ThreadBare said:

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I guess we will have to agree to disagree. I think an artist should have to be accountable to himself. It is his music and life he has to be happy. I think it is possible that he just was not happy at Warner Brothers.

There were also some remixes that were not included in the list above... Any one know of others?.
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-The Greatest Romance Ever Sold (Neptunes Remix Edit)**
-The Greatest Romance Ever Sold (Adam & Eve Remix)*
-The Greatest Romance Ever Sold (Jason Nevins Remix Edit)
-The Greatest Romance Ever Sold (Neptunes Extended Remix)**
-The Greatest Romance Ever Sold (Jason Nevins Extended remix)

-1999 The New Master
-Rosario 1999
-1999 The Inevitable Mix
-1999 Keepsteppin’
-1999 Rosie - Doug E. In A Deep House
-1999 The New Master (Single Edit)
-1999 Acapella

-Rave In2 The Joy Fantastic
-Man of War (Remix)
-Undisputed (Moneyapolis Mix).
-Hot with U (Nasty Girl Remix) (I'm pretty sure their was another hotw/u remix also)...

The indie Prince has its good points as well as its bad, and I'm sure Prince is able to recognize this as well as we do. In the case of Warner Bros., it's interesting they only became concerned with restricting Prince's output AFTER a sharp decline in record sales. Nevermind that Prince had generated (possibly) billions of dollars in profit for the company (and he wasn't even 30 years old). From their perspective, all that mattered was he was no longer selling as many records as he used to, therefore, his timing MUST be off. Prince, it seemed, was interested in continuing his tradition of focusing on releasing quality material to his LOYAL fan base in order to maintain it. WB was interested in his regaining the 'top 40' audience, and holding their collective interest for the long haul by releasing projects with less frequency. Like, Mike Jackson or Bruuuce. When they release albums, the public views it as more of an event because of the substantial length of time that has passed since their previous releases. When Prince releases an album, it's viewed as "just another new Prince album", and "didn't he just release one, like 6 months ago?"

Look at it this way: if Prince wanted to release 'Crystal Ball', a 3-disc set, after 'Purple Rain', would WB have made him edit down to the 2-disc set 'Sign O the Times' became? My guess: not likely. They may have had reservations about it, but since Purple Rain had been their biggest album, tour, film, money maker, and EVENT of the previous year and one of the most successful projects in the history of the company, I'm sure they would've eventually caved and promoted the set.

But that's not the way it happened. Instead, Prince's next 2 releases sold a fraction of what Purple Rain had, and his next film was the turkey that ate Hollywood. Then, he strolls into Mo and Lenny's office with a three-disc set. This isn't Warner's fault, but it just goes to show you that the amount of respect one warrants in business these days is based not on how loyal and committed you are to servicing the public with quality product, but how much you are willing to do SUCCEED the tremendous feat you have already achieved - the "What have you done for me lately?" principle.

Spike Lee once criticised Eddie Murphy relationship with his contractors by saying, "if your name alone has generated millions of dollars for [them], that's YOUR house now, not theirs." As we saw with Prince and WB, that's not always the case.

Now, Prince has had a couple of years to work out the kinks in his independent operation, and overall, many loyal fans appear to be dissatisfied with how he's done. It seems that Prince intends this to be one long "experiment" (interestingly, a word that he once claimed he hates), and his hope is that the fans simply stick with it, all the while continuing to part with their hard-earned greenbacks. I say this, not to be overly pessimistic about the experiment, which certainly (on the surface) seems well-intended and focused on its goal. However, many of Prince's methods seem somewhat exclusionary, if not to those who have willingly chosen to take part in it and have been unhappy with the benefit, then certainly for those who WISH to take part, and, for certain reasons, are still unable to do so. (These problems have been well articulated by others here, so I'll leave it there...I'm long-winded enough. )

There are ways for Prince to fix his difficulties, and as a supporter of the independent spirit in the music industry, I sincerely hope that he's able to do this without the need to crawl tail between legs into the office of a major record conglomerate and stir up this "slave" mess all over again.
Peace!

-SWANGneedsaneditor