I'm asking what album you think helped to make Prince "irrelevant" in the mainstream.

I don't think ATWIAD made him irrelevant, I think it did make him more relevant despite if people didn't take to it like PR

ernestsewell said:

Se7en said:

I doubt Purple Rain made Prince irrelevant

Come on people think about what that means and what the albums actually showed
It's not weither or not it sold 10million

But what affect did it have on Prince's vision his character his name

Purple Rain Around the World in a Day seriously made him relevant

songs like Pop Life Rasberry Beret America Hello She's Always in My Hair and an in betweener 4 the Tears in Your Eyes
albums like Around the World in a Day show diversity yet cohesiveness, risk and the quality is top notch

I'm asking what album you think helped to make Prince "irrelevant" in the mainstream.

really, though...what's a good example of an album hurting someone's career?

i can't think of any prince album that actually HURT his career. at worst, people have IGNORED certain albums and there have been times when he's been so prolific that a lot of times people don't even know there's a new prince album in stores. but i don't think that sets back his career. i think that's just the nature of the beast that is his career.

i personally think '1999: the new master' was an embarassment, but outside of prince fandom, most people don't even know it happened. so i can't really think of it as something that hurt his career if that rank ass tree fell in the woods and there was nobody there to get a headache from it.

OldFriends4Sale said:

commercially, i'd say that Lovesexy was the one that really kicked things down a notch commercially, at least in the US. He had managed two Top 3 singles on SOTT and another Top 10. Alphabet St. limped into the Top 10, and then the subsequent singles failed to chart - at all - on the Hot 100. Something unheard of for Prince's singles since the very early days.

He had a few spikes after that, and Batman may have been able to re-elevate him for a while, but he derailed it again with the horrible GB film (he should have just put the album out and released the film as a sorta glorified music home video). He did well with Diamonds & Pearls and was on a roll again for a while, but of course he completely axed that with the name change fiasco. Since then he's been mostly irrelevant from a Top 40 perspective.

So I'd say it all started w/ Lovesexy.

errant said:

but that doesn't make him irrelevant,
it made him so relevant that it influenced a lot of the sounds of the 80s and early 90's songs like When Doves Cry and Purple Rain are lauded as before their time (still)

When a church plays When Doves Cry as the song of that generation on a Sunday Morning U know the album is relevant

Anxiety said:

There have been a few that hurt careers... Mariah's "Glitter" jumps into mind

Se7en said:

I don't think Prince knew how high it would set him, I don't think they expected what Purple Rain did

But it was magic: you could hear it in the pre PR shows at 1st Avenue the buzz, the protege album that made Uptown or Erotic City seem real, PR was everywhere

I don't think they meant for it, and I agree, without PR he wouldn't be where he is right now. It was a blessing

NoVideo said:

did the ALBUM hurt her career, though? i'm honestly asking - i have no idea, i'm not a MC fan. but i do seem to remember at least one popular single from that soundtrack, no?

i mean, graffiti bridge was a monolithic stinker, but at least it churned out "thieves in the temple" and "round and round", and the time reunion spurred by that movie resulted in "jerk out" being a hit for them. so even that flop didn't exactly hurt prince's career.

peter430044 said:

I do think he thought it would be bigger, I think a bit of cockiness got in the way. Roadhouse Garden + ATWIAD released the same year would have hyped ATWIAD to a bigger degree. But the song Raspberry Beret + video were top of the song and video charts for a long time. Raspberry Beret video was voted(someone help me out) one the most creative videos or something like that.

While this song reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US

NoVideo said:

I think Lovesexy is exactly where he needed to be at that exact place and time.

The only thing I would change about the whole experience is the cover - that made people view it in a negative way.

errant said:

I say the same, I think he could have talked WB into letting it happen

I won't even say Purple Rain 2 because the music that was made during that era was so diverse yet so high energy

Our Destiny, Roadhouse Garden, Lust U Always, Traffic Jam, Splash(?)
plus so many other songs that ended up with proteges or just not released

2 me ^^^ those songs don't sound like PR2 and I think it could have helped boost ATWIAD even more: he should have released the song version of ATWIAD with the bass line

OldFriends4Sale said:

Dis-a-gree completely! Purple Rain is such a calculated hit machine its crazy. That's not a bad thing, but it was totally meant to be the album/movie/event that established Prince as a bona fide star. After 1999 put him on the charts PR did exactly what they wanted it to do.

NoVideo said:

I know people may disagree, but for me by the time Lovesexy was closing out, there was too much change happening, which is also a downside to Lovesexy, not the cover but a rush job on an album even the band members said at times they didn't understand

What album hurt his career? Albums that weren't released

Dream Factory
Crystal Ball
Camille
the Black album

to much change with personal relationships and which of course effect change in bands which affected protege output
there was starting to be a deeper cohesive affect with his band and those who would be Madhouse, the Family, Mazarati & Sheila
the Time departure had a serious effect on his career

MantuaPharoah said:

Anything by Notorious BIG or Jay Z. It dumbed down the radio station and MTV/BET to the money, hoes and clothes formula that we still can't shake over a decade later! If Prince went that route he'd get airplay but he refused to sell his audience short by dumbing down his lyrics and turning a meaningful video like "Money Don't Matter 2Night" into a booty shaking remix featuring Puff Daddy and Mase.
[Edited 7/23/09 19:36pm]

nyse said:

15 years was too early?

HonestMan13 said:

"Ain't no love, in the heart of the city.."
I said where's the love?
"Ain't no love, in the heart of town.."
Yeah..

Rinluv said:

well, WB knew prince wasn't interested in making any more hits for them, so it was a perfect time for THEM to put out a best-of.

Se7en said:

I adore Lovesexy... i'm not making any judgments on it at all artistically, or saying Prince should have released something else.

I'm sure the cover had a lot to do with it, but whatever the reason, it did not fare well commercially after he'd had a string of major smash albums.

NoVideo said:

He could have at least released the album tracked.

coolcat said:

Yeah, that was pure idiocy.

But i'm not sure how much that mattered to its commercial success, cuz radio stations would have rec'd promos of the singles anyway. Prince's image was just kinda bewildering at that point.

Lovesexy was this sorta big cartoon world that diehard Prince fans dug and the rest of the world just kinda rolled their eyes.

OldFriends4Sale said:

When you tell someone at a party that you are a Prince fan they usually reply "is that the guy that done Purple Rain"

I rest my case..everything that came after is irrelevant to Jo public.

Anything after Emancipation has hurt his career. At least before that he had huge hits along the way.

SPOOKYGAS said:

But that same person would say "Oh I loved that song Kiss,Tom Jones covered that right?" and that song would be two albums later.So he was still relevant to Joe and Jane Public afterwards

For me when I scan thru Prince's catalog I don't look for mistakes or what if's? I simply take in what he has presented and I try to understand

SavonOsco said:

Not likely, that same person believes that Kiss was Tom Jones song.

The truly fascinating thing is, despite the roller coaster record sales and all of the failed projects, most artists would kill to have the level of success that Prince has sustained over three freaking decades.

All the second-guessing in the world can't change the fact that the lil' dude has managed to do quite well for himself in a business that does not breed longevity. If the worst thing you can say is that he only had ten or so years where his singles were topping the charts every year...then he's already done much better than most.

ElCapitan said:

yes, but after 15 years of the Princeternet, we gotta talk about SOMEthing....

OldFriends4Sale said:

shoot, i remember when the musicology tour happened and prince had the big media push, a lot of people i knew were like, "he made another album after purple rain?!?"

i don't think prince has ever been "irrelevant" in the mainstream because of his albums. i think it's his crazy stunts and press releases, particularly around the time of the O+> album and into the beginning of the symbol years, that alienated the mainstream/casual audience.

i don't think any of his actual MUSIC has alienated him from the mainstream, though. whenever he's performed on TV shows, i think fans and non-fans alike aren't just interested in what he plays...i think they're interested in how it sounds, how he looks, if he's going to do a killer guitar solo, etc. who outside of his fans know the song "somewhere here on earth"? yet people ate it up when he did it on leno, just because it was a big show and he sounded great. ya know?

i think prince is at a point in his career where he doesn't need to be defined by his hits, because his persona is big enough to draw attention.

ElCapitan said:

actually we A GREE

I totally believe it was meant to get him to that Michael Jackson Bruce Springsten fame, I totally believe that whole PR era Movie Concert(s) Proteges and PR album was planned just right

I still don't believe Prince knew how high the bar would be set for him

coolcat said: