Replying to the topic....I dont think Prince will make hits again. Not because of the audience only. Ok, millions want to listen to Britney, but there is an audience for ´serious´ artists too, like REM and Beck, U2 (most rock-oriented). The problem is: record companies dont trust Prince because of his battle against WB. Good example is ´Rave´...if there was a strong promotion system, some songs could easily play on radio, like ´So far so pleased´, ´Baby knows´ or ´TGRES´ (even if the production was a little bit outdated). IMO, Prince realized that record companies arent willing to promote him the wayhe needs, and is moving his career to other side (the ´indie´ side, not caring about hits). I bet his music will sound a lot better now that he doesnt seem to be too worried about hits

what made prince unpopular 2 the masses is always releasing "B" side songs instead of his brilliant songs

what made prince unpopular 2 the masses is the innovation of MUSIC VIDEOS. Those videos he made never showed the musician in him, it only showed the womanizing playboy that every1 knows


what made prince unpopular 2 the masses is the his refusal 2 not wearing heels and make-up and never clearing up is SEXUALITY PREFERENCES ( now its popular but in the 70's and 80s it was a big "no no" not to declare if you were gay or str8

GustavoRibas said:

LOL ya gotta remember this is all in retospect. I only dug up the gems o fthat era in the past 3- 5 years. Can I have my funkateer status back, now?

Hmmm unpopular to the masses...well JESUS WAS UNPOPULAR TO THE MASSES BECUZ HE TOLD HIS TRUTH and still JESUS LIVES 2day...now lets talk about prince...I find prince is written in stone every where around the world there is INFACT not a darn place I can go to where he is unknown...which is not a bad thing...but it amazes me that perhaps the MEDIA tries to segregate spirit no matter what LABEL it is for their RATINGS and I KNOW U dont need a RATING SCALE to TIP your intelligence of your HEART off a MAP YES?...so how about realise that U are still writing about HIM (PRINCE) 2 day due to U knowing whom he is..and U are a part of the masses YES....so ahhh THINK AGAIN...
thank U

PRINCE Is no way UNPOPULAR...

SingMia~Arjuna

The Truth.
The masses need to be coddled and lied to. Do you really think all those people who bought Purple Rain: the album, the movie, the tour, were really into Prince the musician?
The masses get excited over make believe things like the Oscars, the Grammys, the war on drugs, etc. Prince is too real for the masses.
I'm glad I'm not part of the lock-step masses.

1.The name change.

2.Offended the Record Company corporate machine with the "slave" on the cheek. Forever blacked balled.

3.Mtv hates him.

4.Hip Hop has the masses now. Prince doesn't appeal to little kids.

5.Lack of innovation. Prince used to be 3 years ahead of everyone in sound, now he's playing catch up instead of creating something new.

6.Lack of good PR. Prince needs to get out more so people can realize that he's still making music and that he's still alive.

PFunkjazz said:

PFunkjazz said:

U didn't say: Did U hate "Lovesexy", or just the cover?

The media always has something to do with it, and sometimes people lack seeing what is best.
[This message was edited Sun Mar 24 16:21:06 PST 2002 by purpleleaf7]

Blame it on Howard Stern!

Howard Stern admitted to listening to Prince when he was partying with John Stamos and his wife. Howards girl was there too. Rebecca ended up with her clothes off. Peace and Love!

PFunkjazz said:

- Oh yeah, of course ... LOL

The number one reason why was the Media. Since day one, Prince has made himself inaccessable to the press. They dont like that very much so he became labled as arrogant. Lets face it, the media can make you or break you and they broke him big time. He was never taken seriously and he was abandoned. After breaking with Warner Bros. , he attempted to make himself more accessable, both to the press and the fans but i think it was too little too late. At this point it doesnt matter, Prince will always sale a minimum number of units and seats at shows to remain rich and popualar amoung true listeners of music and players of music. They are the ones that count anyway.

herbthe4 said:

May I suggest the Come album..check it out.

Well I may be in the minority here but I'm glad he chose Lovesexy over the Black lp cause Lovesexy lp is better. Black lp sounded like dated funk.


Prince has had more promotion than many hit artist. The problem was when he stopped being innovative and went straight for trying to have pop hits. There were some well made records in the 90's but he never changed the formula everything started sounding alike. Started plugging directly into James Brown sound instead of using his influence to do something different.

What really hurt Prince was Emancipation and Rave..the two biggest opportunities after WB and he says he has total creative freedom and he puts out some lackluster top 40 pop formula music. Rave was the last hurrah. Arista spent alot of money on that and the record sounded dated. He should have gave them something like TRC, Prince was known for setting the pace not following.

The two biggest reasons:

- "Slave" written on face

- name change...that was/is the one that made him a joke in many people's eyes.

The reasons are many.

Prince was just struggling in general coming out of the 80's. His stuff on 'Diamonds and Pearls' and 'Symbol' just reeks of an artist desperately trying to stay relevant.

The biggest reason he lost his popularity is because the quality of the songwriting just nosedived. I know that's not a popular notion for the 90's worshippers, but it's just plain facts.

PenisBird said:

-----

voila - he's hard to market.

feel4u2k2 said:

And there you pretty much have it !
Thank U Feel4u2k2

All those things like the name change, the slave make up etc were obviously not going to help but Prince showed he was capable of making great music, being off the wall and courting mainstream success 'Purple Rain'. So, what happened?

Sure he went on to lose a lot of fans with ATWIAD, but he was still relevant and still sold records. He had his biggest single in years under the new name, BUT the plain truth is that from then on the music he made was not brilliant. The odd great song, but the albums themselves were dissapointing to anyone who expected the standards reached by his previous output.

Rave was supposed to be his commercial comeback, but it was crap. He needed somebody around him to say, 'look man, people think you are Mozart, you can't put THAT out!' Everyone has the right to have a low patch, but why did he release so much music during his?

TRC is the first challenging album that he has put out since Lovesexy and I have to admit that I had actaully given up on him until then. I kept the faith until Rave, but after that I thought he really was never going to release an album that would matter as a peice of work. Thankfully he proved me wrong. The only thing missing from it is 'hits'

If he wrote a great album which did contain some obvious hits, got into bed with a major label and was promoted correctly he would be back in the public domain. but the guy is nearly 50, does he want that? If he is happy with the amount of people he is reaching then why should he worry about 'the masses'?

It is all IMHO of course, but if the music had been good enough, he would have survived (commercially) every excuse given above.

they want Purple Rain, he wants One Nite Alone...

What made Prince unpopular to the masses?

Prince.

The name change, as everyone is pointing out, was a major contributory factor in his decline. But it started well before that. Since the Revolution disbanded he became more and more of a control freak I guess. Instead of being inspired by artists in their own right, he thought he could do it ALL on his own. His albums became less themed (conceptual?) and more 'single' orientated.

TMBGITW also helped his decline because it was such a big hit! Suddenly, trying to capitalise on his new found poularity once more, he tried to do it again and again. Suddenly all the singles were in the same pricipal formula, all ballads, all love songs, all commercial crap. TGRES was a perfect example of that. He thought he had tapped into something with TMGITW but in actual fact all he had done was write a very good pop song that had no real long term staying power. And because there was no one around to point this out to him, he continued trying to make TMGITW ptII fro a long time.

Then his albums (emmancipation, NPS and Rave) were merely a collection of what P hoped would be kick-ass commercial pop songs that unfortunately bombed.

But all is not lost. He has started to listen again. He knows he became too cut off and isolated with a theory that wasnt working. He is listening to his fans, being more personal and making music HE wants to hear and not what he thinks we want to hear...

He will make a comeback, but not to the point of a 'second' coming I doubt. Mainly because I dont think he wants that either. I think he may just want a little bit more recognition outside of his fan-base once more. But not super stardom again...

Although I wouldnt put anything past the man...

Another point may be the fact that although the Revolution may not have been his best band technically (Lovesexy and TGE eras would have something to say about that Im sure), but they were his most inspiring I think.

The Revolution was a band which consisted of song writing talent in their own right.

In the 90's especially, it seemed that P wanted complete control whereby he wanted to play all the instruments and sing all the backing vocals (shit rappers aside) himself on his albums, and put a band together who are able to perform them live. Purplr Rain, if you remember, was practically recorded live so the band were a big part in the creation of the music.

Wendy and Lisa were a loss to Prince for sure...

His music just tended to take a more studio-produced theme and so all creativety was stifled, except his own. That is not to take anything away from the man, pure genius, but he has struggled and burdened himself with the need to do it all himself.

Anyway... I still think he kicks ass!!! Compared to whats out there, I wouldnt want him to compete with that... you need to be very shallow musically to compete with most of the shit out there!

PS U2 are exceptionally talented, both on the musical side AND the business side... The business side is the side that Prince seems to have a little trouble getting right.

If only WB gave him back his masters eh?

because radio cant box him in one style of music.he is 2 complex and its demanding 2 sort through what should and should not b played on the radio. because radio is what keeps u popular.the lack of no videos 4 songs and promotion is one reasone also. so its not just record companies fault but they are 2 blame 2. he will b respected when he;s gone. and hopefully that wont b anytime soon.

Duh.. such a stupid question

WHY IS PRINCE SO UNPOPULAR ?

Because he thinks that the superior quality of his work speaks for itself so that he doesn't need to cooperate and work with clever MARKETING in the face of a consistent career of never ending insane business decisions. The marketing genius of Purple Rain and Batman were two big marketing examples that kept the public from saying "Prince who?"

When he does abrupt things like walk out of a major Indian Channel V television interview, he isolates himself from hungry new markets. He has traditionaly achieved a reputation that destroyed his motion picture industry career and put him deep in the cult music underground status and he did it willingly year after year with nobudy to blame (not even the journalists) but himself. He has a reputation of someone impossible to work for in this respect that his Post-Clive Davis news conference didn't help.

Its so bad that the average R&B music lover still can't discover the Rainbow Children off the shelf anywhere in Israel. So not only does he need to hire a clever marketing team, but he has to HONOR the working agreement that he makes with them for the long term. If the music isn't playing on videos, discos or on the radio then popularity is an virtual impossibility.

ps...
i'm wondering how it was possible 4 so many 2 fall 4 the purple smoke screen "excuse-a-thon"

The degree of popularity shed from the media is a game.. you win or lose based upon how you play.. you'd think that someone in the entertainment industry with his intelligence would learn after USA for Africa what serious negative fallout is about. And if he did indeed learn.. then this is simply where he chooses his career (however with minimal impact) to be. And anyone who continues 2 love his music needs 2 try 2 respect that.

If prince became "popular again" (whatever that means)
u idiots would be screaming about how he is selling out to the public or radio...if he became huge like Britney or Nsync....ya'll would hate him for that....
No matter what he does or puts out ..u guys whine ,,whine,,whine..

Get lives people.

First of all, to Vivid - Prince is not "nearly 50", he's going to be 44 this June. Besides, age is just a number, right ?
Secondly, Prince has always been measured against his Purple Rain success by the ignorant media and the close-minded masses. Only his truest followers have the vision to look beyond that and can see him and his music for what they really are. To us, Prince is just as "popular" as ever.