Why??... it's a classic funk song! it should have been top ten at least!!

I notice that,with the '1999' album,Warners chose the more "pop"-sounding songs to be the singles: "1999","Little Red Corvette","Delirous" and "Let's Pretend We're Married".Funky R&B jams like "Lady Cab Driver" and "DMSR" were never considered for single release.Perhaps this was their crossover strategy,to expose Prince to a wider audience?

Hmmm...they played it alot on the radio when I was growing up.

Krystal666 said:

Yeah,it got ALOT of airplay in my area too.Actually,many of the non-singles from this album ("Automatic","Lady Cab Driver","International Lover" and of course "DMSR") received airplay on our local R&B stations.

GoldenGlove said:

Well, it wasn't a commercially released single, so.....

it was a hit in the SF bay area!!!

The following tracks from that album received major airplay on the R&B stations in my area when the album first came out in 1982 and were played well into 1983.

1999
D.M.S.R.
Free
Automatic
Lady Cab Driver
International Lover

One R&B station in my area would have people to call in and vote for their choice of the number one song of the night. Then the station would play a top ten from the votes it received. "D.M.S.R." and "Lady Cab Driver" made it to number one many a night. "Automatic" even made it one or two nights.

It wasn't until "Little Red Corvette" was released as a single, that the R&B stations started playing it. The pop stations played their first Prince song since "I Wanna Be Your Lover" during the disco era. Once again, the pop world was late. Once the 12 Inch for "Little Red Corvette" came out, the R&B stations dumped the album version and played the 12 Inch exclusively.

For what seemed to be an eternity, after the album had gone out of style and we were all expecting a new Prince album, then the single "Delirious" come out. R&B stations began playing it but had never touched the song before it was released as a single.

"D.M.S.R." and many other tracks from the album was widely popular in the R&B world. The pop world only played the singles and they didn't even play the single "1999" first. Prince had to re-release it for them so they could play catch-up after "Little Red Corvette" had been a success. R&B stations, which had been playing it before the album was even released, had already moved on from the song and were playing other ones from the album.

Looking back now as an adult, I can see what they were trying to do. Back then, it looked to me like they were just releasing singles following the sequence of the album which I thought was very stupid.

I remember just knowing that "Lady Cab Driver" was going to be the second single. I even used to make my own edits of the song trying to predict if that's how Prince would have cut the song.

This one would get the club bumpin back in the day and I would know cause I was there every night.It should have been released and there should have been a video for this the ultimate funk jam. I got so much pleasure from hearing this on the Musicology tour and they tore it up.It really brought back a lot of college memories when I would pull some pretty pretty out on the floor and show em how it was done.

butterfli25 said:

KSOL played that song to death,and so did KDIA

Surprisingly on early CD releases of the 1999 album in the UK, DMSR was taken off in order to fit the other songs on the disk. Seems like Warner's thought DMSR was the weakest track on the album.

GoldiesParade said:

DavidEye said:

yes of course you would remember...

GoldenGlove said:

yes that's why I didn't buy that shit

GoldiesParade said:

Yeah, I had that. There's nothing to say they thought it was the weakest track, but why else would they remove it?

Probably some uptight white businessman who couldn't clap on the 4

Prince has a lot of unknown jams (gems). How about 'Strange Relationship', 'Anna Stesia', Electric Chair', 'Lemon Crush', 'Hot Thing' and numerous others. I guess were lucky that we know'em. Shit I'm happy & enjoy playing'em 4 the folks that don't know'em.

hey, well "International Lover" did receive a Grammy nomination
and it wasn't ever released as a single
actually, it was originally intended for Morris
it'd be cool if radio would play more unreleased music

GoldiesParade said:

Well, I never cared for it that much... But I suppose it was better than "Free".
[Edited 10/25/05 12:02pm]

DavidEye said:

oh lord, i remember those stations but your right they used to play the non singles alot.

NouveauDance said:

Exactly, you can't have a 'hit' if it isn't released as a single.
(well, I suppose you might these days, but definitely not back then)

GoldiesParade said:

It wasn't cuz it was a 'weak' track that it was ommited. It was because they
had to remove one track to make the album fit on CD, and D.M.S.R. had already
been released on CD at that point on some soundtrack album, so it was the
logical choice.

Yep, "D.M.S.R." was released on the Risky Business soundtrack; though, they faded it out before the 6-minute mark. I guess they didn't have enough room on that album either.

It was good enough to have been included in "Risky Business". Remember the scene where all of Joel's (A pre Scientology Tom Cruise) friends meet all of the "lady friends'? Background music was not only Muddy Waters, but DMSR

Not everything that's good is a hit and vice versa.
[Edited 10/25/05 14:25pm]

RepoMan said:

Ain't that the truth. Check the music charts, it's full of utter shit!

NouveauDance said:

Leave that poor Ashley Simpson alone!

Snap said:

Very true. The Time was originally slated to to cut this, but P switched gears on them and had them do "Get Lonely Too".

This is a very good question. Out here in L.A., in 82, KDay used to play this more than anything else off of this album. Followed closely by "Lady Cab Driver". Of course, neither ones were A - Side singles. KDAY played them cuz they were funky as hell and it was an audience for that. DavidEye made a good point that WB pushed more for the "pop" oriented material as singles. Why in the world would they choose "Delirious" as a single? Ya'll know there was much better material on there than that. Same as "Let's Pretend We're Married". Cool song and all, but not for a single. Unless they were striving for that MOR audience. Which is what they got. P and WB KNEW they already had the black market.

blackguitaristz said:

Thank GOD for Black radio.....

Only they would play the non-singles and the B-Sides....

Back in the day!!!
[Edited 10/25/05 16:56pm]