I'll never forget the day I read the paper and Prince had changed his name to an unprounceable symbol. In the process he committed career suicide, and took all the attention off his mucis and his genius.

Tom Cruise's latest rants involving his beliefs on Scientology will have the same effect on his career. I've already forgot that Tom was once a pretty good actor. See you in 10 years Tom when everyone forgives you on your "comeback" tour!

Career suicide? Yeah, right.
As for Tom, the guy is everywhere and his views and opinions are being debated in different forums. Personally, I think his romance is with Katie is one big publicity stunt, and he's way to intense for my liking, but it's not as if he molested anyone. If MJ can still sell records, I think Tom is gonna survive.
War of the Worlds will make a mint, and crazy Tom will be able to give Scientology even more money.

Prince didn't have much of a choice. Warners had a right to anything by "Prince" until the contract was fulfilled. And legally, Prince couldn't exactly say "why" he changed his name; otherwise, Warners could have a right to anything he did under other names as well (if it ever came out that Prince changed his name as a loophole way of not letting Warners own the material as well).

prince acting crazy was to prove a point and to move on with his career. i don't think there's anything prince needs to be "forgiven" for where his whole WB/"Slave"/TAFKAP campaign is concerned. in fact, i think it's one of the most fascinating periods of his career so far.

Anxiety said:

I kinda have to agree. While it killed him commercially, that period delivered some of his best music. Alot of the public appearances were horrid and wince-inducing, but the music was always good.

Prince changing his name gave the tabloids something to make fun of him about in their pursuit of trying to make him look crazy, but really if it hadn't been that it would have been something else, that's just how they sell papers these days.

Unfortunately it went hand-in-hand with arguably a weaker period in his music. I saw one reviewer who was quite apt, after seeing perform new material from on the Gold tour, "It's not that I don't like it's just that I liked Prince better".

Tom Cruise is a great actor and I don't think his talking about Scientology is gonna harm his success - it hasn't so far, and besides, I think we have all been programmed to expect top celebrities to go a bit bonkers with their fame. I don't understand Scientology, heck I reckon all religions blind you from the truth, but it seems to be working for Tom and John Travolta. I saw a bit about Travolta's house the other day, a huge mansion with a drive-upto-the-house runway for his 3 jets including the only privately owned 707 and accomodation for his live-in aircrew, I'm surprised with success like that on offer that people aren't joining Scientology in droves!!

As far as Tom's relationship with Katie, I don't think it is a PR stunt but I do tend to think it is a case of short-lived infatuation by a bloke dealing with getting older, and if they ever do get married it is doomed, I tell ya, doomed!! Like so many celebrity marriages where both parties continue their seperate careers.

"So Katie, what first attracted you to the billionaire Tom Cruise?"

I have to agree that the this whole "Tom on a rage" thing is a publicity stunt. His sister is his manager now, and she's pretty much letting him do what he wants. I've also heard that Tom "auditions" women that he wants to be with. The look on Katie Holmes' face in the press with Tom doesn't seem to assuring to me. It's almost like she's doing him a favor. Nonetheless, he's a decent actor.

SPYZFAN1 said:

She is - She's his beard.

Snap said:

I always figured as much, shortly after the name change. Since it happened the same time of his battle with Warner bro.

MetroArea said:

I don't care what they say, I believe you are right Metro

Anxiety said:

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Co-Sign. Everyone acts like someone was injured when P changed his name. Really not that big of deal when you look back. Take a look at what happened to George Micheal when he just walked away from Sony.

P name change was a crazy PR stunt that worked in his favor in the long run.

Snap said:

There's no way that changing his name would get himself out of a contract. You can't get out that easily. If not explicitly set out in the agreement, it would surely be an implied term that the signatory's name included replacement or subsequent names. He still finished the albums he owed WB...

More, like Anxiety said, it seems to me that he was proving a point.

And just generally being a bit mental and following whatever his 'soul' was telling him to, as he says.

Snap said:

If Prince changing his name was a way of recording music outside of his contract, it failed. Warners opinion was that they had rights to Prince's music whatever name he put it out under. They let him put out 'The Most Beautiful Girl' independently hoping it would fail and shut him up, but the opposite was true - so they nipped that in the bud and prevented him from releasing 'Lovesign' the same way.They even made sure they got their share of the NPG's 'Exodus' album I believe.

The Chaos & Disorder album was put out under his symbol name, but that was still a Warners album. So I don't think ultimately it was a legal problem as to why he couldn't explain the 'real' reason why changed his name - after all, he was bad-mouthing Warners in lots of other ways anyway, I don't think saying 'I changed my name to get out of recording stuff for Warners' would have got him in any more trouble than he was already in, legally.

TheBigBang said:

The Gold Experience/Ultimate Live Experience mini tour in ´95 was one of his most fascinating tours with incredible aftershows and an extremely tight NPG.
The name change was one of the boldest moves in showbiz ever, career suicide maybe, for those who didn´t get it ( the media), but an amazing journey nevertheless. Things probably would have developed in a totally different way if it wasn´t for the name change. And I truly believe he had his own, weird spiritual reasons for it, not just legal reasons. Especially the numerological and alchemistic approach behind it all is way too sophisticated to be just a legal way of getting out more music.
10 years from now we will look at it from a different perspective and see it in a different light.
Takes some courage to do the things he did in the nineties....courage and selfesteem and faith.

DMSR said:

Hmmm, it seems to me that DMSR's definition of career is "What other people think about you". Do you think less people are going to go see "War of the Worlds" because of Tom Cruise's behavior? I doubt it. Now, if nobody in hollywood would hire Tom Cruise that'd be another story.

Actors have a lot more freedom than musicians do when it comes to controlling their own career. Also, movie goers are less fickle than music buyers.

Prince didn't kill his career by changing his name (He has one of his biggest hit songs ever with The Most Beautiful Girl in the World), and Tom Cruise isn't tanking his career by speaking his mind (watch War of the Worlds light up the box office).

PS If people don't want to hear Tom Cruise's viewpoints then interviewers should stop asking to hear about his personal life. Stick to asking him about the movies not all the extra bullshit.

TheFrogsaid:

metalorange said:

Then explain to me why Prince had to use different names when recording, producing, and writing for other artists on other labels? (And I'm not talking about Jamie Starr). Legally, it was the only way he could work outside of Warner Bros. Right?

Also, it seems a little odd, that after the contract with WB was over, prince went back to Prince.... just like I thought he would when his contract was over. I don't know if my reasons were correct, but my hunch on the name change back and the timing was on the money. This is why I never got into that whole, "what do we call him" bs. In my mind he remained Prince, I called him Prince, and I figured this was a phase that would phase out.
Funny, Prince had said in an interview ( I believe it was either Arsenio, or Sinbad) in response that most African Americans still called him Prince, and viewed him as "a prince" so it was only natural for them to continue to call him Prince, and I think Prince said something along the line that his fans, devoted etc, never had a problem with the name change, it was only the media that got huffy about it.

Snap said:

To which names and artists are you referring? Occasionally he has chosen to use pseudonyms, but he didn't HAVE to, it wasn't for any legal reasons. it was Prince just being playful or an attempt to let the songs stand on their own. Those songs written by him under pseudonyms are still registered under the name Prince at ASCAP etc so there's usually no hiding ultimately. Artists under contract can still work with artists under contract on other labels, that's when you get the 'appears with the kind permission of blah blah label' on the cd booklet.

prodigalfan said:

I reckon the name change was a combination of things - I think it did start out as a protest against his record label. Prince thought he could solve his problems with Warners by releasing Prince albums through them and music independently along side - that was the idea for Come and The Gold Experience. This way he would fulfill his contract whilst releasing music whenever he wanted over which he would retain ownership.

But of course Warners weren't having any of that, knowing that the market would get saturated and Prince would keep the best stuff for his albums. They basically told him that they owned his music whoever he chose to record as, which led to the Slave period. In the end the slave period and the name became interwined, so when he was free of the contract and wanted to show he was free finally, the symbol name had to go too.

Prince realised that Warners and the public had a perception of who Prince was and what sort of music he should be doing, so changing his name was also a way of trying to break that perception. By the time he got to 1999 and the end of the contract, he'd come to terms with who he was and set about trying to reassert control over the name Prince and what Prince stood for.

See the problem with these stunts, is that it takes away from their talent. Tom Cruise is turning into Ben Affleck, and hes a pretty good actor. Prince became a joke in the press and by many casual fans. They forgot how talented he was and didnt even talk about the music anymore. People wrote him off as crazy, and I think it totally took away from people even listening to his music or taking him seriously. Imagine Hendrix changing his name to a symbol.. he had no time for that hollywood PR bullshit, he just played.

TheFrog said:

Prince is very business savy.Most artist would have freaked out if they were in the industry choke hold.Not only did Prince come out ahead,but he made music history with the name change.Brilliant!

Snap said:

this converstaion always happens when i tell people that i love Prince. they always make some stupid wisecrack about him changing to the symbol and how he went all totally insane and stuff like that. they start saying stuff that they don't even know about. so i tell them the real reason why he changed his name to the symbol, just like snap just described. I have to say that some of the strange things he did during the symbol era were not very cool or likeable (some were just embarassing -tora tora-) but i think that it was actually a good idea, that way he could hold onto the rights to his music. and i just read in Rolling Stone that George Clinton got the rights to 4 of his songs from Parliment, so good for him. all they want are the rights to something that they created.And good for them for fighting for it.

DMSR said:

You know what? That period produced some of Prince's greatest music. I wish he hadn't changed his name sometimes. I don't share your feelings on this one - definitely. If you went away, then that's cuz you're shallow. That's not my problem, though.

larryluvlife said:

eh?

If he made musical history with the name change, it was just because he was one of the biggest superstars of the previous 10 years-ish at the time, and he did something utterly bonkers, as far as everyone else was concerned.

Honestly, i don't think this was a career move showing commercial nous. I don't have a problem with it, but the idea that it was some sort of groundbreakingly brilliant business move ain't true.

TheFrog said:

Co-sign. Although - luckily for him - it has turned out well in the end. I agree with KoolEase, though, ridiculous as it may seem to some people, I do think it took some courage, self-esteem and faith. I've never thought of it that way before. Or maybe he was just stubborn and too bloody-minded. Or a bit of both.

My brain's starting to hurt. Anyone got a coffee?

DMSR said:

Great post!