Found this clipping from 'Record Mirror' a UK mag. Prince would love a 'failure' like this now.

What can you say. The guy is very humble.

Some musicians and bands get away being famous with far less quality.(Take all the fake rubbish like pop idol and manufactured boy/girl bands and stuff)

I thought Parade was an excelent album. not his best but had some good tracks on it. Girls & Boys my particular fav.

I love Parade and UTCM.He shouldn't be so hard on himself
[Edited 2/21/07 3:55am]

parade is just a little pearl,
and if he thinks it's a disaster,
than he just doesn't know it,
pearls before the swine

andymacfunky said:

Parade is brilliant and Prince knows it. One of his best works ever....amazing artistic statement. This is so old its not even funny. His ego and the charts success or lack of it was edging through here. Which is why he released the moster "Sign" as a follow-up
[Edited 2/21/07 5:31am]

I would imagine he's a little more fond of it these days.
If not, he needs to come see me.

prince is the least qualified critic of prince albums.

I actually agree with Prince here.

I thought it gave him bigger hits than ATWIAD. Anyway it's a better album than it's predicessor.

Anx said:

that's the truth.

for such a failure, he sure seems to be playing "kiss" and "anotherloverholeinyohead" a lot these days...and HE KNOWS if he busts out "sometimes it snows in april", he'll get a guaranteeed automatic grade A FAM-OUT.

and you don't make an album with songs like "mountains" and "life can be so nice" then call it a failure.

silly princey.

andymacfunky said:

By 1986 standards, in the USA, Parade was a flop. I am not saying the album isn't great--it's genius. However, it wasn't always viewed as such. Ask vainandy.

skywalker said:

i bought that album the day it came out and had it memorized by the weekend.

i can't say if i remember it being a success or not - 'kiss' was a huge success obviously, and 'anotherlover' got a lot of MTV airplay, i remember, but other than that, i was 16 years old and my head was so far up prince's ass back then i would sneeze and purple glitter would come out my nose.

Anx said:

Not to mention that there were killer 12" for just about all of the singles off that record.

Anx said:

Lawd have mercy if he plays Mountains again while I'm there I'll probably pass out.

Anx said:

Not to mention "Girls & Boys."

superspaceboy said:

yup...the 'kiss' and 'mountains' 12" were sublime...'mountains' is probably my favorite of all his 12" singles....and i loved 'em all!

I've read before he was disappointed with this album. I can see where he's coming from - a few of the tracks owe more to the arrangements and production than the actual bare-bones writing (I Wonder U, for example) but they still sound great and it's still a wonderful, wonderful album - definitely in my top 3 Prince albums. Life Can B So Nice is one of my absolute favourites, and Anotherloverholenyohead is a fantastic track, too.

Take away "Sometimes It Snows In April" and I put this one up there with SOTT.

*runs for cover again*
[Edited 2/21/07 11:09am]

I think part of that attitude was a result of the movie failing in such a spectacular fashion.

I think maybe he viewed the whole project (movie & album) as a failure for a while, even breaking up his band. But we've seen him cover Girls & Boys, Sometimes it Snows..., Kiss since then, so maybe he's accepted it a bit more again.

Genesia said:

Uhh Girls & Boys...have you ever heard a song like Girls & Boys before or since. Just sickly brilliant on so many levels.

Kiss
G&Bs
Mountains
AnotherLover
Do u Lie
I wonder U

Just ridiculous and how it all ties together....art at its best. Prince poured his heart into that thing...don't let these dated ass comments fool you.

In fact ya'll think about this (and this is why I think Prince is the bomb)

Prince released 1999, Purple Rain, ATWIAD, Parade, Sign & Lovesexy all in a f'in row. The breadth of material he covered and well in these records was staggering. You will never see it again

Parade may have been the best of the bunch...not as commercial (which is fine by me) but artistically the best
[Edited 2/21/07 15:46pm]

NDRU said:

i've always thought that prince judges his past music less on his artistic achievements or the quality of the work, and more on where his mind was at the time, what was going on in his life, who he surrounded himself with, whether he was happy or unhappy, etc....so if he made 'parade' during a bleak time in his life, even if it was a blip on the map of his life, then i can see him thinking it wasn't a great album.

which brings me back to my previous statement about how prince isn't qualified to criticize prince albums.
[Edited 2/21/07 16:43pm]

Yeah, I'm sure glad I didn't release such a failure of an album when I was 27 years old. Good thing I just kept that locked away in my vault and worked a crappy office job instead.

Anx said:

This is sooooo damned true.


He was on some radio station promoting Musicology once, and they asked him which song he'd like them to play an excerpt of. He chose "call my name" as if it were the obvious hit.

Imago said:

Yeah, while we're on the subject, Prince should never be the one to pick which tracks are offered up for public consumption before an album's release.

Imago said:

that's just because it was the song selected as the single at the time and he was warbling on about monogamy and marriage almost as if he meant it.

booyah said:

Only Prince fans want to hear him release a damned ballad as single. And only a certain Prince fan at that.

Not only was it considered a failure but it was butt of many a joke.

Well, he made an excellent choice by choosing "Kiss" to be the lead single to "Parade". After so many people were disappointed with "Around The World In A Day" and threatening to never buy another Prince album, "Kiss" fooled them into thinking the "Old Prince" was back, only to be disappointed even more when they bought the album and heard that the rest of it was even more far out than "Around The World In A Day".

Anx said:

Good point. His "negative" music is often the best, as with many artists, but his motivations for making music are something he seems to call into question pretty regularly.

I appreciated Parade the way it is over the years. When I first heard it, I was disappointed by it because I still expected a funkier album or close to Purple Rain but still I like it better than ATWIAD.

I wondered would the album sold better had he released Girls and Boys and then Anotherloverholenyohead instead of Mountains? No dispresect to that song and I love it dont get me wrong but that wasn't a radio-friendly tune! I think that Bobby Z said the same thing that Prince should have chosen Girls and Boys as his second single. Once he choose Mountains, the album just falling off the charts in the US. I noticed that when I found and listened to those yearbyyear mixes that Chicago and NYC DJs did in 1986, I often heard Girls and Boys, Kiss, and Anotherloverholenyohead because they did very well in R&B charts and were more R&Bish but never Mountains.

I think that Prince made that comment at the time because 1986 was a very rough year for him and he was devastated with Under the Cherry Moon's failure and the album didn't do that well like he hope for. You guys right he still does play the songs from that album. I think that Prince is proud of that album overall.
[Edited 2/21/07 18:40pm]