Was reading another post that mentioned that Prince was supposed to do a lot more promotion for this album. IMO 3121 was the most accessible album Prince has made in the new Millennium, and was poised to be a much bigger hit than it was.

My question is, it might be my imagination, but do you think that Prince's wife filling for divorce (I think it was April 06') through a monkey wrench in the promotion of the album? Anyone have any details?

Looking back on the 3121 era, I think there was a good standing behind the whole project. There were the couple of videos, the singles, and of course, the purple ticket fiasco. It also became his first number one album in years, which was an accomplishment in itself. The thing that irritated me was that the only single that made the biggest splash was "Black Sweat." Another thing was that "Te Amo Corazon" was the first single and it didn't even go to the top, as that was a weak choice for a lead single anyway. I thought that if he had used songs like Lolita and Love as singles, 3121 would've been an even bigger success. But hey, it did go number one and it got him a gold certification. The choice of singles should've been better tho.

I think there was a whole plan around that album that involved a bunch of things including a movie and the Temar album.

I think the Universal press release probably pissed him off. As soon as that came out, he did his American Idol thing and then was DONE. It was a shame as the songs were good, everyone was way more excited about Temar than Bria and it seemed like there was a lot more to come of it.

Yeah, for sure Te Amo was a weak lead off single. Black Sweat was the obvious choice, with Fury as the second single.

Yeah, I mean, Prince was doing 'Promotion' for it. He did that Bad ass American Idol performance, but neglected to mention he had a new cd out. In fact, now that I think about it, I can't recall anytime in recent years where Prince has done a live gig, and actually tied it in to his album well.

Also, his hand full of appearances weren't enough for material this good. Remember Mariah Carey back in 05' pushing Mimi? That Cd sucked and it still went 6x Platinum, But Mariah was on every show in the world. She was everywhere. I must have seen her do "It's like That" a couple dozen times.

IDK. Two or Three live gigs without sufficient tie ins isn't nearly enough for material this strong

3121 was successful, just not as successful as it could have been. The SNL performance created a lot of buzz, and it did go #1 on the album charts in both the USA and Europe. Black Sweat was also a hit as a video. All of the performances during that time were cool as well. TAC also did well on the charts in a number of European countries, so I can't say that it was a bad first single. In my opinion, one problem was that Black Sweat wasn't released to Urban AC radio, which has supported his singles most of the time. Instead, Beautiful, Loved and Blessed was pushed to Urban AC, and was listed as "Tamar featuring Prince." At the same time TAC went for Smooth Jazz adds. Bad moves. Too much going on there. Should have focused on Urban AC with Black Sweat. Then releasing Satisfied next instead of a more radio friendly single like Incense and Candles was not a good move either. Overall, radio airplay was the only thing really lacking with this project. Still, 3121 went Gold in the U.S., which is very respectable nowadays.

It seems like Prince is already onto the next album when a new one comes out...Prince is a music machine...As much as Prince is a business man, he probably just doesn't have enough time to promote on a grand scale.

audience1 said:

Didn't know that. I always thought that I&C would have done well on the radio. Yeah, to be honest, the last quarter of 3121 is sort of unfocused. IMO Prince should have dropped The Dance, The Word and BL&B from 3121 and just had a nine tracks of pure badassery. Sometimes it's not only what you put on an album it's what you leave off.

Also, Why in the hell did he go around pumping up Tamar when he should have been doing his own promotion. I'm sorry, but Prince hasn't had a successful side project since the 80's. And I don't think anyone in Prince's rotating Girl of the Month club has very good chops. If he's gonna do throw away albums for random girlys, he could at least do a come back for sheila E, she's got talent at least.

Great album. Not enough singles. Maybe the Divorce slowed him a bit,but he also was working with TAMAR and doing stuff.

The first single was a really bad first chioce.. the song "3121" is over-rated...." black sweat" is okay..I think hte best 2 songs are "love" and "fury",,,, but the rest of it does nothing 4 me.

love should have been released 2 the clubs ..