros. receives the revamped Come album... Still not completely satisfied with the material that Prince had submitted, Warner Bros. asked for 'Shhh'... Prince said no, leaving Warner Bros. no other option than to accept the album as it was since released.

Prince delivered The Gold Experience into Warner Bros. arround the same time as the new version of Come. Prince proposed that Warner Bros. should release Come by 'Prince' and a few weeks later, The Gold Experience by 'O/+>.' The idea didn't meet with much enthusiasm, however. Warner Bros response was that they would be happy to release The Gold Experience but at the appropriate time.

16th August 1994

Release of Come. Prince's lack of commitment to the album in favour of the 1-800-NEW-FUNK project infuriated many Warner Bros. top-level executives... Without the full backing of the record label and the artist, it was inevitable that Come would end up as one of Prince's weakest selling albums in years.... It didn't take long after the release of Come before Prince began a campaign to have Warner Bros. release The Gold Experience which would get him closer to the fulfillment of his contract.

September 1994

Prince and Warner Bros. tentatively agree that The Gold Experience is going to be released about a week before Christmas 1994. The plan was to release it on the Tommy Boy label in the US and East West in other territories. Both labels are wholly owned by Warner Bros. The arrangement would allow Prince to work with a smaller label and enable him to get the album out without letting Warner Bros handle the marketing and promotion.

The verbal agreement about the release of The Gold Experience was never formalised into writing, however, and, in the end, Prince decided that he didn't want to go agead with the plans, one reason being that the record would not count towards the four albums he still owed Warner Bros.

3oth September 1994

Premiere of Dolphin video. Prince has 'slave' written backwards across his cheeek in the video.

October 1994

Prince fell out with Gilbert Davison, arguably his closest confidante. They had clashed repeatedly over Glam Slam (the nightclub)... Davison eventually decided that he had had enough of trying to run Prince's increasingly disorganised business operations and resigned as Vice President of Paisley Park Enterprises.

Prince appointed his step-brother Duane Nelson to head a five-member committee that would downsize the company... Firings occurred seemingly arbitrarily and without warning.. In many cases the cuts were ill-advised and only exacerbated the chaos ao Paisley Park.

13th October 1994

A press release by Prince's PR company states that Prince has reached the point of no return with Warner Bros. and that due to the conflict the audience may never get to hear the Gold Experience. The press statement said that Prince was anxious to turn in the four albums left on his contract and walk away from a situation that was causing him considerable stress. Soon after the press release, NPG Records began passing out flyers and posting messages on the Internet with the release date of 'never' for The Gold Experience, asking fans to continue to petition Warner Bros. to release the album.

25th October 1994

Prince signs an agreement with Warner Bros. to release the Black Album. The release was instigated by the record label whose publicist Bob Merlis said that they had 'wanted to put it out for years.' The initial deal proposed to Prince provided for Warner Bros. to pay Prince $4 million upfront for the relase of the Black Album in November 1995 and The Gold Experience in early 1995. The deal further stipulated that Prince would record a soundtrack to a to-be-determined Warner Bros. film. The three-album deal would count as two albums toward the remaining four albums of Prince's contract. Prince's attorney was en route to the record company to pick up the cheque and sign off on the papers when Prince had a last-minute change of mind about the deal, ostensibly about wanting more money. The attorney advised him that it was a very good deal and he would not be able to get more moeny from the label. The deal was subsequently cancelled and Prince's attorney quit a week later. As a replacement, Prince hired a 28-year-old New York attorney named L. Londell McMillan , whom has remained with him ever since. He was the sixth attorney he had used since he signed with Warner Bros.

The discussions coincided with a turnover in Warner Bros.' top management, with Lenny Waronker and Mo Ostin leaving the record company, which restricted their power to make deals. Still, they were able to rescue the Black Album from the original three-album deal. Prince received approximatgely $1 million. However, discussions about the release of The Gold Eperience had to be postponed until early 1995 when the new Warner Bros. regime had moved in.

1 March 1995

Prince gives interviews to several newspapers and music and entertainment publications while in London. Explaining that he wanted to break the silence to give his view of the situation with Warner Bros., the interviews primarily concerned Prince's strained relationship with his record company. The big issue was his contract. "I'll just give them one album every year for the next four years," he said, adding, "I'm not going to take them to court." He lamented the label's reluctance to promote his records and complained that he felt like a slave to the record company. His disdain for the music business was evident, as he said, "Record companies are run by men who think they run America. They think they're the smartest in the world, but they're not."

12 May 1995


Prince meets with Warner Bros.' new top management. The record company had undergone a massive corporate restructuring since late 1994. Mo Ostin had more or less been forced to retire, which prompted Lenny Waronker to resign in protest. Both were big Prince supporters who had been with him since his label signing in 1977. Prince took an almost immediate disliking to the new corporate honchos, led by new head Danny Goldberg, whom he felt didn't understand him or his music. The meeting led Prince and Warner Bros. to settle their differences, at least for the time being. They reached an agreement that he would stop disparaging the company in public and they would release The NPG's Exodus later in the year. A release date for The Gold Experience was also set, September 12th 1995.

September 1995

Prince is the cover story in the Special Autumn issue of Esquire Gentlemen. The article was based on an interview with Prince. He bemoaned his recording contract with Warner Bros., and said that we was workin on an album entitled Emancipation, the first project he was planning to release after his contract expired. He speculated that it was going to be a 50-song collection. Warner Bros.' top-level management was uset by the article since they felt that Prince had breached the agreement from that he would no disparage the label in public. As a direct result, they decided to cancel the release of the NPG''s Exodus.

22 September 1995

The Paul Verhoeven-directed film Showgirls opens in the US. Two Prince compositions, '319' and 'Ripopgodazippa,' are heard in the movie but don't appear on the soundtrack album since Warner Bros. only granted a licence to use the songs in the film. According to Verhoeven, Prince was initially going to write more music for the film, but disagreements with Warner Bros. made it impossible. Dave Sewart eventually took over.

26 September 1995

Release of The Gold Experience. It was the first album attibuted to 'O/+>' despite the fact that he had changed his name more than two years prior. Originally presented to Warner Bros. in the spring of 1994, most of the material was over two years old when the record finally came out... However, the impact of the album was diluted by its much delayed release. Having had to wait two years, Prince showed little interest in the project and his promotional efforts were minimal; in retrospect, the primary reason for his efforts to have it released seems to have been simply to get one album closer to the termination of his contract.

22 December 1995

Paisley Park issues a press statement announcing that Prince has officially given notice to Warner Bros. of his desire to terminate his recording contract with the company because of irreconcilable differences. It stated that the unstable and ever changing management structure within the record company had made it impossible to effectivlely market and promote its flagship artists. Warner Bros. responded by saying that the press release was only one in a long line of public relations salvos designed to sway the populace in Prince's favour.

26 April 1996

Prince attends a meeting with Warner Bros. executives in Los Angeles. A termination agreement had been worked out whereby Prince would be free to leave the label after delivering two more albums, instead of the three that he owed them. To get out of the deal, Prince agreed to a reduction of his advances on royalties. His reconfigured 1992 contract had called for him to deliver six albums, of which Symbol, Come and the Gold Experience were the first three. The soundtrack to Spike Lee's Girl 6 film didn't count towards the fulfilment of the contract (neither did teh Black Album, released in 1994).

Although the precise circumstances surrounding the label's decision to waive the third album have never been made public, it is clear that Russ Thyret, one of the few remaining top-level executives at Warner Bros. who had been there since Prince signed with them, was instrumental in getting Prince out of the deal. Thyret concluded that the public relations fall-out from bringing a suit against Prince would be catastrophic. L. Londell McMillan handled the negotiations on Prince's behalf.

Prince presented Warner Bros. with two albums at the meeting, Chaos And Disorder and The Vault... Old Friends 4 Sale. Both albums came complete with the artwork design and the record company had no influence whatsoever over the contnents of either album. It was a 'take it or leave it, fuck you' situation, according to a Warner Bros. executive. Several top-level executives were upstet about what was perceived as some of Prince's most mediocre work in ages. The gerneral feeling at Warner Bros. was that Prince dumped garbage on them and fulfilled his contract in a half-hearted manner.

metalorange said:

squirrelgrease said:

Too many people like to think that the WB was the evil in that whole dispute. For those who do, you must remember that they were only going about business as usual and it was P whose signature was put on the contract. They didn't hold a gun to his head and forced him to sign it.
In the end, it was P's decision and his alone to sign with WB.
It was also his decision to start acting like a whiny l'il bitch and try to reneg on his contract.
Also, remember...
Who was it that built Paisley Park? It wasn't P...it was WB. I'm not aware of too many record companies who will build a state-of-the-art recording studio just to keep their star happy.
There simply was no "evil" on either side.
But, if there was anyone to blame...it's P...plain and simple.

But, hey...that's the past...the WB's top dogs have all since been let go/moved on/etc.
Tomorrow is another day...
Right???

Prince's problem was with the whole industry, not just WB, they were just the closest thing he had to whine about.

WB were great to Prince, right from the get-go they were more than accomodating to Prince, because they saw his talent. But when his talent was outweighed by his prolonged loss-making activities, they had no choice but to let him go, and he got off quicker than expected I remember at the time.

Go easy on WB, they are a huge company, they are working within a certain frame, and Prince was a very small part of that frame.

NouveauDance said:

Not too much has changed...

although I do have to say that from the very beginning that contract and deal looked a bit almost impossible to fulfill. Expecting someone to sell 5million plus for 7 albums is foolish on all sides round especially after a dozen albums. Though it never seems clear why he couldn't just release the older material. Judging from what I have heard it was ALLL good. If fact had he, he might have done better.
[This message was edited Tue Aug 10 20:12:01 2004 by superspaceboy]

For the first 3 years of the thing I was a supporter of WB in the whole thing.In early 1996,a friend in the Country music biz. put me hip to what WB did to Prince in terms of the contract.
Prince was to be in compliance with his part IF he sold "X" number of albums. I am not sure right now but I think it was in the 3 million range.If these albums did not make money then he would OWE WB for recording expenses ect,ect.

WB then put Prince into it's Urban/RB division.Now Prince has just as many "white" fans than RB fans.This was an attempt by WB to sabatoge whatever Prince released.Prince was his usual self and got into a pissing match that he lost.Either way Prince would have lost and maybe his place in history was saved.How many record artists have played "by the rules" and ended up in forgotten or playing in nightclubs that will not hold 50 people.

Prince was not 100% wrong or right.

WB was not 100% wrong or right.

Both were 100% right and wrong.

Anxiety said:

how much did he end up making after he delivered the 6 albums??

I'm not a fan of corporations, but I think Prince's stubbornness AFTER signing the big contract (if he had done it before and left WB, it would have been different) was prima-donna behavior. I also think it messed up his career for a long time. Had he worked hard to promote his WB albums they could have been hits. I still think The Gold Experience could have been the most successful thing he released since Purple Rain. He said he was a "slave" because he couldn't release more than one album per year. Big deal? Look what releasing Around the World in a Day in less than a year did to his popularity. He was riding an all-time high and could have had another Purple Rain level hit, had he waited five or six months, until Purple Rain was off the charts. There's the "keeping up your momentum" side of things and there's the "destroying your momentum" end. Warner wanted him to keep it up; he seemed indifferent and wanted to release an album every 5 or 6 months. Ironic that, since he left Warner, it's taken him more than a year to release many of his albums.

Luv & Peace,
Alex
Clubbin' in Mpls/A Night w. Prince

Unquestionably,a contributing factor was that The Symbol Album didn't contain as many catchy,radio-friendly songs as Diamonds And Pearls


I totally disagree with this statement.In many ways,The Symbol Album is a stronger,more impressive album than it's predecessor and it contained many songs that would have been huge hits.It's just that the wrong singles were released (a recurring problem throughout most of Prince's post-Purple Rain career).Songs like "The Continental","And God Created Woman" and even "Blue Light" would have propelled the album to multi-platinum status,if they had been released as singles.

WB did nothing wrong. They offered a deal, Prince decided to take it.

The whole thing is Prince's doing. The problem arose when he finally realised he couldn't get his way.

When watching him on the much more music interview he said his primary problem was that whatever he recorded didn't belong to him. SO therefore anything he recorded under the warner contract would be owned by warner and he had a problem with that because he was recording most of his material at Paisly Park.
But then i read one of the posters say that Warner bought him Paisly Park so i don't know what's up his ass.

jayaredee said:

A nasty ol' bug.

Luv & Peace,
Alex
Clubbin' in Mpls/A Night w. Prince

jayaredee said:

I believe prince built Paisley Park with his own money ($7m). But you could argue the money was paid to him by WB.

Regardless, Prince signed the contract in 1992, as a worldly man, with top legal advice. In fact, it was a good deal, IF you were the type of artist that promotes singles and albums properly.

WB aren't gonna hand $10m per album up front if you ain't willing to "do the work". 5 million sales was more than acheivable, IF Prince curbed his output and picked better cuts and promotions.

Sure this would stiffle his creativeness, but if that was a concern, don't sign!

As usual, Prince wanted the money, but not the responsiblity. As soon as WB stop bankrolling the flop Paisley artists, Prince himself gives up on them. He doesn't want to have to pay for his creative whims.

.
[This message was edited Wed Aug 11 4:22:07 2004 by SquirrelMeat]

My thoughts on the subject can be revealed simply by looking at my avatar.

SquirrelMeat said:

Have to say that this is the right point. Prince wanted the money AND the freedom to release what he wanted when he wanted. You can't have both.

WB want to milk each Prince album to maximise sales potential. To do this they want more time between each release and expect the artist to do a good level of promotion also.

Also, why should WB continue to finance flops like Carmen Electra (did they really spend $1million on her debut video!!!!)

Having said all that, Prince's other concerns with the structure of the industry are right - the fact that the Label only loans the artist the money to pay for recording, videos etc and then extracts that from the artists royalties before the artist recoups anything and after all that they still own the master tapes is plain wrong. It would be like a bank giving you a mortgage that you pay each month until you have repayed it all and the bank then still owning the house not you!

The other irony was pointed out above - Prince wanted to release more than one album a year (always has done, in 86/87 he wanted to release Camille, Cystal Ball/Sign O The Times, Black Album) and yet since becoming an independent artist he has not released more than one album a year!

SquirrelMeat said:

I totally agree.When you think about it,Prince had a really good deal.He could have easily sold over 5 million copies an album if he had been willing to release better material,instead of handing Warners half-baked albums like 'Come' and 'Chaos and Disorder'.Also,his Paisley Park Records label could have survived,if he had signed some truly talented artists with something to offer.

great
thread

DavidEye said:

I disagree.

When you really think it through Prince didn't have good deal at all, but it does seem like a case of "you made the bed in which you lie".

Assuming the info from 'The Vault' is correct, this is what I - now - think Prince and WB did when they signed the infamous contract in 1992:

1 - Instead of realising that he probably already had achieved his greates sales with Purple Rain - realistically speaking - , WB and Prince entered into a a very expensive deal expecting from him to sell more copies per album than he ever did before on an average album. That is clearly a case of overestimating his power to sell, which can only be both WB's as Prince's fault. The info provided however also indicates that WB was the smartest in this, by not being obligated to continue with the 10 M advances if his albums would start to sell bad.

2 - Instead of taking the 100m, the vice- presidency of the company, the joint ventures AND the stocks Prince should have taken instead - and in return for much less money - a transfer of any and all ownership rights of all his masters back to him. Given the info avalaible he instead seems to have token the offered deal (without him owning any master rights) with an ease... that makes the bitching - later on about not owning his masters - look like the whinings of a spoiled brat who could have gotten what he wanted, but decided to go for the quick and big cash AND the "top" (of WB). This is clearly Prince's own fault in thinking he can have it all. WB was also not very smart to start all those failed joint ventures to "discover new talent" (yeah right... Carmen Electra was new "talent")

3 - Instead of separating as soon as the shit hit the fan with the name change, the slave thing and the release disputes both parties - based on the given info - obviously thought they could still make a lot of money off eachother, which is both their own fault, naive, greedy and stupid. Both parties let the dispute sicken on for too long and too publicly. Therefore, that WB in 1996 still expected Prince would deliver them 2 great final albums to fulfill his contract was also naive of them, to say the least. You would expect more business sense from a company like WB.



--
[This message was edited Thu Aug 12 10:09:42 2004 by Abrazo]

DavidEye said:

Hmmm...Don't me wrong, I dig those tunes (well, maybe not The Continental) but I'm gonna have to disagree with ya there. U.S. Radio would have spat on those.

jaypotton said:

P had 2 find his independant nitche b4 he could just start releasing 2&3 albums a year. He had 2do the work 2 get the bizness in order 1st! He's tried a few different methods with the NPGMC which is now coming in2 it's own. He still must act in a moderate fashion 2 analyze which direction 2go next. P will bank close 2 70 to 100 million dollars. P will have more capital 2 do some things. It's about 2 get funky within the next 2years!

SquirrelMeat said:

Flop Paisley artists my ass!...George Clinton,Mavis Staples, are legends and with a big push from WB's Carmen Electra is just as talented and looks better than Britney Spears. He had a collection of Icons and Bubble Gum 4 the teens at that time.

Anyway, what P realized is that if he owned his masters that he could have his cake and eat it 2 just like WB's was doing at his expense. He could release multiple cd's if he wanted if he chose 2 but would'nt have 2 sell a zillion cd's 2 get paid. He could do very well financially and still keep his creative muse satisfied. It's been about ownership which has ultimately brought him more$$$$! He did what he had 2do.

muleFunk said:

So that is why you have to go to the R&B section of your record store to find any Prince albums these days? Because in the eighties and up to mid-nineties his albums were in the Pop/Rock section.

I thought store managers had simply decided to move his albums to the R&B section because he hasn't really done much but R&B since the mid-nineties. But I suppose they moved them then, because WB started classifying his albums as R&B.
[This message was edited Thu Aug 12 21:09:38 2004 by scififilmnerd]