I'm sure Universal and even prince are surprised. It's a good single- woulda fit right in on radio. Now before you say he's too old and radio won't play him- Elton John still racks up Top 40 hits, Madonna, etc... What went wrong?

What went wrong? I think you could easily attribute it to the choice of songs to release and in the order thus far. TAC 1st? For the people who dug that and actually bought it, Black Sweat is totally different so there is no groove. Kind of like playing a country song on the radio and then moving onto opera. No one will listen long.

Anyway, BS is not strong single material. Its too over the top and not as smooth as Kiss, although its pretty good.

Fury supposedly is the next single and I think thats a poor choice as well. No congruity. It should go:

Lolita
Love
The Word
Fury
Satisfied
etc
etc
[Edited 4/4/06 15:37pm]

I doubt Prince even charts with the "singles" he puts out. Really. And Black Sweat is FINE. Damnit you people...one of the funkiest songs in a long time

[img]"Kind of like playing a country song on the radio and then moving onto opera. No one will listen long."[/img]

I get your analogy, but ALLLLL of his singles sound very different than the previous. There is no "groove" never was really. This could be why he never really hit one after PR.

In America, you get a hit through airplay, not sales, bonkers though that system is. So the reason is clear - the DJs didn't want to play it. So the question is now, why didn't DJs want to play Black Sweat? For this there could be multiple answers - Universal didn't bribe the station enough to put it on their playlists, or Prince insisted Universal didn't pay the usual fees (and so kept true to his song 'Jukebox With A Heartbeat'!), or with all the specific genre playing stations they couldn't decide what genre Black Sweat fit into, or DJs regard Prince still as a has-been and instead would rather play youth-orientated singles by artists with careers less than a few years old, or all of the above.

In the UK, the new number one got there by downloads alone which now count towards the chart. I may be wrong, but is Black Sweat even available via UK Itunes? So that hurts it a lot.

Personally, I've never been able to get into the psyche of people who buy singles. I always think, save the money and put it towards the album, unless it is a 12 inch or has an unreleased b-side or remix.

3 things:

1. When was it released in physical format in the U.S.?

2. Why not physical and digital at the same time?

3. Why no extended version on any format?


Coordinate simultaneous release on all formats, and give us a remix and I'll buy it twice.

And then maybe some other folks will pay attention.

He should have performed this song when he guested at SNL instead of Fury.

Already a thread http://www.prince.org/msg/7/184145