I feel after listening and obsessing over prince for so long now,that a few things fucked up 4 prince (this occurred around the SOTT era) ..

1;WB not allowing for the crystal ball triple album to be released
2: not releasing the BLACK ALBUM
3:should he have released CAMILLE lp or not ?/


when i think about it ,i believe this set him on the path that led him to where he is today ...musically and career wise

and im still trying to determine if thats a good thing ,,

BigBootyLover said:

If he had released Camille, Crystal Ball, or whatever came after would have been very different since they share tracks and the latter is kind of borne out of the former.

Releasing a 2LP over a 3LP set at that time, I think, was the best thing to do. The amount of music itself, plus stuff like the title would have been received as way too self-indulgent, especially after a flop movie and decreasing sales in the USA with each album after Purple Rain.

I do think it would have been a good idea to release the Black Album, as a side project, as intended, not as part of the 'Prince' cannon - like Madhouse. I think it would have shown he was still daring and biting.

interesting .....

was the whole purple rain thang such a benchmark that fans didnt really see the genius in his latterday releasees ???

i personally disagree with that sentiment,(i am not disagreeing with your comment tho!! !!)
but if thats how it was ,then did SOTT change that ?? i read that SOTT was a critical and commercial success ,,(mayb not to the extent of 30 million albums worldwide like pr ,but a success nonetheless)

MetroArea said:

I totally agree.Releasing a 3-album set in 1986/87 would have been a sales disaster.That was simply too much music for people to digest.Warners made the right decision by convincing him to trim it down to a superb 2-LP set.

not unlike EMANCIPATION ?

BigBootyLover said:

I think Emancipation was his F.U. to Warners, saying hey, I'm out now, I can do that 3disc set I always wanted to do.

Between the mediocre content of the album (a LOT of filler), and EMI folding, it fell short of Princes expectations.

BigBootyLover said:

There aren't that many people who think Purple Rain was an artistic/critical benchmark (although there are some, you'll find 'em on here).

I see Purple Rain as the exception, not the rule - It was just the right time, right place. He'd been building up an audience for years, and the 1999 singles broke him through, and Purple Rain was just part of the zeitgeist - The movie, the soundtrack, the hype, the look, the marketing - everything just slotted into place. No artist can sustain that level, and clearly Prince didn't want to at the time because he followed it up with ATWIAD, knowing full well it would freak out all those casual fans who kept PR at the top of the charts for approximately 6 months.

SOTT probably cemented him as one of the finest pop artists of the 80s.

i couldnt agree more ,,

It wasn't just the casual fans that it freaked out. A lot of the long time hardcore fans dropped Prince beginning with that album.