Keep in mind that Prince has enormus momentum going into 1985, the ATWIAD album went the complete differnt direction, do you think Parade would of sold better and produced more hits??

No it would have faired worse. The curve ball he threw some folks with ATWIAD prepared those that stayed on board for Parade. Parade would have received even less fanfare than it did if it came on the heels of Purple Rain. Let's face it; any album would have. However, it would have garnered more praise and appreciation than ATWIAD did because it's a better album. Prince was smart to put out such a light-spirited album with a few good pop songs after the intense, powerful Purple Rain. It was a good change of pace.

thecableguy said:

NO! Everyone that loved Purple Rain wanted another album like Purple Rain. Around The World In A Day is closer to the sound and look of Purple Rain then Parade! Purple Rain is a rock album with lots of guitar solos, Parade has no rock songs and no guitar solos on it. Around The World in a Day is a psychedelic rock album.

I doubt that another Soundtrack that sounded so completely different would have done better. As stated..ATWIAD led to Parade. PR to Parade would have been a bigger jump.

rudeboynpg said: [/quote]Everyone that loved Purple Rain wanted another album like Purple Rain.
Around The World In A Day is closer to the sound and look of Purple Rain then Parade! Purple Rain is a rock album with lots of guitar solos, Parade has no rock songs and no guitar solos on it. Around The World in a Day is a psychedelic rock album.[/quote]

We disagree on the merits of "Parade" itself, but we agree here.

I also agree with whodknee.

thecableguy said:

Parade was a disappointing follow up to ATWIAD. I woulda if it was the next album after Purple Rain. Ohh, the thought if it has given me a headache. I gotta go lay down now.

parade came out right on time, that album was much needed in his career it showed his versitility. plus around the world was an ok album

People thought he had lost his damned mind when he followed "Purple Rain" with "Around The World In A Day". If he followed "Purple Rain" with "Parade", they would have tried to have him institutionalized.

The only reason "Kiss" sold so well is because it was the first single before the album came out. Prince had only done one album like "Around The World In A Day" and people were hoping that Prince only had temporary insanity and would return to his old self on the next album. "Kiss" was a very misleading single as to what the rest of the album would really be like. "Parade", the album, got rid of most of the lingering old fans forever.

vainandy said:

I was with you until the last sentence. That's simply not true. Lovesexy did that, not Parade. The "lingering old fans" you describe helped make SOTT a (decent, not huge) hit after Parade.

namepeace said:

Purple Rain sold over 10 million copys in the U.S. Around The World In A Day sold over 3 million copies in the U.S. Parade sold 1.8 million copys in the U.S. Sign O' The Times sold poorly, 1.8 million copys, in the states, the same as Parade. I stopped being a Prince fan after I got Parade in 1986. I returned to Prince with Sign O' The Times 1987 with Prince's return to rock and edgy funk. Lovesexy sold 1 million copies in the U.S. Prince's weekest selling album since Controvery in 1981. Prince should have released The Black Album, not Lovesexy. Batman sold over 4 million copys in the U.S. Graffiti Bridge sold the same as Lovesexy, 1 million. Diamonds And Pearls sold 2 million copys in the U.S. Love Symbol (1992) sold only 1 million copys in the U.S.

I retrospect Prince shouldn't of released either album after "Purple Rain". He would've been better off releasing them as side projects that whet the appetite for "regular" albums. That would've been a good strategy.

rudeboynpg said:

All due respect, give Parade another chance. It is brilliant.

His sales dropped off more precipitously from PR to ATWIAD than from ATWIAD to Parade. BTW, I don't think Lovesexy even went gold after its initial release.

One could make the case that ATWIAD killed his potential as a long-term megaseller for good. After PR, he never had sales of more than 3 million even when he had top-selling singles to accompany the albums (ATWIAD to Symbol)
So it was his true fanbase, around 500,000 to 1 million, that kept him afloat for the better part of 20 years.

If "Sign O The Times" and "Lovesexy" sold around what "Controversy" did, then that means that "Controversy" did extremely well and "Sign O The Times" and "Lovesexy" did horrible.

When "Controversy" was released, Prince was basically unheard of in the pop world. This means that the majority of the sales were from his original R&B fan base. For "Controversy" to even come close to "Sign O The Times" and "Lovesexy" shows how well loved he was in the R&B world.

The 3 million sales he made with "Around The World In A Day" would be from the die hard R&B fans, along with the new-found die hard pop fans buying it the first few days it was released. There was no single leading the way, so they didn't know what to expect. Naturally it didn't do near as well as "Purple Rain" because people were warning their friends about the album that had not already bought it yet (I know I was).

"Kiss" misled many of the burned people into thinking Prince was himself again. Of course, many people that had been burned once were not going to be burned a second time. When the diehards got the album and warned their friends, that would explain the drastic drop in sales. Herds of both R&B and pop fans were gone then and if you notice the fact that "Controversy" came close in sales to "Parade", that means almost all the R&B fans left after "Parade" because the pop world covers a lot more territory than the R&B world.

vainandy said:

You're judging the success of these albums by the Purple Rain standard, which tends to create misleading impressions.



Or it also shows that he had a consistent fanbase throughout the 80's consisting of about 750,000-1 million loyal album purchasers. Also, Controversy's sales increased AFTER Purple Rain was released.



Well, did Raspberry Beret drop before the album was released? Maybe it didn't. Anyway, it sold on the basis of 1) Purple Rain mania, 2) the R&B base, and 3) the initial success of Raspberry Beret. I think the album caught everyone by surprise.



Well, if we're referring to personal experience here, then I know most of my folks went out and bought ATWIAD without hearing a note. They kind of suspected Prince would do something different, just not that different. The base stayed relatively loyal, but Prince snagged at least 2 million people not in his "firm base" with ATWIAD as well. 3 million is not bad by any standard, but it is a preciptous dropoff from Purple Rain. But like Wilt scoring 100 in a game, you're not gonna see it every night.



I couldn't disagree more. I submit to you that it was the diehard R&B audience that kept Parade afloat. Mountains and Girls and Boys charted higher on the R&B chart than on the pop chart. I think your "warning friends" theory is tenuous, because I had several friends who were in that "base" you speak of that loved the album, because they knew Prince would trip out, but it was overall a funkier album than ATWIAD. It was the ATWIAD buyers in the general pop music audience -- i.e., those who were NOT in the "base" -- that weren't gonna buy another P album. Some of them were the R&B (black) fans, but even more of them were the pop (white) fans.

And if we're still dealing with anecdotal evidence, I also submit to you that I know of a lot of black fans who fell off the P bandwagon once Purple Rain came out.

I don't think you're wrong per se on Parade, but I disagree it was the watershed album responsible for the decline in his record sales. That belonged to ATWIAD because the audience at large wasn't having it. And I also disagree that it was his base that left him after ATWIAD and Parade. If that were true, his "base" would be approximately 15 million, and it wasn't. His base didn't crack until Lovesexy, which didn't even hit gold on its initial release.

[/quote]

I truly wouldn't doubt that the R&B fans kept "Parade" afloat. That had been a loyal following since 1978 and it is hard to turn your back on someone you have loved for all those years. Sure, most of the pop fans left but the pop world is a whole lot bigger than the R&B world. If you have a few of the pop fans left (which he didn't have before) along with a few of the R&B fans and the album only did as well as when he was known only in the R&B world, then it didn't do very well.

As for R&B fans or "black" fans leaving because of "Purple Rain", I know a few people like that myself. They were never really fans to begin with, they mainly bought 45s and not the albums. Prince had rock on his albums from the very beginning. R&B radio played mainly the funk tracks, with the exception of "Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad". If they mainly had 45s and not albums and then they hear "Let's Go Crazy", after seeing Prince have major pop success with "Little Red Corvette", naturally they thought Prince was selling out to a pop audience. People that had his albums knew better because they knew that Prince was more than just an R&B artist from day one. Prejudice is a double edged sword that happens on both sides of the fence and I don't see either side as true Prince fans. They were mainly, as I like to call them, "the 45 buyers".

As for "Lovesexy", I think it totally got rid on any people that continued lingering on. I think "Parade" definately got rid of the majority of the old fans but there are several, just like myself, who blindlessly kept having "hope", after "Parade", that perhaps the next album Prince would come to his senses. Another factor is the press telling people before the release of "Sign O The Times" that Prince had fired The Revolution and that the next album was going to be Prince doing it all by himself like the old days. Many people felt that with Wendy and Lisa gone, maybe Prince would become hard again, but that wasn't the case. Then R&B radio was feeding the public "Adore" which was a little better. Also during this time, there was talk of a new album (which didn't happen at the time) with a title like "The Black Album" which many people thought was going to be an "old Prince" type record and later on people found out it wasn't. Like I said, there were still people holding on with sheer "hope". "Lovesexy" got rid of those people but "Parade" got rid of the people that were fed up.
[Edited 12/29/04 22:23pm]

vainandy said:

I don't see how Parade got rid of much of anybody. Most of the people I knew at the time liked it much better than ATWIAD. The sales were simply what remained after ATWIAD killed off the fickle PR crowd. ..and Parade and SOTT sold pretty much the same number so there was no real drop off there (plus, as I recall, didn't 1999 originally sell around 1.5 million on it's own)?

Lovesexy is what tossed fans away in droves... I don't think it even went Gold originally (or just barely).

Well, everyone I knew hated it. There's not many R&B or pop fans that will tolerate elevator music like "Venus De Milo" and "Do U Lie". That album was an outright embarrassment.

vainandy said:

Are you serious? Seriously?

vainandy said:

If the pop world can tolerate Elton John Singing "Candle in the Wind" for a whole year, then they can tolerate Venus De Milo.... Do U Lie was nice, u can't front... It was kinda "jazzy R&B"....I just assume u know alot of spiteful people without broad knowledge of actual R&B...which would make them a POP crowd. No disrespect.

vainandy said:

you know that's simply untrue. the fact you didn't dig it doesn't make it an embarrassment. the mere fact that musicians, critics, and fans have found the album to be a work of genius utterly refutes your argument. you shouldn't speak in absolutes about that album. you didn't dig it, fine. that doesn't mean it sucked. period.

That's true, one person's trash is another person's treasure. Everyone has a right to their own opinion and we are all here at the org to voice them. People say that certain albums suck around here all the time and that's cool. That doesn't mean that "the King has spoken and that's the way it is", it is simply one person's opinion. I have a right to my express my opinion also, even if it does go against popular opinion. As a Prince fan, you should understand that.

vainandy said:

Absotively. Posilutely.

vainandy said:

YOU DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO YOUR OPINION IF YOU ARE WRONG.

from what i gather, parade was well-received. as for the "what if?" question, it woulda been really odd if he were to do that.

Novabreaker said:

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

Parade was well-received by the critics not the fans. Parade sold a disappointing 1.8 million copys in the states. Under The Cherry Moon was not well-received by enybody, not even Prince, "I learned that I can't direct, what I didn't write."

rudeboynpg said:

Which is more than most other records by an African-american artists in the 80s. Hell, Parade was even decidedly artsy. It's probably the best-selling funk/pop/chanson/classical/psychedelia/folk/electro -album of all time!

In Germany, I've heard "Kiss" in the mainstream more than anything off ATWIID (if that means anything, kind of an unbiased look at the big picture)

Then, I think of all the great singles off ATWIID that would've been lost.

Therefore, PLEASE, stop all this "whatif" crap!

thanks