Isn't it simply because it isn't very good? (Comparatively speaking)

The only song that made the grade at the time, was When 2 R in Love and that was retained for Lovesexy.

Don't get me wrong, I like much of the album myself, but the general drop in songwriting quality - as it followed Sign O The Times - is patently there for all to see.

And these stories.. pah! Who would bring their OWN unreleased album to play at someone else's birthday party? That's not gonna go down well with the other guests is it?

And the spiritual claptrap about it being 'bad for his soul' bullshit is just that - bullshit. (this is the guy who sings about fucking his sister remember?)

It's a rubbish record - Prince simply knew he had to do better and did so.

Isn't it simply because it isn't very good? (Comparatively speaking)

The only song that made the grade at the time, was When 2 R in Love and that was retained for Lovesexy.

Don't get me wrong, I like much of the album myself, but the general drop in songwriting quality - as it followed Sign O The Times - is patently there for all to see.

And these stories.. pah! Who would bring their OWN unreleased album to play at someone else's birthday party? That's not gonna go down well with the other guests is it?

And the spiritual claptrap about it being 'bad for his soul' bullshit is just that - bullshit. (this is the guy who sings about fucking his sister remember?)

It's a rubbish record - Prince simply knew he had to do better and did so.

Isn't it simply because it isn't very good? (Comparatively speaking)

The only song that made the grade at the time, was When 2 R in Love and that was retained for Lovesexy.

Don't get me wrong, I like much of the album myself, but the general drop in songwriting quality - as it followed Sign O The Times - is patently there for all to see.

And these stories.. pah! Who would bring their OWN unreleased album to play at someone else's birthday party? That's not gonna go down well with the other guests is it?

And the spiritual claptrap about it being 'bad for his soul' bullshit is just that - bullshit. (this is the guy who sings about fucking his sister remember?)

It's a rubbish record - Prince simply knew he had to do better and did so.

And the truth about his change of mind to releasing it (I checked through my old magazines and stuff last night and got this from Controversy mag) is that Prince thought that if he was to die after the release of the Black album, then it will be the album that he would be last (or( most remembered for, and he wasn't happy with that prospect.

It was for this reason he went in a more spiritual direction with Lovesexy.

Further more, he used the experience as the composition to the Lovesexy shows!

The first half of Lovesexy is Prince as Camille playing the young carefree and sexually driven character vying for cats attention. This is reflected in the song choices - The sex orientated ones like Erotic city, Head, Jack u off, Dirty Mind, sister.....he's softer side is represented with I wanna b your lover, Adore, If I had a harem and when you were mine!!! He makes a final move with superfunkycalifragisexy but when he realises that cat is cheating (with Bob George) he is taken over by his dark side - Spooky Electric- and he ends up shooting cat and then getting shot dead himself buy the police!!!!

Anna stesia represents Camilles redemption, he saves his soul, crosses the line
and finds God!!!!

The second half of the show starts with Lovesexy (God) alowing Camille to be reborn, but he is reborn as Prince! All spritually enlightened and ready to preach that God is Alive!!! You know the rest.


Believe what you want, that is fine - but being around at the time, these questions had already been considered and many were answered!!!

this might also help shed alittle light on the subject, It is taken from either melody maker or NME magazine

I just came across a website with a bunch of theories on question 2.

http://www.theblackalbum.info/

Here was something about the supposed 'epiphany' he had that night:

"That night [Dec. 1st, 1987] he met Ingrid Chavez. She is a poet, singer, songwriter and nowadays wife of singer David Sylvian. The two went to Paisley Park and had an intense conversation. Apparently Prince already had some doubts about releasing the album. Somewhere that night he decided against it’s release. The decision appeared to be made after experiencing some heavy hallucinations when using the drug Ecstasy. In what he has called a vision the letter G O D were hovering over a field. It made him realise that it was his responsibility not to release this dark and negative album to kids. He also didn’t want this album to be his legacy in case he died after the release."

The link has a little more info, if you don't mind reading. But what this leads me to believe is that Prince was scared to death of the consequences of releasing the album... and with this vision, almost suggests he feared his life might be taken if he didnt do something about the album.

here's more info here as well. Why people think WB was the one who wanted to pull it is beyond me. If they had any doubt, here's the answer.

http://princetext.tripod....black.html
[Edited 1/27/08 17:00pm]

Whitnail said:

very interesting.

I've heard that the Lovesexy Tour was legendary... is this stage show clash between good & evil the reason for the hype?

a few orgers here can probably describe just what it was like to have witnessed it.

Whitnail said:

It was one big party. The shows in Holland were such an amalgam of goodwill towards Prince and his fantasy world. We all wanted a ride in that thunderbird, although I am sure I would have like the ride for other reaons than most ladies there.

Seeing the show the first time was a rollercoaster; all them medleys, they sound, the light, the stage. Polkadots. I had to see the show a few times to just take it all in.

And indeed. Dortmund was amazing. Did you know Prince was so in love with the Dutch people (one of his ladies was Dutch) that the tickets of the Dortmund show went on sale in Holland first? If you wondered why there is a mad score of nutters scanting HOLLAND over the intro of Anna Stesia, you know why.

I've been listening to the album for nearly a week now.

Quite an interesting set of work, I must say.

But I was thinking about the reason for its withdrawal/shelving, etc.

"Bob George" seems like the source of the problem. Looked at a certain way, it borders on scary. As if the voice wasn't enough, but the build-up of the music just before the sirens come on... and given that this was the part of the Lovesexy shows where Prince's "dark side" came out, I came up with this tagline.

Bob George: this is the song that nightmares are made of

Sure, it started as Prince's attempt to get back at people who seemed to have a problem with him, which he was angry with and turned it into a song where he balances anger with humor... maybe it just revealed a side of him he didn't know he had and scared him.

Just a thought

DreamyPopRoyalty said:

while that was probably the most "risque" song on the album, there were definitely others. rockhard in a funky place was extremely "dirty" and superfunkycalifragisexy too. p's whole mood on the album seems kinda pissy. probably why he didn't want to put it out. perhaps it's just our tastes, but bob george doesn't scare me at all. i think it's kinda funny. "ill kick yo ass, twice, uh"

He popped a pill and made an album. Case closed.

Isn't it simply because it isn't very good? (Comparatively speaking)

The only song that made the grade at the time, was When 2 R in Love and that was retained for Lovesexy.

Don't get me wrong, I like much of the album myself, but the general drop in songwriting quality - as it followed Sign O The Times - is patently there for all to see.

And these stories.. pah! Who would bring their OWN unreleased album to play at someone else's birthday party? That's not gonna go down well with the other guests is it?

And the spiritual claptrap about it being 'bad for his soul' bullshit is just that - bullshit. (this is the guy who sings about fucking his sister remember?)
It's a rubbish record - Prince simply knew he had to do better and did so.

Prince was upset at the lacklustre reception of Sign O The Times in the USA, the 'white' press was saying it was great, the 'black' press was saying he had lost it (his funk), after ATWIAD and Parade, he was going too hippy-ish, too "white".

This had been building since the success of Purple Rain, and was, a (minor) factor in the split with Revolution (a whole other story), this is a contentious, but compelling view.

Prince was cutting edge in 1981/82, he was out there, was he Black, was he White, was he straight, was he Gay, was he funk, was he New Wave? That was fresh then, but now, Black music had moved on, rap and hip-hop was here, N.W.A. and their like were right around the corner.

So he decided to put together an album of hard funk and 'black music' that would silence his critics who said he had lost his roots - the album, to be entitled - "The Funk Bible" (a title referenced in the opening lines of Le Grind) - the name says it all, with concerns to funk, this was to be The Gospel according to Prince.

The album was compiled entirely of previously recorded material (except for the newly recorded When 2 R In Love), and was to be released without any promotional at all, and without any information about the artist who had recorded the album.

It was labelled on the Warners release schedule as "Something" by "Someone" So it wasn't to be the direct follow-up to SOTT (That was scheduled to be the original Graffiti Bridge - which was already well underway with a script and a soundtrack fully in the works). The Black album, as it became known, was meant to be a side-project, taking the idea of anonymity from the Camille album (a funk album with no reference to Prince as the artist) and some of the projects from around that same time period, such as Madhouse and The Flesh.

The album was made up of several songs Prince had recorded for Sheila E's birthday party, 1986, a few out-takes and odd songs.
With him being compared to rap - Dead On It was a direct tongue-in-cheek commentary/attack on Rap, which Prince (at the time) derided - he thought, since rappers didn't play their own instruments, they were untalented (oh the irony come 1991!)

Prince was in a very unsure state at this time - The criticism didn't help - he had split up with Revolution, his long time band members and friends, who he had rose to fame with, and whom had become some of his closest ever collaborators (Wendy & Lisa), he'd broken off an engagement (Susannah, Wendy's identical twin), and Sign O' The Times was somewhat made up of older tracks from the Dream Factory and the Revolution era - so he had yet to prove himself 100% as an artist without the Revolution (even though their input on record was limited - they did have a prominent public image initially thanks to Purple Rain the movie - which had helped to establish the band idea, again especially with concerns to Wendy & Lisa).

So what with personal and professional turmoil, and critical remarks biting where it hurt, he wasn't coming from too much of a confident place at that time, he had started to question his own ability - To digress: although it was significantly different to the original 1987 work, the released Graffiti Bridge movie, I think, shows this self-doubt in the character of the Kid. Graffiti Bridge, btw might've been released in 1990, but the seed of the project really comes from 1986's 'The Dawn' and Prince worked on his Graffiti Bridge project(s) through the years and many projects - so it is an important marker for this period of his work, even if the end result was a mess.

So back to 1987: he put together The Funk Bible, an album that says 'You don't think I can do Funk (Black) music any more - Listen to this, this is the stuff I do on my day off, this is the stuff I DON'T put on record because I've been there and done it and I'm looking for something MORE!'

He pressed up an acetate and took it to the club Ruperts in MPLS to test the waters (House and Techno was coming in then, no doubt it was trickling into Minneapolis from places like Chicago and Detroit, and you can hear it in the first two tracks - especially with Cat's rap in Cindy C (a very slightly altered rendition of J M Silk's Music Is The Key rap - one of the earliest cross-over House hits) - I, myself, also think Bob George could have been a House hit, it's bizarre and dark, and I think it would have worked in clubs at the time, where House was new, and still unformed into the commercial genre we saw in the 90s.

At the club a certain number of events unfold, and this is open to interpretation, but according to several people close to Prince at the time, including Matt Fink (keyboardist since 1979) and Susan Rogers (Studio Engineer for years). Prince took ecstasy (E, MDMA) that night, also meeting, poet and singer, Ingrid Chavez (Aura in Graffiti Bridge).

Apparently Prince had a bad trip and that night he went back to Paisley Park with Ingrid, after excusing himself with a stomachache, he called up Susan Rogers and asked her to come to the studio (employees were on 24 hour call, so it wasn't that odd) - she recalls that he looked very spaced-out. He asked her if she loved him, and if she would stay with him, he freaked her out somewhat, and she said she loved him, but would not stay. She soon left Prince's employment. [ Susan's account can be found in Per Nilsen's biography DMSR, of which I am paraphrasing Susan Roger's comments here. ]

The next day, Prince called Mo Ostin (at Warners) and requested that the album be cancelled (regardless of what you may read, it was *entirely* Princes decision to cancel the album). This was 7 days before the scheduled release date, and the album had already been printed up in the thousands. Incidently, when Ostin left WB, it was around the time Prince started vocalising his distain with Warners and the whole name change thing occured. It shows the relationship between Prince and Mo, that Ostin cancelled the album's released at great expense to both Prince and Warners.

The album copies were destroyed, but inevitably some escaped. Prince received several cases of LPs, which he gave out to friends and close associates - and a small number of copies also ended up on the collectors market.

A few days later Prince embarked on the recording the whole Lovesexy album in a matter of weeks, practically in the order it is on the album, although I Wish U Heaven replaced The Line (still unreleased, but an early version is circulating). Also, both Lovesexy and Positivity are both different from their original incarnations (Positivity originally had Cat's Cindy C. rap, until Prince was made aware it was not an original rap by Cat). Lovesexy was originally scheduled as the lead single (official mixes and edits exist - uncirculating).

Anna Stesia pretty much tells the story of that night in the club on the bad trip - The beautiful girl is Ingrid, Greg is Greg Brooks - dancer and body guard from the Parade/SOTT tours (notice Greg, and fellow bodyguard/dancer, Wally weren't around for Lovesexy) - I recall reading that in 1986, some members of the Revolution, Wendy especially, had issues with those two (and maybe Jerome, I don't recall it being specified) - The resentment stemmed from Prince was hanging out more with these guys, instead of the band, their roles increasing to dancers and members of the Revolution on the Parade tour. Presumably they were just untalented body-guards, but I think Prince was enjoying the black male comeradery. (This relates to the contention regarding The Revolution break-up also).

I think it's possible that (if we take Anna Stesia this way) that Greg at least was in the club that night, and we know what Prince is like for cutting ties - seems after this event, Wally & Greg were gone, yet Ingrid, who was also there that night, was still around for several years. Make of that, what you will.

Prince's recording career is threaded by themes, the strongest being sexuality - and spirituality. This seemingly polar mix increased exponentially with each passing record from Dirty Mind onwards, really emerging on Controversy with themes about the afterlife, God, Christian ideals and dogma. Themes of love over lust, had been emerging through the music, 1999 showed us armaggedon, Purple Rain had several Christian-belief references, both overt and more metaphorical. Around The World In A Day was a journey of self-discovery and soul-seeking, parts of Parade & UTCM show where Prince was concerning his desire to take love (Susannah) over lust (his other girlfriends) and Crystal Ball/SOTT seemed to bring this all together, with tracks referencing global armageddon (Crystal Ball, SOTT, Play In The Sunshine), monogamous love (Forever In My Life) and Christian beliefs (The Cross).

The proposed follow-up to SOTT, Graffiti Bridge was also an overtly spiritually-themed piece (both the original version, for anyone who has read the script, and the later released version).

So the 'spiritual epiphany' of Lovesexy seems not entirely the eureka moment the tale in the tourbook would have us believe, but a culmination of years of lyrical (and personal) pondering on spiritual subjects, thus Lovesexy is less an epiphany, and more of a 'prodigal son' moment, after events of that night and the negative mind-set in compiling the material for the Black album, Prince resolved to strengthen and increase the spiritual message in his music - a manifesto he honoured at least for the next couple of projects.

I must stress, the songs, except for When 2 R In Love all existed before the idea for the Black album came about, so the music itself is not 'negative', but the mind-set from which Prince put the album together, the album's purpose. You could say Prince realised, that the album was not borne of natural inspiration, but a desire to meet his critics head-on.

Whilst this is inspiration in itself, it is from a more reactionary position, than a pro-active one. Had Prince ever listened to his critics before? So this was the negativity of the album - a piece of work compiled for release with no other purpose than to try to gain praise from his critics, or at least silence them.

When the Black album was released in 1994, it was part of (but didn't directly contribute to) Prince's contractual obligations to Warners. It had been under possible release several times before that, most notable as part a two-CD set in 1991 - the first CD to be a best of upto 1990. After the failure of Lovesexy in the USA (his worst selling album since Controversy), and the disappointment of Graffiti Bridge - both film and album - Warners wanted to let the market rest a while, and put out a Best Of.

Prince had other ideas - a new batch of songs embracing the new form of Black pop music, rap, featuring his new protegee, Tony M. - Diamonds & Pearls. Prince had made a total 180 degree turn on the issue of hip-hop, he recognised the commercial force it held, and went about incorporating it into his own sound in order to gain another commercial hit - which Diamonds & Pearls succeeded at fantastically - so well in fact, that it might have written Prince's 'death warrant', since in 1992, Prince signed the infamous contract with Warners that would lead to his name change and so much bitter wrangling throughout the 1990's.

You could say that The Black Album was the pivot on which Prince's career thus far rests - before it, album after album of progression, surprising inginuity and critical acclaim - after it, self-doubt, band-wagon jumping and technically fluffery - until, arguably, The Rainbow Children - another "spirtual epiphany" with an equally tangled rock-mythology.....