This artist who is desperately trying to make a comeback had the nerve to say that Prince is a product of the record company "machine", and that is the reason why he has had so much success in his indie efforts!!!! WTF?!?!? I am so mad right now. This artist I used to like(his music), but when he made that comment it was like OH HELL NAW! Grasshopper, you have a looooong way to go to reach the heights of my man Prince! It has been his awesome talent that he has risen to the heights he is today, he only wishes he could do what our man has done. "Wannabe little Upstart!" lol Hmph, I'm still mad as hell! But I know my fellow org family will understand what I'm talking about.

Who is this imbecile?

UndercovaBrotha said:

I don't like 2 name names, but the world referred to him as: "Mr. Halle Berry."

Prince is successful becasue of his fans, thats why his later efforts always make money. Let's not act like WB wasn't pushing him hard early on though.

As far as the other fellow, tell him to put his shoes back on. Lucky MF.

lilgish said:

Prince isn't only successful because of us, his die hard fams, but beause he is a natural talent. let's keep it real, WB "slaved" him for years.

lilgish said:

You're right...

WB has been a big part in Prince's successfull career...

tru6ediva said:

tru6ediva said:

No one forced Prince to sign that contract. If P was a slave, he was a house negro, alot of people had it much worse. That guy you talked might be on some sour grapes jealousy shit, but Prince has/had major label support, without it he wouldn't have been as big.

lilgish said:

lilgish said:

You're right, no one forced him to sign a contract.He is as big as he is because he has talent. He has originality. What other artist, during the time he came out, do you know can say they produced themselves from day one?

But who can prove to me that WB put a big push out for him. I recall no serious publicity from them with any of his albums. His publicity came from his controversial lyrics. People like Tipper Gore helped shine light on his music. Show some proof to me. BTW...He himself wrote "slave" on his own face in protest of their treatment of him. The only reason that a lable may support him now is because they see the green. Bottom line for them, it's all about the money.

who is Grasshopper?

tru6ediva said:

what do you care what people say about Prince? you have a severe identity crisis if you take personally what someone says about him.

it's a sickness how Prince fans actually identify themselves not only as Prince fans first and foremost before even their own accomplishments, but actually with Prince himself, as if his life is part of their life.

tru6ediva said:

If you see a big record company that gives to a young unknown musician the possibility to produce, compose, and play all his instruments...

PLUS giving him a second chance after failing with his first album...


I would say, Prince is a slave...

Bye

tru6ediva said:

You're joking, right? They let him make Graffiti Bridge. You can't say anything else to me about WB "slaving" Prince when they gave him the cart and the horse to make that piece of shit.

Anyone who tries to make Prince out to be the victim in this has some serious reality issues. Yes, he should have his masters, but at the same time, he was very much in control of what he did while he was at WB. They might have stopped him from putting out more than one album a year, and from doing double albums in succession, but they let him deliver whatever he wanted on that one album.

Hell, they let him make Grafitti Bridge. Any other company would have had someone in there with experience making sure it was going to make money. After all, it's all about the money. GB tanked hard. WB practically gave him a wad of money along with lighter fluid and a match.

dumbass said:

Dumbass, I do not have,nor have I ever had an identity crisis. Obviously, you do. I suggest that you immediately leave your computer and seek some professional help immediately.

Now, you don't have to agree with my opinion and my thoughts, but since you chose to attempt to insult me over a harmless thread, it is obvious that you have the crisis. My suggestion, take you head out of your ass!
[Edited 8/14/05 1:07am]
[Edited 8/14/05 10:17am]

TheBigBang said:

That is not proof. it is just your humble opinion. I personally do not like every single thing Prince has recorded, but I respect the artist and his art, and the road he has walked artistically. BTW.. Pop Life, was not shit.

The BIGBANG is right on with his comments.

Prince, while with Warner Bros., was given a lot of freedom to do a lot of things that most other artists wouldn't have been.

They put a lot of promotion into Prince. Purple Rain sold 14 million copies not based on the great music alone.

Some of the comments made in this post are very naive of how business works. Prince got a lot of promotion from Sony this time around with Musicology. Right after the Grammy's with Beyonce, Prince was in the papers for a variety of reasons including drinking Jamba juice!! Sony payed for this.

krayzie said:

I can't believe you guys are agreeing with Eric Benet.
The only thing fans and WB provided are money and fame. Call me an idealist but it's the music that made him successful. I don't buy Prince's "slave" nonsense but I also don't fool myself that WB was just out to nurture Prince either. They saw the potential earnings so they put up with a lot of his crap.

By the way, there's something wrong with you using that avatar, especially with that screenname.
[Edited 8/13/05 15:59pm]

muirdo said:

dude i presume its the Grasshopper from the band Mercury Rev? that album Deserter,s Songs was class remains one of my fav albums, especially in the winter for some reason

tru6ediva said:

I didn't say Pop Life was shit; I said Graffiti Bridge, the film, was shit.

And that is no humble opinion, miss. That's a fact. And with that fact is the truth that WB gave a lot more than people want to give them credit for.

Whodknee, OF COURSE they saw "the potential earnings so they put up with a lot of his crap," but there was a point where they didn't have to put up with his crap, but they still did anyway. When he was at low points they still stood behind him. Coming off of Graffiti Bridge should have been the moment where WB was hesitant to back his next project with much fervor, but they did when they promoted Diamonds & Pearls. I think that says more about WB than it does about Prince.

I know, I know, WB is the EVIL CORPORATE MACHINE. But, come one y'all, they let him make Graffiti Bridge, possibly one of the worst films ever.

It's not about agreeing with Eric Benet or choosing sides...

For forever and a day, record companies have been successful and unsuccessful in properly marketing pop stars.

There are a million other talentful artists who never get their shine because they don't have a label to promote them.

Warner Bros paid radio to continue playing When Doves Cry when it first came out. Sony bought a 100,000 copies of Michael Jackson's Dangerous record in 1991 to get it back into the top position of the Billboard chart for promotion purposes.

TheBigBang said:

Ok, I didn't realize you were talking about the movie. The movie wasn't good at all.

muirdo said:

I think maybe he's referring to the tv series of Kung Fu. David Caradine played a novice seeking the Tao. When he'd go to the master for advice, the master called him "grasshopper" while speaking words of wisdom to aid in his path to enlightenment.

WB was so bad to Prince...

* Allowed him to spend more than three times the budget to make his first album.
* Allowed him to record and produce the thing all by himself (with some supervising though!).
* Allowed release of Dirty Mind, while Prince got some name with that disco sound of his second album.
* Allowed release of a double album while at that moment Prince had not had one any momentum in the music scene (in sales figures).
* Sponsored a daring step in making the movie Purple Rain and bought him the Oscar so his fame could continue (and sponsor [see next point]).
* Allowed him to not do Purple Rain part 2 and released ATWIAD instead!
* Than followed that with UTCM and the Parade album...
* Allowed release of Black Album after Prince cancelled the US part of the SOTT tour and then without sueing him for breach of contract withdrew the album on his request!
* Instead allowed the release of a gospel album, with him naked on the cover...
* Gave him the soundtrack of Batman to make some money.
* Allowed him to fuck up his success with GB.

And on the negative side?
Didn't allow the release of a 3-set album (Crystal Ball).
Anything else?

Bad WB, bad WB, bad WB.
[Edited 8/14/05 3:46am]

Who's Eric Benet? (xcuse the igna-igna-ignorance)

roverlo said:

The very fact you say that WBs 'allowed' Prince to do stuff implies that they were resistant to his ideas and would ideally have preferred to have more control and force him to do things their way. And if a load of suited executive number-crunchers had managed to subdue Prince into accepting their advice on the music industry, things could easily have gone this way:

* Prince keeps his first album on budget and ends up putting out an inferior product
* Prince accepts Warners insistence on using a producer, who goes onto produce the aforementioned inferior product
* WB don't let him put out Dirty Mind, instead insisting he continue with the producer and dated disco sound of his second album
* First 3 albums do very badly. Prince wants to put out a double-album set but they convince him it will be too expensive, so he puts out a single album continuing the dated disco sound of his previous albums at WBs insistence because they have pidgeon-holed him as a disco act.
* Prince wants to do a movie with soundtrack. WBs refuse to sponsor it. Prince attempts to finance the film himself, it bankrupts him and it is never completed. WBs bump Prince off their label.
* Prince goes to work in MacDonald's.

Ultimately, WB and Prince was a partnership. He produced fantastic music, they marketed him really well. But time and again Prince had ideas that they doubted and were resistant to, but Prince was proved right in the end.
[Edited 8/14/05 5:03am]

metalorange said:

well at least in that scenario we would not have this discussion



And that makes them a bad company for him (slave-drivers is mentioned in this thread!)?!

roverlo said:

I think 'slave-drivers' is a bad analogy. More of a case of Horse and Cart. Prince is the horse, WBs the cart. The horse wants to go down untried lanes that may be shortcuts to the market, the cart would rather stay on the tried and tested main road, but ultimately has to follow the horse where it leads, or put the breaks on and force the horse to go a certain way. In this case, most of the time the cart followed the horse and the horse was right about the shortcut.

Ultimately, the cart got fed up with the horse's attitude and released it. It went off and frolicked in a field on it's own where there was freedom and lots of grass and was much happier. The cart just had to wait until a new horse came along, living off the profits from the produce it had already taken to market.

I'm sorry, what were we talking about?!

tru6ediva said:

No disrespect meant, but under inspection your argument is blinded somewhat by your fandom.

...and here are some of the reasons why.

1) Warner Bros gave Prince $180,000 - which at the time they had forcasted for three albums to put him on the map. 'For You' ended up costing Warner Bros $170,509 - and they still stumped up more. For a brand new artist, that's showing more than a little faith.

2) Probably the biggest career shift Prince ever made (without getting into all that silly business) was from 'Prince' to 'Dirty Mind'. Considering this was nothing more than a bunch of demos, and the high-risk nature of the records content, Warners still went with it when they could have put their foot down. Once again - belief in him and his art.

3) Warners up their promotion budget 5th album in, bigger budget videos, bigger tour, and MTV are pushed in the right direction.

4) Giving an artist the green light for a major motion picture on the back of 4 relatively succesful albums on home turf, and one with no real prescence outside of America to speak of... THAT'S belief.

5) Purple Rain - the movie, the album, the tour - if you're telling me they never promoted that era to it's fullest, you've seriously got your head stuck in the sand!

On the back of advice from on high to create a video for the lead off single 'When Doves Cry' to sell the movie upon (and as we all know, nobody had ever heard anything quite like that before - so this was damage control for this strange single at this point). The single sold over 2 million units, was number one for five weeks and became the biggest selling single of 1984 - all the while whipping up interest in the forthcoming movie because of THAT video.

Warners realised their artist had broken through, that their investment was paying off and set to work with (for it's time) a massive marketing campaign. It was nothing short of an all out promotional assault across all media to push the film for all it's worth. Normally, in the 70's and 80's, upon opening week a new film would be released to around 200 theatres nation-wide. Warners opened it in over 900, and added a further 200 the following week. Warners even stumped up $100,000 to pay for the post premier party shown on MTV.

What is often seemingly overlooked is that even up to his name change, he had very good friends at Warner Bros like Mo Ostin, Marylou Badeaux and Lenny Waronker, who had supported him through thick and thin. But friends or not, sometimes at the end of the day even they, (like Prince and the contracts he signed) had jobs to do too, and occasionally had to say 'no'. It may not please the artist to be told that a triple album 'just isn't going to fly', but it begs the question, would 'Sign o' The Times' be looked upon now with such respect if someone hadn't been there to occasionally apply a little pressure. Prince has never been good at editing himself.

Oh yes, Prince had friends at Warners, but like a child brought up wrong to have and expect everything when they ask for it he just got spoilt.




*spelling edit!*
[Edited 8/14/05 5:42am]

jayARDAHB said: