I know being commercialy relevent is important to Prince but it seemed like he put alot of energy into Rave for it to fit in to what was going on in music in 1999 and it was a comercial failure in the US.

With Musicology now everyone is like Prince is wonderful, Prince is great, he is suddendly a A list celebrity again like he was back in the early ninties again, SNL is doing skits about him, celebrities are fawning over him.

I guess my question is why Musicology? This music is good but it is not like Purple Rain amazing where that music was so different it had no other choice but to be noticed by the media. It seemed Rave was alot more cut to be accepted by the masses than Musicology!

Simple he gave away enough copies at concerts that it charted high week after week and some people were interested enough in a Prince album that was continually in the top ten that they bought it to check it out. I'm sure they were disappointed as it is one of the weakest Prince albums of all time and doesn't even compare to Rave but that's a different story.

lovemachine said:

Ditto....

marketing, plain and simple. commercial success is dependent on strong marketing and the markets desire for the product. Prince wasn't hot in 99, but backed by a great tour, inflated sales numbers from giveaways and Sony's push, they created curiousity for Musicology which was parlayed into sales numbers.

anyone who follows the music business should know sales has nothing to do with quality.
[Edited 6/19/05 23:53pm]

Please, Rave is very weak. He looked stupid on the cover, the video was late, he didn't tour the record.

He opened the Grammy's and was much more media accessible and got inducted into the Rock n roll hall of fame. Musicology is by no means a fave, but there are 12 good songs on the record, not mindblowing but it is a much more focussed listen than Rave.

I will give u one word - CONSPIRACY!!!!

He struck up deals between RIAA and Soundscan and Sony/Columbia, which allowed him 2 include FREE giveaway promo copies at concerts in with actual legitimate sales at record stores as a means 2 boost sales figures, which in my mind is illegal!!

Then over the past 18 months/2 years hes been literally EVERYWHERE, at awards ceremonies, talk shows, interviews, in magazines, u name it, getting himself back into the publics face again, making everyone remember who he was!!!

Then, of course there was the Tour!!!

The thing is, he never did any of that for Rave!! Plus, if I remember Arista, who distributed Rave, wasnt completely 100% behind the project, so there wasnt quite the same promotion surrounding it!!

Well, thats just my 2 cents!!!

That is a great question!

I think there were several factors. Prince changed his name BACK to Prince, which made him more accessible to the mainstream. Popular music became further fragmented with a plethora of non-musicians, such as rappers and popstars reigning the charts.

In the age of American Idol, when pop music is more and more homogenized, there was a hunger for true musicianship.

Prince also managed to score a KEY gig, at the Grammy Awards, playing with Beyonce, a rising young star with real singing talent and with street cred in both the rap and RnB worlds.

The previous year's winner at the Grammys were Outkast, whose album was little more than ersatz Prince for the new millenium.


Another grammy winner, Alicia Keys, readily credited Prince as a musical inspiration, even covering one of his tunes on her debut album.

Prince then went on an unprecedented media tour, appearing more normal, less contrived, and more accessible than ever before, arranging appearances on most major talk shows and even an MTV special taping of a NY aftershow.

He organized several tours in all the major U.S. cities, backed by what is perhaps one of his strongest bands ever, playing more dates in the U.S. than even during the Purple Rain tour.

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in his *first* year of eligibility, making the entire class of inductees seem old and dated with his blistering opening performance and incredibly expressive solo during While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

The nostalgia factor of 2004 being twenty years since Purple Rain, proving that 20 years is the right amount of time for everything old to become new again.


Let's see what else will happen in 2005...

Marketing, marketing and marketing. Equally weak albums promoted differently. The content is almost irrelevant, it's the way it's pushed that matters.




This is spot on. A few years on from Rave (I remember reading a review that called that album 'outdated'), Musicology can be pushed to the fortysomething 80s nostalgia market. Same goes for the timing of the Best of compilation.
[Edited 6/20/05 1:04am]

I wasn't into Prince in 1999, and I didn't even hear about Rave. However, with Musicology, there's no way any non-Prince fan could not know about that. That's pretty important.

Plus, from what I'm learning these days, he did all the promotion for the album himself by making himself visible on TRL, doing tons and tons of interviews, and going on Larry King.

doctamario said:

Yep that is true he did a ton of TV apperences in the US and Europe. I mean he was on TRL!!

Krystal666 said:

looking back, he looked quite desperate. I mean seriously, he was begging for attention. And behind him in Times Square was a Rave billboard(couldn't that have helped?)
[Edited 6/20/05 1:30am]

doctamario said:

Yeah I kinda agree with you. But that didn't mean I appreciated him tearing up the stage with Larry any less!!

Krystal666 said:

Wish I coulda been there.

doctamario said:

Yes expecialy the Septimo show in Spain!!!

Another thing is that Musicology will become one of those 10 or so Prince albums you can always rely on seeing in the record stores for the rest of eternity(others being Controversy, 1999, PR, ATWIAD, etc.). Rave, on the other hand, must be out of print or something because I've never seen a physical copy of it new or used in the record store. In the long run, Rave could sell more if it were available.

doctamario said:

I don't mean to change the subject...but someone on the board said D and P is the ninties equivalent to Musicology...but I don't know I thought the music on D and P were way better! Maybe I liked the slutty lyrics tho...I don't know tho I think the songs are better still!

some people thought Musicology was his first album since Purple Rain, I dont understand why people called it a "comeback"

Purely down to promotion, timing, and that the name on the cover was Prince, not

Krystal666 said:

One imagines they meant the commercial comeback aspect of D&P, not the records musical content, although parallels could be drawn - with both records Prince tried to incorporate the most commercial and popular forms of Black pop music in order to try to appeal to the masses again.

MetroArea said:

Well it worked..I was feeling it!

[oops-Ignore this! Pushed the wrong button!]
[Edited 6/20/05 3:23am]

one album is better then the other..

Alasseon said:

Gold319 said:

As far as I know that album would have certified platinum even without the giveaway cds.

even though 'Rave' is not one of Prince's best albums,I still think it could have done well if he and/or Arista had not screwed up the promotion and singles.The most obvious single on the album is "So Far,So Pleased" and it wasn't even released as a single!

Why Rave was a flop:
-Greatest Romance was a stupid choice for first single
-Aimed at the younger r'n'b market - was never going to work
-The name change thing was still an issue: "OK, so is the artist and Prince is the producer? wtf? Stuff that I'm buying Ricki Martin's new album instead!!"
-Let's face it, Prince just came accross as being "too weird" to the commercial masses at that point in his life

Why Musicology was a success:
-Aimed at his old-skool fans and a more 'sophisticated' audience
-Free album with concert ticket (a stroke of genius!)
-Good selection of singles (Musicology, Call My Name, Cinnamon Girl)
-He played the publicity game perfectly - RRHOF, Grammys, Tavis Smiley, Ellen etc. and he actually came accros as somewhat 'normal' in interviews (not too much mysterious preaching of 'the truth' or whatever)

"Musicology" is an OK album but it ain't all that. It did so well because the price of the album was included in the concert ticket. The tour did so well because he threatened to perform his old hits for the last time. This brought out the old fans. Also, he released one of the weakest tracks from the album, "Call My Name", as a single. To get radio airplay these days, a weak song has to be released. These dead asses these days don't like jams.

As far as "Rave" goes, he totally sold out to the dead ass mainstream at the time by having guest stars on the album. The album itself was weak, in an attempt to fit in with the current music. If he wanted to fit in with current music, he should have done it after "Purple Rain" when current music was still good. Don't wait till music goes to the dogs and then try to fit it. I'm glad it flopped and I wish it didn't sell as well as it did. Maybe he won't do that shit again. Then again, you never know what the hell Prince is going to do next.....he performed with Beyonce, which was a total disgrace.
[Edited 6/20/05 7:57am]

mynameisnotsusan said:

Exactly, plus Arista records ousted Clive Davis at the time, so there was no backing. Also Clive Davis gave Prince a false sense of great songs on the album when he knew damn well that The Greatest..... was a pretty crappy song. Rave did have a few cuts that are Prince quality that we all like but as a whole, it didn't have what it takes. I think Prince was trying real hard to put out something good in 1999 but rushed it. He sould have went digging in the vault and pulled out some real cuts and the album would have sold on its own if the track listing had some of the great bootleg gems

Because no tour accompanied Rave.

It's real simple. Musicology was promoted a lot better. Rave's promotions got cut short with Arista's ousting of Clive Davis. TGRES was a cool single but the video was'nt that hot. He needed 2 do the version with Eve on it and put Eve in the video. And then he did'nt tour with it, but then again i probably would'nt have either bcuz of the lack of promotion and P is only going 2 push a project so long b4 he moves on 2 the next thing.