This morning, I was checking into the history of Vanity/Apollonia 6 and The Time... and somewhere on Wikipedia (forgive me if they're wrong), they said that part of his contract was to recruit new talents for the label.

If Wikipedia told the truth about that: That's an interesting little clause they have right there.

Sure, his contract with them wasn't perfect. But it has me curious now. What other things was he required to do while under their contract?

Aside from soundtrack projects as well, I knew that was part of the deal (=Batman).

Vanity/Apollonia 6 new talent

theodore said:

Are you questioning the "new" part or the "talent" part?????

DreamyPopRoyalty said:

- Belly dance for Warner's executives at their whim.
- Create instrumental albums to be played at zoos all across the USA.
- Pretend to be an acorn growing into a tree at various under 5's playgroups in Minnesota.
- Become the number one U.S. weather girl by dragging up to broadcast the forecast (some Lovesexy era pics confirm this).
- Release a piss-poor album on Arista in the ironically-named year of 1999 in order to help destroy some of Warner's competition.
- Learn how to make great tofu to serve to Madonna and REM during posh Warner Bros parties.
- Find a cure for baldness.

Haystack said:

nobody ever seems to take me seriously with these kinds of questions.

I think I do understand the dispute over why he wrote "Slave" on his face and "the suits" wouldn't let him send out Come & TGE simulatenously... but regarding his contract, if I knew other "contractual obligations" he had, I could see why they wouldn't let him.

DreamyPopRoyalty said:

Well, the BBC did a documentary a couple of years back called 'Prince's Millions' (it was part of a series where they looked at a lot of various megastars, 'Madonna's Millions' etc etc). There was a claim made by somebody that the whole Warner Bros. fallout was somewhat of a put-on and apparently, Prince was nothing but polite and co-operative with them throughout his supposed 'Slave' years.
Considering that, ultimately, Prince did get out of his contract earlier than was originally thought, I think that this claim is possibly somewhere near the truth.
Ultimately, WB were very good to Prince throughout his career with them. Giving him that much control over his albums in the beginning, allowing him a double album (1999) when he was still only a cult artist, investing in the Purple Rain project, happy for the then perverse ATWIAD to be released only 9 months after PR, happily accepting his decision to block the Black Album's release so soon before it was meant to drop, being okay with Lovesexy, giving him the opportunity to do the obviously high-profile soundtrack to Batman, spending money on the Graffiti Bridge turkey, spending loads on the Diamonds & Pearls promotion. . . He didn't do too badly out of them and they didn't do too badly out of him.

Sowhat said:

Dreamy, I think you have misunderstood what you may have read.

Warner Bros didn't care either way. It was not a clause in P's record contract like he HAD to do it.

Prince WANTED to develop new talent. He WANTED to be able to do side projects and get them released on Warner Bros. If Warners had not wanted to release The Time and Vanity 6 etc album, P would have got pissed with them.

Warners thought P did a good job, too. Those Time albums were successful as fuck without much budget needing to be spent on them. Same with V6/A6. Due to the success of these albums, Warners gave P his own label - Paisley Park.

Militant said:

let me correct some of your mistakes my dear apprentice
V6/A6 did not sell well

mirrorbestfriend said:

I didn't say that, fool. How about you don't put words in my mouth. And call me "apprentice" again and you will get schooled so hard you'll be crying to your mommy.

Selling 'well' is purely someone's own opinion.

I said they were successful, which they were. Successful in that the record label turned a profit from them, which they did, since the budgets for those albums were basically non-existent.
[Edited 6/15/07 16:03pm]

Militant said:

I see your point young padawine....you may continue to spew knowledge.....the force is strong with you i see

mirrorbestfriend said:

According to Per Nilsen's 'Prince - The First Decade', he signed a production deal with Warner Bros to develop new acts before The Time's first album.

Due to his age and inexperience signing his initial recording deal, this must have been separate to his recording deal, not a clause in it.

theodore said:

.. ok im sorry to do this, but Theodore, I love all your Christina Aguillera avatars.. I liked the other one you had too with her in headphones.. ok.. back to the subject.... continue..

Haystack said:

Flowerz said:

Thank U
Christina Aguilera is the

Militant said:

Heh, I kinda thought that it was part of his contract cuz they trusted his judgement... I mean that would have been pretty cool. But I definitely had no idea that they gave him the Paisley Park label... now that's cool.
There's a lot of mystery there, so I can't but be curious about it.


Yeah, after I got the basic idea about their relationship, I didn't think that WB treated him that bad to begin with... more than very well treated. It's cool how they let him do so much, not to mention let him record whatever he wanted to record.
It's like that old saying: the sky's the limit.
I guess that there was a particular time where Prince hit the sky with WB and wanted to beyond that... but they probably couldn't comprehend how much he really wanted to do and it was beyond their limits, so they had to put their foot down. But when Prince has a lot of creativity to deal with on his own, it's gotta be hard if he can't channel it anywhere. Phew... I have an idea, but I don't think I could ever tolerate what Prince's music-loving soul went through at that time.

i really love wikipedia and would attend wikipedia university if such a thing existed, but unfortunately it poses the risk of not being too accurate/false since it's the public's encyclopedia

InsatiableCream said: