OK, I realise that no one can definitively answer this question but I've always been surprised that these two singles did so poorly. Prince was hot in 1986 just coming off of a #1 hit with "Kiss" so what went wrong with the other two Parade singles? Usually with a major artist just the momentum of having a #1 hit guarantees that the next single will at least hit the top ten. Any older fans remember the reaction to these songs when they were initially released?

Here's how his singles from 1982-1987 did (pop/r&b):

1999 (12/4)
Little Red Corvette (6/15)
Delirious (8/18)
Let's Pretend We're Married (52/55)

When Doves Cry (1/1)
Let's Go Crazy (1/1)
Purple Rain (2/4)
I Would Die 4 U (8/11)
Take Me With U (25/40)

Raspberry Beret (2/3)
Pop Life (7/8)
America (46/35)

Kiss (1/1)
Mountains (23/15)
Anotherloverholenyohead (63/18)

Sign 'O The Times (3/1)
If I Was Your Girlfriend (67/12)
U Got The Look (2/11)
I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man (10/14)
Hot Thing (63/14)

You can see that the last single released off of an album typically fares the worst which makes sense. So I can kind of understand why "Anotherloverholenyohead" fared poorly but I think that "Mountains" should have been a bigger hit.
[Edited 5/31/09 13:42pm]

I enjoy both those songs. They are good. But come on. They are not hits.

because.

The horrible box office performance of the movie killed the chart success of those songs. The brilliant Parade album also suffered from the movie. It was much more appreciated in Europe.

BigAudio said:

Very true. Not radio friendly at all. I still hear AnotherLoveHoleNYoHead occasionally, but I NEVER hear Mountains. Outside of hardcore fans, I don't know anyone who likes Mountains.

Without knowing what the songs were up against on their release dates, it's impossible to speculate. Who else was on the charts? What kind of rotation did the songs and videos receive? Was there any promotion for the singles with live TV performances? Was another artist on WB getting a huge push at the time? Has anyone seen my car keys?

I remember at the time the general view was that it was a weak single for that era in either Prince's music or the charts at the time.

In the uk anyway, it recieved great promotion. Full video premiere on the old grey whistle test, bus stop posters and limited vinyl releases.

The radio stations simply didn't rate it, and play it.On the back of Kiss, Mountains was soft. The falsetto was a mistake.

Horns were a big no no in 86. It was keyboards all the way. Horns were simply out of fashion. Mountains with horns was like making a single now with scratching all over it. Its retro, not radical.

The biggest error in Princes judgement (of chosing the singles) was understanding what made the charts at the time. Mountains was simply the wrong choice of single.

Parade was always going to struggle for chart hits, but Anotherlover, with a studio video would have made a much better second single, if he was willing to remix it to include a third chorus.

Failing that, if he wanted the retro horn feel, Girls and Boys is a much better choice as a second single. At least some clubs would play it.

Movie bombed
Comparatively crap videos
Bad single choice order (G&B should've followed Kiss)
Lack of promo

And competition.


.
[Edited 5/31/09 15:23pm]

I'll say because the movie basically bombed.

I think its wishful thinking to blame the movie. Mountains was released two months before the movie.

Wasn't the public stupid during the release of If I Was Your Girlfriend? Who cares about charting? It's all luck, payola, timing and a hook.

So I'm an "older" fan.

From what I remember, the Mountains video seemed cool. Liked the costumes & the flying through the air. But the melody never stuck. Not as singable as other hits, like Little Red Corvette, 1999, Kiss, etc. That was important.

I don't remember the Anotherlover video off the top of my head - so I guess it never got as much airplay. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the song, but it didn't have a fun bouncy danceable beat. Midtempo songs rarely chart big. I'd also say the song is too complex & inaccessible for most mainstream tastes.

jdcxc said:

I don't the public was. It was radio. They didn't want to play it because they took it as a homosexual connotation. A lot of r&b stations did play it and it did fare well. It got revived and revisited when TLC redid it. I think after that, it got the credit it received.

"Mountains" was a poor choice for second single."Girls And Boy" should have been the second single.It's a fun,infectious song that would have been perfect for the summer of '86.The perfect follow-up single after "Kiss".Don't get me wrong,I like "Mountains" but it doesn't scream "hit" to me.I wasn't surprised that it didn't become a major hit.In the latter part of the 80s,many of the wrong singles were released ("If I Was Your Girlfriend","Glam Slam'.etc).These songs didn't stand a chance.

NouveauDance said:

From whom.

Yeah, I think it was the movie.

Dayclear said:

No, I don't think it was the movie at all. There are LOTS of movies that suck, but produce stellar soundtracks. Think about what was going on in 1986, Everybody was so excited about "Kiss", but Parade (like Lovesexy) didn't have radio written on it.

"Mountains" was an extremely poor choice for a 2nd single. I agree that "Girls and Boys" would have been a great follow up, then maybe "AnotherLoverHoleNYoHead". I would have rather seen "New Position" or "Under The Cherry Moon" released as singles over "Mountains". As much as I love that song and album, it wasn't a hit.

The same dilema could be said for Lovesexy. Poor single choices. Why else would an outside remixer be hired to make Glam Slam more appealing to radio?

I would have been curious to see how New Position could have fared as a single. Short , snappy song

The videos weren't any good.

I mean, to us Prince fans, they're campy fun and a chance to see Prince visually. But to the general viewing audience, one video had a terrible background and Prince couldn't look any gayer with his hat, half-shirt buttoned up, zoro pants, and Leona Helmsly makeup.

I like the videos. But can't you see why a non-Prince fan might change the channel?

runningbear said:

They used to play it on the radio here in Dallas back when the album first came out. They also played "Under The Cherry Moon" and "Sometimes It Snows In April" during the quiet storm.

Imago said:

Not to mention the finger wave he wore during the Girls and Boys video.

The real reason it didnt make the charts is.....

..it didnt sell enough.

a case of backlash ?

after the Purple Rain phenomenon everyone got suddenly tired of Prince, the backlash happened, people were ridiculing Prince, didn't took him seriously, a lot of great albums and singles didn't sell that much,

maybe he was releasing too much music and people just couldn't keep up with him, or maybe his albums were too "demanding", they weren't the "smooth package" like Madonna or Michael Jackson could deliver.

people - in the mid to late 1980s - looked at Prince as he was a weird freak,

of course the incident at the We Are The World/ USA for Africa didn't help on his reputition,

I guess these are the reasons that Prince didn't sell, sadly but true.

Prince deserved better, Parade / SOTT / Lovesexy.. fantastic albums, but they didn't sell that much.
[Edited 6/1/09 1:27am]

Very good question. It's one that I myself at that time wondered. Me myself, never liked the song "Girls and Boys" so it never crossed my mind about it being a single. I thought Mountains was a very cool song and I could see it being a single. Out here in So. Cal, at the time after the song Kiss was all all over the radio, when Mountains was released, initially, it did receive a lot of airplay. Again, I always liked the song, especially the 12'. But I did notice that it wasn't a big hit like "Kiss" was. I liked the video to Mountains as well. Much better to me than the video for Kiss was. Anotherlover to me was a cool song, it was funky. But I thought it was TOO laid back in a way for a single. It was almost "Too adult" sounding, if that makes any sense. The verse and the chorus, the sound of his vocals, etc. But most of that album did sound like P had matured. He "sounded" much more grown than he did on anything from Purple Rain. It fit on the album and the film but it lacked a fire or a killing hook or something....Still though, I thought it was cool enough to chart better than it did. And it didn't get as much airplay as Mountains did. The video for that I thought, was kinda wack. So that didn't help. In the video, P even while he was onstage performing, for the most part, he looked bored. Like he was going through the motions. The band looked seperated as well. Like there was no chemistry. Wendy and her twin sis was probably the most interesting thing to look at in the whole video. P just looked like "When are we going to get through with this shoot? Damn!".
[Edited 6/1/09 1:13am]

blackguitaristz said:

But people can't really go by the theory that people were sick of P at that time because if THAT was the case, then Kiss would have NOT exploded like it did to be #1 on the chart. That single showed everyone that P STILL had the touch. But that happens though, some songs just don't resonate well to the public. I think WB promoted the single Mountains well, MTV did their part in playing the video. I think the image P had taken on, expanding his band line-up, the way he looked in the film, which was a big difference from how he looked in PR, I think it was a bit too much for the general public. Not his die hard fans, but the general public. They LOVED the song Kiss, no doubt. But Mountains had footage from the film, and footage of his band, which now looked like it had 30 people in it! The general public was like, "What happened to "The Revolution"? P was moving in such a fast pace that he wasn't giving the general public time to truly digest what he was doing. They were used to The Revolution from the film Purple Rain. That made such a HUGE impact and for the general public, they were not ready for P to hop onto something else so visually different from that. I think also, for some, Wendy and Lisa were not the only ones in the band. It was all these new bruthas in the group doing these "black" dances,..P was adding a new tone and new attitude to the band's image. That vibe certainly was NOT there of the PR lineup. Although Lisa and Wendy were still featured in Mountains visually, it was still shared with the bruthas. Some of P's own band members weren't digging the new inclusion so u can just imagine what some of the general public was thinking. THIS could have had an effect on the singles as well.
[Edited 6/1/09 1:31am]

It's also possible that radio just didn't want to let go of "Kiss." It happens occasionally, where you have a very strong, popular lead single and the follow up goes unnoticed because the first one is still going strong. Or that first single completely captures/changes the zeitgeist and the next one totally doesn't.

Rinluv said:

Fuck knows

Who ever was performing better in the charts at the time of release.

errant said:

Yes, well stated. "Zeitgeist", one of my favorite words and one of the reasons I have the letter "z" in my moniker. But yeah, the singles didn't capture the moment like Kiss had.

SoulAlive said:

I agree, but I'd say that nothing on Parade was good enough to be a single after "Kiss", it was so instant and huge, while the rest of the album is more of a grower. I guess "Girls & Boys" would indeed have been a better choice, but I don't think it would have ended up a LOT bigger than "Mountains".

LiveToTell86 said:

Yeah,'Parade' is not an album that's filled with "obvious" hit single choices.Most of these songs don't sound like anything else on pop radio in 1986.I think "Girls And Boys" is one of the few songs that would have found an audience.Like "Raspberry Beret" or "Take Me With U",it's extremely catchy and very easy to get into and enjoy.

As for "Anotherloverholenyohead"....I think that song might have done better if it had a really good video,using the studio version of the song (as Squirrelmeat suggested).It seems as if it was hastily thrown out there as the third single,without alot of care and attention.