The obvious reason is that people in general have different musical taste, but could there to a certain extent be another reason? Such as bad marketing and/or that the media have turned against him?

Reviewing his 90s and 2000s output my analysis is that it to a certain degree has to do with bad marketing and media uninterest.

Perhaps he could've released other singles such as Jam Of The Year, Sleep Around, The Same December, So Far So Pleased, The One U Wanna C?

Perhaps the media was too caught up in reporting about the symbol issue instead of reporting about his actual music?

peter430044 said:

I think it's a combination of people's tastes and his music not being that good anymore. Lack of good melodies, harmonies and not using his voice to his full potential like before. Still talented though.

i think prince's definition of "success" is likely different than most people, so to him, he probably feels like the last 15 years were incredibly successful.

and i think in terms of everyone else's definition of success, well, your answer is in the previous sentence.

this last decade has been very sucessful! he's a man very much in demand..people can't get enuff of his funkiness

alphastreet said:

yeah ur right i mean its not as if hes won 2 grammys in the last 4 years 4 best vocal is it

Anxiety said:

Yep Yep Yup!

Anxiety said:

I agree, Prince has chosen his faith over what some would consider the trappings of the music business, I don't think he minds at all, he's been there and done it all anyway.
[Edited 9/3/08 19:19pm]

Prince was a victim of his own success.

This is my version and not in particular what actually happened.

In 1991 Prince was given one of the largest contracts for a recording artist ever when he was given the title of Vice-President of Warner Brothers Records. While signing this contract he did not realize that he was signing away his future as a music industry giant. The small print in the contract basicly stated that if he did not sell "1,000,000" copies of a album then the particulars of the contract changed. When the 1992 "Symbol" album flopped (by the new contract standards) Prince was shuffled into the WB "Black" artists division. This cut Prince off from about 60-70 percent of his audience. What this means is Prince's music i.e. singles would be promoted to Urban radio (ballads) and this explains why some of the potential hits from Gold were not released. This event also stopped Prince from making any money from these albums and fullfilling his obligations to WB.

Prince did not help himself by changing his name and writing slave on his face. This cannot be underestimated because changeing the marketing concepts of an artist like Prince is not something that can be overlooked in the reasoning why Prince's decline occured via the lack of marketing by the record label. Further proof of this was his success of Musicology and the promotion by Columbia/Sony.
[Edited 9/2/08 17:58pm]

The whole dancing baby thing and having his videos removed.The whole PUF and PFUnk thing, that hurt his success.the wole taking time to find faithwell,maybe that is what he needed to do . He is not happy and trying to find what makes him happy, music just is not enough for him . He has to hurt before he gets hurt.

jodi081630 said:

i don't think public image means very much to him anymore. he's already made his footprint on popular culture. he can be a raging douche from now until the day he dies and he'll always be known as a pop music legend. so far he seems to be making good on that luxury.

Prince actually caught up with himself. For so many years, he was ahead of everyone else that he relaxed, thus allowing musical mediocrity to creep up on and overtake him.

Simple solution: Prince must do a Back to the Future thing, and talk to himself 30 years ago. I'm positive that the hungry 1978 Prince holds the key to this stagnation.

jodi081630 said:

sorry, off topic but what was the dancing baby thing?

Prince wanted to be himself...Prince could have written "Pop Songs," that would have pleased the world. Prince was true to himself and wrote and recorded the music that he loved. That is success.

Prince would 100% disagree with your premise and so would I.

muleFunk said:

Wasn't it 5 million copies that Prince was expected to sell? Warners were prepared to give him a $10 million advance per album,but only if the previous album sold 5 million copies.This was a trap and Warners knew it.Very few Prince albums sold 5 million or more.



I agree,Prince did alot of damage to his career in the 90s.His feud with Warners may have been justified but I think he went about it the wrong way.

in the last 15 years, prince was inducted in the rock hall of fame and has been given lord only knows how many other special awards and acolades, he had a hugely successful tour in 2004 and his reputation took a dramatic change this decade as people quit thinking of him as some weirdo who died after he made "purple rain" and started thinking of him as a musical genius and a pop culture legend.

okay, so all of that hasn't given us SOTT II or Purpler Rain or Around Some More Planets In A Day or whatever. my guess is, puzzling through a critical and fan-approved musical masterpiece is nowhere near the top of prince's priority list anymore. if that's how we define success, we're not on the same page as he is, like it or not.

The same reason that other musicians haven't been successful....because shit hop has ruled the airwaves for the last 15 years.

Even if he did give us another Purple Rain, I doubt that, in this internet age, we'd all agree upon it being a masterpiece. If this forum would have been around in 1987 we'd probably have pages upon pages of bickering about the quality of Sign O' The Times.

skywalker said:

that's likely.

define success

i think he's been VERY succesful in helping artists become aware of how a record company will rip u off while the ARTIST receives so little. once u go across the grain of the industry, blacklist becomes the norm 4 anything u wish 2 get out 2 the masses.

secondly let's look at the industry itself. because of the advances of the internet, MTV, VH1 and BET r basically irrelevant unless payola is ur cup of tea. there is no market really 2 promote the music if a channel that came on the scene boasting it shows music videos 24/7, "music comes 1st" then becomes a lie in where it's all "reality" shows. so how can u promote ur new material? the music industry itself just wants hits from the get go hence there is no artist development happening.

so someone like prince that WON'T pay the fees 2 get his song heard on the radio is the rebel the industry doesn't want 2 deal with.

so in closing imo, he's been very successful in paving the way 4 artists 2 own their work and not give it away with little in return.

I partially agree with Mulefunk, but PARTIALLY that is.

I mean, its a common thing among artists with a career as long as Prince (20, 30 years or more), that they don't achieve the same level of commercial succes throughout that entire career. Most of those artists have a commercial (and often creative) peak-period of about 5-10 years, and after that it starts to 'meander'.
Look at Paul McCartney, U2, Rod Stewart, The Rolling Stones, REM, to name a few. You see the same thing happening with those artists.

But next to that, i think that Prince has overestimated his own abilities to manage his career. For me that became most clear when he left WB.
When he was with Warners there were certain people who really believed him in as an artist, but also people who said: you can't release a triple album now, it would be commercial suicide (look what happened with Dream Factory and The original Crystal Ball project).
Next to people like Alan Leeds and some WB corporates 'protecting' him, he also had bandmembers in the eighties (Wendy and Lisa, Bobby Z, Eric Leeds) that seemed like they had the guts to say say to him: 'that idea doesnt work' or 'you shouldnt work further on that song'. At least, that is my assumption.

After he did get rid of his WB-contract, sacked his original managers (those three guys with the maffia-names...lol) and did let go of Alan Leeds, he probably felt 'free'.
But feeling 'creatively free' doesnt automatically mean you make the right business decisions, or EVEN the right artistic decisions.
Personally i think Prince suffers from a natural lack of 'quality control'. Alltough he is often a genius when it comes to absorbing sounds and ideas and translating those into his music. I see him as some kind of 'sponge', obsessively spitting out new music. But without a good sense of judgement if every new 'spit' is really a great, or at least, good song.
The same problem i see with the formats and media he is trying to 'present' his music with. A 3CD-set (Emancipation) during a commercially declining career just isnt a 'wise' choice. Putting halfbaked sketches of songs on your internetsite (NPGmusicclub), and asking money for it, isnt a rather smart decision either. Delivering a rather good new album (3121) and not properly promoting it, doesnt work either.

To conclude, Prince himself might have considered himself 'slave off' after 1995. But the 'facts' (his declining sales, the response of the music-critics on another halfbaken 3CD-set, the quality of his material) show that he just might be better of with some patient and reliable managers and some bandmembers who dare to say: youre fucking it up right now, get a grip.

skywalker said:

I guarantee you if he gave us another Purple Rain the vast majority of us would die of shock. No one could deny the quality of "The Beautiful Ones" or "Darling Nikki".

Well, lets just hope Prince is able to deliver us another:

Bone Machine (Tom Waits)
New York (Lou Reed)

or

No Guru, No Method, No Teacher (Van Morrison)

As long as I think he has that kind of 'rennaissance' in him, i will keep my faith in him as an artist.

skywalker said:

That's the truth. I know I wasn't feeling Sign O The Times in 1987 the way I do today. It was said earlier, a big part of it is promotion. When he was with WB, promotion was falling apart after Diamonds and Pearls and it never got any better. Now that he's "free", God knows when he'll promote his stuff. Plus, the musical climate has changed a LOT. Hip Hop is in EVERYTHING, even to some degree rock music and Prince isn't going to go down that road. I believe Payola still exists too and that's another road that Prince is avoiding (though I won't lie, he needs to do this cause I would like to hear a Prince song overplayed on the radio again). Those are my theories, short and to the point.

Riverpoet31 said:

just seeing what johnny cash was able to do in the last few years of his life gives me hope that any artist can pull out a fantastic renaissance in their later years.

Riverpoet31 said:

Wow,you just said everything that I was thinking!

Riverpoet31 said:

prince is a fantastic musician but a so so business man imo ..just on the flip side madge is a fantastic business woman but a so so entertainer

Riverpoet31 said:

"But feeling 'creatively free' doesnt automatically mean you make the right business decisions, or EVEN the right artistic decisions."

True.

I think a shrunken version of Emancipation would've been a great album. I also think that while "Betcha By Golly Wow" is a beautiful song, it didn't work as a single. "Jam Of The Year", "Sleep Around" or even "Get Your Groove On" would've been better choices.

Another single error was "The Greatest Romance Ever Sold". Again, a good song, just not single material. "So Far, So Pleased" would've worked much better. Everyone I've played that song to loves it (they're not Prince fans).

Finally, I agree with several of your posts that there are of course other measures of success than commercial success. Prince has released many great songs that aren't mainstream, his increased control has had its benefits in terms of experimentation. Yes, he was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and won two Grammys. And his overall musical legacy is in no way in doubt. I just feel that even if commercial success doesn't necessarily mean "great music" it would've been nice if he had been more commercially successful during the last 15 years because it kinda helps more people to discover and dive into his music.

I think it's great that after Musicology, there has been a slight upward turn in popularity.
[Edited 9/3/08 14:43pm]
[Edited 9/3/08 14:43pm]
[Edited 9/3/08 15:20pm]

I can't really argue with anything that the board has posted. Most of all Mr. Skywalker really hits the point because everyone wants to be a music critic in the internet age.