SexyBeautifulOne said:

good answer. Everything happens for a reason, right?

ya'll diss Lovesexy and ATWIAD? guess ya'll came in the the Prince game in 84 huh?

CreamyThighs said:

he's still running the quest (aka the club formerly known as glam slam mpls) here in downtown minneapolis. unfortunately the club's been goin through some thangs lately...

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

not just thangs.... THAAAAANGZ

Change his name.

TheRealFiness said:

yep...THAAAAANGZ. i'm surprised the place is still running.

DiamondGirl said:

Agreed. I always thought that was a mistake too.

TheRealFiness said:

nah they were BORN in 84...

stinka said:

That was a brilliant publicity move (probably one of the best career choices he's made).

He's made so many poor moves it's hard to know where to begin. The whole battle with Warner's would definitely be near the top of the list.

CHIC0 said:

ATWIAD was the right decision. You don't follow-up a huge seller with a commercial record, you follow it up with a record that is intentionally less-so. This is a career strategy that Springsteen has followed since Born to Run and it has served him very well. As he wrote in Songs:

SexyBeautifulOne said:

No they haven't. He was in serious financial trouble in the '90s due to many stupid career decisions and his '04 resurgence was only due to a retreat into pandering (a greatest hits tour); nobody cared about Musicology. Take away the hits tour and his career is still in a moribund mess.

Ace said:

A legendary career is made up of failures as well as triumphs. It can't always be perfect. All of his moves, whether wrong or right, failure or successful, have made him the icon he is today. There should be no regrets.

CreamyThighs said:

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

Well, that's a very romantic way of looking at it, but the truth is that if he had better management in the wilderness years (1992-2003), his career would be in much better shape. All that crazy bullshit in that period harmed his legacy and he would be a much more popular (and respected) icon without it.

Ace said:

Wrong. You learn from your mistakes. And Don't worry about Prince's legacy, sweetie. It's very secure. 2004 proved that out. It's totally pointless to look back on the past and say "he shouldn't fired this and that" the other. It's over and done. It happened, the shit it over. Prince knows that. He's enjoying his career and his popularity now. He's got a whole new younger generation discovering his music.

You can't change the past. Period.

The name change.It turned him into a joke throughout most of the 90s,as far as most people were concerned.

DiamondGirl said:

Artistically ATWIAD was a wonderful, daring, imaginative step ahead after Purple Rain. Giving us what we might need to hear, not what some always want to hear. With Purple Rain he raised the rock/funk genre to another level. With ATWIAD he reinvented a series of other genres of popular music. The man doesn't sell hamburgers. At the top of his commercial success, he fought for artistic integrity and independance. We should thank him for the risks he has taken in his career. How many talented artists are prepared to do this in the music business?

marxisreal said:

Wrong.

It was a rehash of Sgt. Pepper, made 15 plus years before it. Everyon knows it whether or not they want to admit it. hell, even Eric Leeds said it.



Oh u remember Prince stating that too eh?

Rehashing 60's era garb and writing was needed eh? "Reinventing?" lmao.



Back then you could do that. It was a different business. Nobody said anything about not having the cajones to do something else. But this theory that ATWIAD as this holy saviour and bastion of artistic integrity is ...fucking funny to me now

.
[Edited 11/23/05 14:37pm]

Sacrificing his career with this war by not promoting & putting weaker versions of HIS songs on HIS releases!

no one is perfect, Im sure if P could go back in time he would change a lot of things, just like all of us

PurpleKnight said:

Absolutely agree with all of what you said and I have to add:

The whole We Are The World thing that he handled no better ten years later.
ATWIAD as THE follow up to PR
Not hiring a suitable director for UTCM
Not touring the US with Sign O The Times.

PurpleKnight said:

Totally agree!!
And the whole Slave/Wb battle with the name change off course.
People really didn't take him serious anymore,at the time.

He should have become a judge on American Idol.

Dayum! The ONLY people here saying that ATWIAD was a mistake MUST HAVE been born the year it was released, because I remember when it came out, and I loved it! It was the perfect slap in the face for the PR bandwagoners. Youngins dont know nothin....

CreamyThighs said:

i was born before it was released and that album make me puke.

It was also the perfect slap in the face to a lot of the longtime fans. It was more like giving them the finger.

"Artistically ATWIAD was a wonderful, daring, imaginative step ahead after Purple Rain."


DiamondGirl said: "Wrong.

It was a rehash of Sgt. Pepper, made 15 plus years before it. Everyone knows it whether or not they want to admit it. hell, even Eric Leeds said it."


Was it a rehash of the sixties? Not all, even not most, of it. Listen to the music:

1/ Around the World in a Day

Alright. No problem to admit: sixties as hell. If you don't go very deep into the water you might even call it a "rehash". No problem. But it doesn't stop here.

2/ Paisley Park

Still knee deep in sixties "enemy territory". But I think his talent adds to it. The Beatles lurk around every corner, but it's good company. No need to get excited.

3/ Condition of the Heart

At last, we're out of the woods. No hinting at Sgt. Pepper at all. One of his most original ballads. Sometimes I don't know what he "reinvents", but there seems to be a lot of it going on.

4/ Raspberry Beret

Wonderful, classic pop song. Listen to the highly original vocal and other arrangements. Thank u, rehasher. No sixties at all: don't let yourself be fooled by the "psychedelic" video.

5/ Tamborine

Well, you might call this a filler track, but it certainly is no friend of music in "60's garb".

6/ America

I'm not especially hot on the lyrics, but it's a good rock/funk song. Paul Mc Cartney has left the building for a long time by now.

7/ Pop Life

Here he does it again. Reinventing the pop song in his own, unique style. Has some memorable live versions. No marihuana in the air musically (maybe hidden in the lyrics?).

8/ The Ladder

The lyrics don't work for me: too mystical. I'm more of a materialist/realist. Still an original song. Sgt Pepper/sixties rehash? Hell no, not even close.

9/ Temptation

Not one of his best songs, the ending is over the top, but still a good rock song. Musically, no affinity with the sixties.

So there we have it: 2 out of 9 songs can be related to the sixties, musically (although the overall theme is indeed very "psychedelic"). The other stuff is quite original and exciting.


"Giving us what we might need to hear, not what some always want to hear."

DiamondGirl said: "Oh u remember Prince stating that too eh?"

Well yes, indeed. I'm happy someone has noticed. I'm siding with the rehashing vilain on this one (but not on some of his '90s output, though). What does "lmao" mean? I don't understand?


DiamondGirl said: "But this theory that ATWIAD as this holy saviour and bastion of artistic integrity is ...fucking funny to me now"

I wouldn't call it a "bastion" either, you know. I sometimes see it as a small little castle. With small colourful windows and many creative bridges all around, and sometimes a little fellow called Mr Integrity comes popping out of the basement making funky moves on quite original songs. But maybe that's just me...

I do think the cover art of this album is very bad. Mystical shit, with that ladder in the clouds and the half naked nipple woman (disguised as a mountain range!).

Actually, people who hate our little friend ATWIAD make me smile. It simply isn't the bandit that some make him out to be, in my opinion.

Actually, once I got past the long into and the singing began, this one was the second song to catch my ear when I first bought the album. It doesn't exactly sound like slow jams like "Do Me Baby" or "International Lover", but I still liked it. I don't know why, I just did.




After hearing the first two songs on the album, the ear has already started picking up a 1960s vibe that kind of lingers. Maybe that's why I hear it or not. Whether that vibe is in there or not, I could be wrong but I want to say there is violins in the song, or something that sounds like it. I don't know, I'm not a musician. Anyway, that gives the song a sort of "country" feel which is definately a turnoff.




That's one of the ones I like better. I hear the 1960s in it but it is the only track on the entire album that comes anywhere near being funky....something that Prince has been from day one.




That's the problem....pop. It's not even strong pop, it's weak pop.




This was the first song to catch my ear when I bought the album. Even though I am a funk lover, I had been accustomed to and loved the rock tracks that Prince had been doing since the very first album. So here was another one. I do hear the 1960s in it though. It was also the one that made me go back and listen to the rest of the songs on the album to give them a chance to grow on me.


So overall, the album had two songs to catch my ear first, a rock one and a ballad. That was never the case in the past. Rock songs and ballads were the last ones I was getting around to after I was through listening to all the funk. There was only one song on this entire album that even resembled funk in the slightest and it was much weaker funk than Prince usually made.

I would normally accuse an artist that made an album like this, directly following a huge pop success like "Purple Rain", of selling out and turning their back on the R&B crowd that made them a star in the beginning. However, knowing that this album was also the type that would be a turnoff to the pop audience also, that's not the case with Prince. He just lost his mind, went to La La Land, and turned his back on both audiences.

I really don't have the time to list all the potential candidates...

PurpleKnight said:

Yup, there it is!