jtfolden said:

Let's be real atwiad and parade sold only on the strength of purple rain. Do really believe that if purple rain was not huge that they would have both sold the same amount as 1999 before the pr hype, i don't belive they would. Prince tripped up his career way before lovesexy, with releasing atwiad and parade Prince really alienated a huge amount of fans by releasing these albums. they were turned off by them, and thats when people really start saying he was played out

jtfolden said:

Lovesexy didn't help his career, but the damage was already done by then. He should have toured with sott and tried to gain some of his fans he lost with atwiad and parade, but he didn't do that instead he chose to release a concert movie that didn't help either. Like i stated earlier prince should have took time off before releasing another album after PR, or if he wanted to still put out albums every year he should have put out albums out that would only helped to solidify his US fan base and his US sales, and not put albums that would only weaken his US fan base and US sales, with each album he released

All i am saying is, his album sales and popularity in the US were declining with each ablum he released after Purple Rain. And Lovesexy was just one of the lowest points of his career. Batman helped a little bit, but it was not enough for him to gain back the support of fans and the media

Long reaction (sorry for my english, i am dutch)

IMO Prince didn't trip his career after Lovesexy, it was more part of a proces that started after Purple Rain allready.

As is often written about, between 1980 (Dirty Mind) unto 1984 (Purple Rain) was destined to make it big time. Not to say that the albums from this period were deliberately commercial, but he had happened to find some energetic mix between funk, rock and dance, that turned out to be popular among the 'mainstream' public.
In this period you can witness him use that potential appeal of his 'sound' in a way that it even attracted more fans: writing more 'white' sounding pop / rock tunes (Little Red Corvette, Take me with you), delivering a classic rock ballad (Purple Rain), playing it smart with provocative lyrics, and using the movie Purple Rain as a metaphore for the american dream (troubled, poor black boy makes it big time with his anthemic music).
With Purple Rain - the album and the movie - he made it big time, he became the superstar he wanted to be, his own sound and style, adjusted in a few places for mainstream appeal, was in 'pace' with the times.

Then came 1985, Prince had achieved what he wanted, he was a superstar, he had perfectionised his signature-sound. He then made a deliberate left-turn with Around the World in a day and after that Parade. Which were more about artistic freedom, testing out his musical creativity.
I think a lot of american fans didn't understand why he took a turn from his signature sound, that made him so succesfull. Because big, popular artists are often 'supposed' to cash in on their newfound succes. Prince didn't, and next to that, the new music he was making, wasn't as commercially appealing, less direct, more layered, and 'arty'. Not really the material to maintain a superstar-status.

The curios thing is, that left-turn, that shift in approach to making music, gave him more respect in Europe, I mean, Purple Rain was a popular album in Europe, but it was really ATWIAD, Parade, Sign and Lovesexy that made him a superstar in Europe, not that those albums were selling in a crazy way, but the critical hail they achieved, combined with the impressive concerts Prince gave in Europe in the second halve of the eighties, made him something like a living legend almost.
At the same time that he became this 'icon' like figure in Europe, the americans did loose interest in him gradually, they loved some of his more straightforward singles (Raspberry Beret, Kiss, U got the Look) but it seems most of the material on the albums was over their heads.

A turning point became after Lovesexy i guess. The Lovesexy-tour did receive a lot of praise, but the album did get mixed reviews in Europe. Some people stated he reached an end point when it did come to (over)produce his music and mixing dozens of styles into his 'pop'. Like Purple Rain was the endpoint of the process of him become a musical superstar (in terms of sales and popularity), Lovesexy seemed like the endpoint of a process of him testing out his creativity and his musical possibilities, it sounded like all of his earlier albums mixed together, how could he top it?

The offer to record the music to Batman seemed like a fresh opportunity for him, an opportunity to create music in a different context, that of a movie.
Alltough a lot of people in Europe seemed dissapointed with the music of Batman, IMO, Prince somehow sounded relieved that he could make a change from the dense, overproduced music of Lovesexy, and the more sober, electronic sound of the music fitted the movie perfectly.
As a result of the Batman hype, and possibly also because of the more straightforward charachter of his music on the Batman album, the album was a millionseller in especially the US.

And there it went wrong in my opinion. I think Prince believed that the commercial succes of the Batman album, meant that the american public was embrassing him again like they were in 1983 and 194.
But i think that was a misperception from him. As i said, since 1985 Prince had lost commercial appeal gradually among the mainstream public in the US, and his music became to 'smart', to layered, to creative for the general state.
The commercial succes of Batman had more to do with the Batman hype then with the love of the mainstrain public for Prince 'the artist'.

Prince probably believed he was back on top again, and that a new movie, building further on the Purple Rain story would become a hit. But as others have stated here, the movie suffered from a bad script, the lack of an experienced movie-director, bad acting, and the akward way it mixed spiritual messages with a Purple Rain-like story.
Next to that Prince had no clear vision what he wanted to achieve with the soundtrack. The Purple Rain album was suffesfull because it perfectionised his trademark 'Minneapolis-sound' and because of the urgency Prince put into it.
On the Graffiti Bridge album Prince on the one hand tries to combine more commercial, funky sounding songs with more personal, experimental ones. Somehow the album lacks focus, its neither fish nor flesh.
The abominable quality of the movie combined with the dualistic character of the album, did lead to a commercial dissaster in the US. While many European fans (who were more fond of his music between 1985 - 1988) accused him of selling out, trying to be commercial again in a halfbaken way. The Rainbow Children did recieved very mixed reviews among fans and critics in Europe.

Since then it appears that Prince is always moving between two choices: making more popular, mainstream sounding music, and get respect from a bigger audience (Diamonds and Pearls, Rave unto the Joy fantastic, Musicology, 3121) or following his creative muse, and testing out new things (Lively jazz and blues on The Vault album, Jazzrock on The Rainbow Children and News, acoustic pop on The truth). But somehow he seems unable to find a 'middleway' between these two choices.
After he scores commercial again with Diamonds and Pearls, he moves into vague Rock-opera musings and egyptian symbolism on The symbol album, After he releases a musically mediocre, but quite commercial album in the form of Emancipation, he doesnt even promote it properly. The same happens with Rave, a mediocre, more commercial sounding album, but he doesnt promote it, and his heart doesnt seem to be there. Right after that he releases one of his most obscure albums: The Rainbow Children. You see the pattern?

I think Princes main problem since lets say 1991 is that he isnt able to combine his desire to be a big mainstream star with his desire to create the music he wants, he also isnt able to really choose one of those paths and to patently work further on it. This dualism probably makes him to unpredictable for both music criticans and the mainstream public. It probably explains the very mixed reactions he receives during the largest part of his musical career

carlluv said:

It's all subjective but it's not a great leap at all. Prior to PR, 1999 only sold a million plus in the states. This is not a hard figure to hit with good exposure. Early sales of ATWIAD were certainly due to PR but he shook off those casual listeners pretty quick and the album remained on the charts for quite some time. He also continued to make music that appealed to mainstream radio (Raspberry Beret, Pop Life, Kiss, Mountains, SOTT, U Got The Look, I Could Never...) and these weren't buoyed simply because of PR. Radio had no trouble rejecting tracks that weren't appealing to a pop audience (America, Anotherloverholenyohead, If I Was Your Girlfriend, etc...).

LoveSexy, however, was tanking from the get-go on all levels. Prince was and always will be a mainly cult artist but even LoveSexy was not successful on that level. Even on the side of critics and reviewers who had lauded albums like Parade or SOTT, he failed to make as positive an impression.

As further evidence these post PR albums were successful in their own right, we only have to look overseas where record sales were actually BETTER than in the US.

So, to be real here... There's wasn't anything Prince could ever do to keep up with the sales of PR no matter what he did or when. He was on his way to being a stable million selling artist, however, and that's nothing to sneeze at...
[Edited 5/19/07 15:32pm]

In a nutshell , wasnt the real "problem"
that after all the money spent on the lovesexy tour that Prince left potentially relevant projects aside to recoup?

When offered the Batman project he jumped at it cause he thought it would bring quick cash.

Would his career have been any better if Batman hadn't turned up and the original Rave had been the follow-up to Lovesexy? I seem to remember tha the original tracklist for Rave was.. well, quite lousy..

tatocorcu said:

While Batman was questionable artistically and left some reviewers commenting that he'd sold out, the reality is that the album put Prince back in the public eye in a big way and made him momentarily cool again as he was attached to that juggernaut of a movie. Really it was for the best given the poorly performing LoveSexy in the US.

As far as the original Rave tracklist goes... I don't think we can make a judgement on that. I doubt that the album as we know it was intended as the final configuration and would have probably evolved - at least I very much hope so.

It is such a pivotal time in his career. It is interesting seeing how people extrapolate events both backwards and forwards in his career.

As a European, I agree with Riverpoet, Prince's reputation was made with the releases after Purple Rain. ATWIAD, Parade, SOTT & Lovesexy put Prince on a pedestal this side of the Atlantic. It is also interesting to hear comments regarding his lack of vision in regards the material released after Purple Rain, and the alienation of the audience he had unearthed with that album. As far as I am concerned, I am glad he chose the direction he did after Purple Rain. That was too big a hit and could easily have marginalised him as a performer.

I'm still curious about the period surrounding Lovesexy/Batman/GB. The decisions here smack of indecision, compromise and fudging ideas. A shame, as the clarity of thought that appeared to go into the career up until this point had made him one of the most interesting musicians of his generation. After 1988/90, he became something of a caricature and a curiosity... for a while.

BoySimon said:

I definitely think his career and music would have gone off on a slightly different tangent if he'd released The Black Album. I doubt he would have done Batman.
[Edited 5/19/07 23:55pm]

Do I think Prince tripped up his career...? Yes.

I believe the damage was created when Sign O'The Times -- which Prince knew was a major, major work, after the rushed Parade and intentionally challenging Around the World In A Day -- failed to set the world on fire, at the level of Purple Rain. He went through his post-Revolution crisis with The Black Album and cranked out Lovesexy. I think Lovesexy is a good record, and whether or not it hit a large audience I don't think it did his career any harm. But I think The Batman / Graffiti Bridge double-whammy was a major mistake. That was the moment (1989/90) when he could have sat back a bit, watched the New Jack Swing sound emerge, and then put out a great record in about 1990 that would have blown away the competition. Instead he wasted ideas on two film projects: the first was more like a lark, and it unfortunately sold well which must have made him think that this was a good way to attract new listeners. The second was a God-awful film vanity-project which should never have been made. Neither was a real, full-on Prince album.

When he sorted out his shit and got back to making music for the sake of music again, he hit a home run with Diamonds & Pearls (at least commercially). But he could have done that back in 1989/90, had he focused on music and not felt some obsessive need to go after easy commercial routes and vanity projects.

But in any case, if Prince were chasing mega-mainstream success consistently, he would have put out 1/2 as many records and marketed them properly, like all other artists. He wouldn't be Prince if he weren't eccentric.

But yes, he tripped up his career at that point, never to quite recover.