For years,we heard rumors that Prince recorded an album that he wanted to release in 1983,but Warners advised him against it.They wanted him to wait awhile so that the 'Purple Rain' soundtrack could be the proper follow-up to '1999'.When you think about it,Warners were right.An album in 1983 would have been ill-advised (although we fans would have loved it,lol).Think about it: the '1999' album,a two-record set,was released in late 1982 (October,to be exact).The singles from this album were all over the charts throughtout 1983."Little Red Corvette" dominated the spring of '83..."Delirious" was a summer hit,and "Let's Pretend We're Married" charted in the fall.An album of all "new" songs would have surely cut into '1999's sales.

So,how much of this is fact or fiction? Was there really an album planned for 1983? What songs would have been on this album? It has been mentioned that the project was titled 'The Dance Electric'.

i don't know anything about the project, but just the thought of it is

SoulAlive said:

I bet we don't.


Off the top of my head, I'm gonna say this confusion comes from Prince saying something like 'I had enough songs to make an album inbetween 1999 and Purple Rain'... Which of course would be true.

BTW, 'The Dance Electric', the song, was recorded Aug.1984, which is after the release of Purple Rain, so even if this project was a reality, it wouldn't have included this song as it didn't exist.
[Edited 11/15/06 5:41am]

I never read the book 'The Vault'...do they shed any light on this?

I don't know where this story came from, but it's completely false.

"So,how much of this is fact or fiction?"
100% fiction

"Was there really an album planned for 1983?"
No

"What songs would have been on this album?"
None, it was never planned

"It has been mentioned that the project was titled 'The Dance Electric'"
Pure fan invention (besides, The Dance Electric wasn't recorded until August 1984)


Prince was sorting out and filming Purple Rain in 1983.
Also, 1999 was only released in October 1982, and singles from it were being
released throughout 1983. The last single from 1999 was released on the
23rd November 1983, so that doesn't really leave any time left in 1983 to
release another album. Purple Rain was always going to be the follow-up to
1999, there was no missing album.
[Edited 11/15/06 10:55am]

SoulAlive said:

Haven't heard these rumours once.

He mentioned it in that Rolling Stone interview.

FruitToAttractBears said:

heres the exact quote from the 1985 RS Interview this theory is being based on :

"I think that's the problem with the music industry today. When a person does get a hit, they try to do it again the same way. I don't think I've ever done that. I write all the time and cut all the time. I want to show you the archives, where all my old stuff is. There's tons of music I've recorded there. I have the follow-up album to 1999. I could put it all together and play it for you, and you would go "Yeah!" And I could put it out, and it would probably sell what 1999 did. But I always try to do something different and conquer new ground. "

the full interviews here:
http://princetext.tripod....one85.html

and as we can see Prince never said he planned to release an album in 1983 ,
sure he could've , we all know hes got countless songs in the vault , but theres no statement there saying he was going to release a follow-up album to 1999 , just the statement that he could have .

I remember him also saying something along the lines of how easy it would be
for him to release 1999 part 2, and how he had more than enough material to do
just that, but that's not what he wanted to do. He said something similar about
following up Purple Rain too. These comments are no-doubt where this missing
album myth came from.

Not really. I remember first hearing "Dirty Mind", "Controversy", and "1999" in the fall shortly after the beginning of the school year. By the time the end of the school year came around and the summer began, the songs from a new Prince album had usually faded out and a new album would come out the following fall at the beginning of a new school year.

I was surprised when I started hearing "Delirious" in the summer because the whole album had faded out by then, at least on R&B radio. I was even more surprised when I was in the record store the following fall and saw "Let's Pretend We're Married" on a 12 Inch.

The 1999 album was drug out way too long, but then again, the pop world didn't discover Prince until the "Little Red Corvette" single, and by then, we were deep into the album. Everyone I knew was expecting either "Lady Cab Driver" or "D.M.S.R." to be the next single but instead, they had to go backwards and re-release the "1999" single for the pop fans which was old news to us R&B fans. This drug the album out even longer throughout the summer and into the next fall by trying to gain more pop fans and us R&B fans were ready to move on to the next album like we always had.

An album in the fall of 1983 could never have cut into "1999"s sales because it was drug out so long it had already made it's sales. An album in the fall of 1983 (right on schedule) would have been wonderful because, by the time "Purple Rain" finally came out, everyone I knew was wondering if Prince had retired or something. People had started making jokes...."Prince whipped Rick's ass last year, maybe he's afraid Rick is going to whip his ass this year".
.
.
[Edited 11/15/06 14:39pm]

I have those Rolling Stone mags. I could see why the rumor persists.

I just read DMSR and it is clear that he had released 1999 late in 1982, and was busy with the Purple Rain movie in 1983.

vainandy said:

thanks -- it's interesting to hear from someone who was there and to know how it really went down from a fan's perspective. i was too young and was subjected to pop radio. i do remember being confused about the double-release of "1999" and hearing it being played all over the radio when (to me) "Little Red Corvette" was the newest single. those two songs were the only Prince songs on the radio for the longest time... people were ready for something different by the time "Let's Pretend We're Married" was released (everybody who was anybody already had the album by then and played it daily); though, i think the video (if it were released, with its bad lighting and all) still would've helped the single get more airplay.
[Edited 11/16/06 0:16am]

BorisFishpaw said:

Thanks for the info.I agree,where would Prince have found the time to release an album in 1983?

moonshine said:

Yeah,I think this interview is what started the rumor.He mentioned that he had the follow-up to '1999' all ready to go.In reality,he simply had a bunch of songs recorded around the same era.I don't think he ever compiled an album,had it mastered,etc.

vainandy said:

Not really. I remember first hearing "Dirty Mind", "Controversy", and "1999" in the fall shortly after the beginning of the school year. By the time the end of the school year came around and the summer began, the songs from a new Prince album had usually faded out and a new album would come out the following fall at the beginning of a new school year.

I was surprised when I started hearing "Delirious" in the summer because the whole album had faded out by then, at least on R&B radio. I was even more surprised when I was in the record store the following fall and saw "Let's Pretend We're Married" on a 12 Inch.

The 1999 album was drug out way too long, but then again, the pop world didn't discover Prince until the "Little Red Corvette" single, and by then, we were deep into the album. Everyone I knew was expecting either "Lady Cab Driver" or "D.M.S.R." to be the next single but instead, they had to go backwards and re-release the "1999" single for the pop fans which was old news to us R&B fans. This drug the album out even longer throughout the summer and into the next fall by trying to gain more pop fans and us R&B fans were ready to move on to the next album like we always had.

An album in the fall of 1983 could never have cut into "1999"s sales because it was drug out so long it had already made it's sales. An album in the fall of 1983 (right on schedule) would have been wonderful because, by the time "Purple Rain" finally came out, everyone I knew was wondering if Prince had retired or something. People had started making jokes...."Prince whipped Rick's ass last year, maybe he's afraid Rick is going to whip his ass this year". [/quote]


Sometimes I wonder if the right singles were released from '1999'.Don't get me wrong,I love all four singles.But what about "Automatic" and "Lady Cab Driver"? It seems almost absurd that those songs never became singles.I guess it didn't matter anyway.Nearly everything on this album got some radio airplay anyway,at least in my area.

BorisFishpaw said:

Thanks Boris, whenever I reads your posts I feel like a gavel just got slammed down which makes your information and comments final.

i heard that Prince has planned to release an album in 1983, all i know is that the track called "Moonbeam Levels" was suppose to be on it.

If only.

The tantalizing thing is that the Rolling Stone interview finds Prince saying that he had the follow-up album to 1999, not a follow-up album to 1999. Yes, those of us who bleed 1999 are that particular about the details.

playme3121 said:

Don't fool yourselves, he was very busy and we got to hear the fruits of his labour. He was touring for 1999, recorded extended versions for the 1982 album singles (including the singles for Vanity 6 and What Time Is It); he recorded material for Vanity 6's followup which turned into Apollonia 6, plus Ice Cream Castle and Purple Rain.

I mean, damn.

It was a wonderful time. I was just starting the tenth grade and I wish I had been even older at the time so I could have drank, gone to clubs, done other things... ... and fully enjoyed the era instead of just enjoying it through radio, friends, and skating rinks.

They played so many songs from the "1999" album on the R&B stations in my area. However, I never started hearing "Little Red Corvette" on R&B radio until, all of a sudden, one day they played the 12 Inch version and they never played the album or single version. No one was expecting it to be the next single. In fact, it would have been a lot of people's last choice since radio wasn't playing it.

I started seeing the "1999" video on "Night Tracks". My siblings listened to pop radio so I started hearing the single and the album version on pop radio. It really took off on pop radio. The video shows started playing the video for "Little Red Corvette" often and started playing the "1999" video a lot more than they had before. Then one day I was in the record store one day and saw the "1999" single in a new sleeve with the "negative" picture of Prince on the cover. It had been re-released. The original one I had bought before the album came out was in a generic purple sleeve.

vainandy said:

And he recorded this in 1983.

He knew exactly what he was doing. "1999" came out before the album was released and his usual R&B audience responded to it. The video got a little airplay on the video shows so he released "Little Red Corvette" since he had the pop audience's attention. It caught on and he re-released "1999", then "Delirious" (more pop than R&B), and "Let's Pretend We're Married" (more pop than R&B).

Although, at the time, it just looked like he was releasing singles in the order they came on the album.



I just knew "Lady Cab Driver" was going to be the second single. Some of the R&B stations were playing it so much, they started making their own edits of it to play in the daytime hours.



This is what the radio in my area played....

R&B Radio:

1999 (the single)...before the album came out
1999 (the album version)....after the album came out
D.M.S.R.
Lady Cab Driver
Automatic
Free
International Lover
Little Red Corvette (12 Inch)...only after single was released and never the single or album version
Delirious (album version)....only after it was released as a single
Various tracks from The Time, Vanity 6, and Andre Cymone

Pop Radio:

Little Red Corvette (single or album version)...never the 12 Inch
1999 (single)...never the album version
Delirious (single or album version)
None of the songs from the associated artists.
.
.
[Edited 11/16/06 15:14pm]

They played "Free"?

They played the hell out of it.

vainandy said:

Curious, never would have guessed it to be radio fodder.

Who knows for sure? I sure in the hell don't. Just going by what I saw in a Black Teen mag where they listed some songs. But I can tell u this: Me being a songwriter, I know from experience; U can easily write a song and demo it but not fully commit the song to master. I'm sure they're several songs that P had ALREADY written before hand. The Vault and D.M.S.R. only supply the dates where the songs are actually recorded. Not written or when they were demoed for that matter. Being as prolific of a songwriter as P was, there's no telling how long in advanced he had a song before he actually cut the song. It doesn't matter anyways. He DIDN'T release an album in 83. Everyone knows that for certain.

NouveauDance said:

But certainly an album titled The Dance Electric could have been an idea.

CinisterCee said:

And why not?!

Moonbeam said:

sorry.

BorisFishpaw said:

"Pure fan invention"? Really? And u know this how? Was Black Beat magazine "pure fan invention"? Because they sure did mention the title "The Dance Electric". What's a trip is your utmost certainty about this project. Comments like "None. It was never planned." And "100% false" are hella strong comments to make. Unless of course, u know or knew P personally during this time. Or better still, u were a member of P's band at this time. Perhaps you're really Bobby or Matt. Then I would be like 'Oh well, shit,.. he should know." But because you're simply going by a few books that lists some recording dates. ...And how do u know those books are the Holy Grail? I find it more interesting that a teen magazine would pre-date a title BEFORE Purple Rain was even released. Or the actual song (Dance Electric) was released. Not saying because this magazine listed it, it makes this "ghost" album a reality. I never said any shit like that.