When Prince , it seemed like it would never end, didn't it? Those were a looong seven years. Tell us your experiences dealing with friends and family over the symbol name, share the ridicule you received, etc.

The ridicule continues as no one knows he's called Prince again, and i don't think they care.
Even many that were fans have moved on, and are not going to put in the effort to rediscover him.

That period really cost in in terms of mainstream acknowledgement.
[This message was edited Fri Jan 17 11:12:21 PST 2003 by Sly]
[This message was edited Fri Jan 17 11:12:58 PST 2003 by Sly]

it's funny, cuz i became a prince freek in '95, when he wuz still referrin 2 himself as . i'd tell folks that i like 'im, and they'd give me crap about the symbol and how ridiculous it wuz (i agree, it wuz a bit ridiculous, no matter what the cause)...i got into the online community at the time when p wuz shuttin down websites left & right, and i had the nerve 2 make a website around then (SexyDansur's International Mansion O'Damn wuz the name of my 1st site...and no, i never got a cease & desist letter!)

i can't remember talkin 2 a single person who referred 2 'im strictly as "the artist". everybody still called him by his birth name.



whew, this is a long post...

Actually, I thought it was a pretty clever move, I mean to change your name to an unpronounceable symbol, you can't get much ballsier than that Many of the times when people made fun, I would explain the whole thing and they thought it was quite interesting, crazy, but interesting

PsychedelicMama said:

I don't know about clever, but it was certainly brave.
Do you think he still would have done it it if had realised how much damage it would do to his commercial career?

Sly said:

I think he was hellbent on taking this path, no matter the consequence.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:[quote]Sly said:[quote]

PsychedelicMama said:

I agree.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

That's what i like to think. Hope it's the truth!
I remember seeing him on the Saturday Show on BBC2, during the period when he covered his face with a mask!

He was in a real mischievous mood that day (i swear the brother really does have two majorly different sides!)

He did seem as if he didn't give a F*ck what people thought or said about him. I like that!
[This message was edited Fri Jan 17 12:16:39 PST 2003 by Sly]

i took my brother to radio city music hall in nyc for the 2nd show when he came around promoting the symbol record. it was a great show by the way.

all except for the worst "rappers" i've ever heard in my life. i couldn't even say anything in defense when my brother kept saying what an awful mess they were. it was pretty sad. i thank goodness they're gone.

first time i ever heard "she's always in my hair" live which was worth the price of the ticket alone.

funny thing happened too. prince was doing an awesome ballad medley and when he went to grab the mic for "scandalous" he went running and slid right past it and fell on his ass!

was anyone else there at that show?!!

IAM said:

I went to all 3 shows --don't quite rmember that--I'll have to check the video.

I was REALLY into the symbol years(fan since '83).
It was great seeing all the shows in 94/95
with no hits etc. Sometimes I wish he
had stayed symboled.

The symbol years from 94' til 98' were the best for me, and I've been a fan since 81'

Prince's hair, look and persona was across b/t goth-dark-mysterious and didn't care attitude in 94/95
He did alot for the fashion community which was exciting, the look of Prince's Symbol was on point and sexyness was written all over it!

Prince started to mellow in 96' once the marriage and emancipation release, but he toured alot...we got the great 'gold' album...performances from letterman, vh1-fashion awards, ama's and the short tv specials -love4oneanother.

it was a fun time for me.
plus later came crystal ball and the innerview w/ scary spice, new power soul and the radio hit "the one" on most r/b stations.

Prince was in a funky mode and it was exciting, daring and full of new music!

NPD313 said:

I really loved the symbol years also. It seemed he had SO many different things going on at that time...new sound, new look, new merchandise (essential oils, magazines, etc), new attitude, new love. It was a very creative period for him. He writes his funkiest stuff when he's angry.

I loved the music and Prince's style from the Symbol years. People always made fun of me wearing the Symbol jacket and asked what is he called now. I used to have to explain and defend his stance with Warners.

FirstAvenue said:

All I can say is thank god the symbol years are over. It was a dark time for the republic in all things Prince.

a few decent Songs&whatnot but overall a Bad Spinal Tap Joke that almost Cost Him.be Very Afraid times 2.

mistermaxxx said:

Almost?..it did cost him

The only good thing about the symbol years was the symbol itself and the merchandise, "the gold experience", the interviews and a few other good songs here and there but generally in terms of music, it sucked, apart from:

The Gold Experience
Days of Wild, interactive, dolphin etc
Some of emancipation
The one, come on

rdhull said:

almost I said:The Cat still got two Major Deals 1) with Capitol.2)Arista.now when it costs you nobody will touch your Shit.it made Him a Joke&whatnot&His work Suffered Mightly but He still got exposure&Media attention He didn't go unnoticed.in fact He Cashed in More with the "SYMBOL" Era on Money matters.Number 1 at the Bank.He dropped more Music in the Symbol Era than at any other point.now the Quality is another Matter but truth be told He got away with a lot of Shit&also if He made His Symbol Legal he Never had too pay taxes under PRN??Cleaver huh?I doubt it though.

but it was still shit, the rainbow children was a revelation

mistermaxxx said:[quote]

rdhull said:

yeah I know what you said..you said almost and I said it did cost him



Money, tax free exempts etc do not interest me when I say it "did" cost him. Sometimes losing momentum, focus, quality,and respect is much, much worse than even being on top of everything imho.

rdhull said:[quote]

mistermaxxx said:

you are still a Fan&so my point is that It didn't fully Cost Him because He still gets each one of us interest's in what He is doing now.you follow me??while it was a Bad time no doubt He didn't fall off completely where you stopped listening too him now??

mistermaxxx said:

But thats me--I am THE fan..I know I was semi-baffled and sometimes disappointed with the shenanaeggins of the symbol years so if there were others who were less forgiving etc he lost them possibly or could have..plus like I said, it isn't only about still being a fan and still being one to this day..its a lack of respect thing. He lost a lot of respect I feel..he lost a lot of possible positive exposure, he wrote from anger a lot , but anger with his future survival in mind which threw him for a loop and threw him off track, thus slowing down his momentum ( see trying to get a hit, oddproduction etc). He spent a few years in a twilight zone so to speak where he should have really really been taking it to another level and coming into hisown like he has now. But like I said it was a loss of respect that Im generally talking about.

rdhull said:

I get where you coming from.Peace

FirstAvenue said:

Ha, I still get it. People don't know (or care) that he's called Prince again.

To be honest, I kinda admired him for doing it (dropping the name Prince) at the time - even though it was all bullshit I thought it was a cool thing to do. I must confess I was slightly disappointed when he changed back - after all his quasi-spiritual explanations and justifications for the name change - he bottled out 7 years later after the contract expired with WB. Wuss! But hey, it's his life.

Prince will be Prince. Although I did find it a tad bit ridiculous, I never lost any respect or admiration for him.

7 years of torture, I was teased endlessly. But whatever, the music was still good, but boy was I relived when I saw that press conference in 2000. And whoever said that was a long 7 years, you're right.

But boy did it take balls to change your nme to a symbol, that kinda made me like him even more. Never lost any respect for him as a artist. Of course me being a fan of his at that time made me one wierd chick, but I kind of liked that.

How many of you ran out and got a o(+> tattoo?

[This message was edited Sat Jan 18 1:46:49 PST 2003 by SexualSuicide]

For all the ridicule in the press and coming from people
who didn't know Prince anyway, the namechange always made
complete sense to me. Besides, if Prince couldn't afford
to do it, who could?

It was a clever construction, and if talks with Warners
had gone better it might have worked really well.

From what I gathered, Prince changed his name to o(+> and
told Warners "I will give you enough new studio cds to
fullfill "Prince's" contract. That leaves me the freedom
to release whatever I want under the guise of o(+> ".

It would just have worked much much better if he'd had only
one more album to deliver to warners instead of a dozen.

So then they didn't agree on how, what and when and the
whole thing became rather ugly.

Perhaps if the 0(+> single "TMBGITW" hadn't done so well,
they could have worked something out. But I'm pretty sure
that Warners were shocked by the success of this indi cd
release and how much money it raked in for 0(+>.

They were affraid that "Prince" would be the one who would
be forgotten if things went on like this and that they
would end up sitting on the material that Prince wanted to
give them whilst 0(+> would release 4 albums a year and cut
deeply into their profit.

The press fcuz being the first to jump onto it and make
lame statements and jokes about the namechange.

Then Prince got disgruntled with the music industry and
started looking into all it's wrongs and the whole thing
just blew way out of proportion.

Instead of focussing on some of the strong issues that o(+>
adressed, everyone just kept going on about the name and
about all the little things that didn't matter.

By the time -7 years later- they finally start seeing that
more and more artists are fed up with the industry and with
the way things are being done, they've burnt down Prince so
far that it's almost impossible to re-install him and make
his struggle an example.

Because to do that you would have to admit that you were
wrong. Or at least that it was presumptive to ridicule the
man for making his claim, simply because he was one of the
world's biggest stars whom pulled a trick that was perceived
to be attention seeking for declining sales.

These days, there's hardly anyone left in the younger zone
that knows Prince did anything beyond "Sexy MF". They think
he stopped recording or that he's washed up.

But who cares, really, if Prince is back on track again and
releasing music that sounds as healthy as his recent output?

Fuck whatever people say, they don't know the whole story
anyways. They don't even know that he changed his name back
to Prince again and still call him symbolina.

The whole 0(+> era was a thrill ride for me, with loads of
material surfacing in a time when both parties seemed to be
unwilling to release anything [how ironic]. The loudness of
the material, the cursing, mayté, tora tora, black album,
interactive cdrom, exodus, 1-800-new-funk, gold, come, truth
crystal ball, kamasutra, nps, rave. It was strange, yes, so
call it madness, call it a midlife crisis, but it was still
a good idea to start out with and it evolved along the way.

It's just a shame that not more people stuck around to see
where the ride would lead to. But that's just the way these
things go. Prince doesn't seem to care anyway.
[This message was edited Sat Jan 18 2:06:24 PST 2003 by IstenSzek]

I fucking hated the symbol years. I've loved Prince since I can remember, and I just love it when he's Prince. I never called him "The Artist," either - that was just too fucking ridiculous for my tongue. "Come," his last album as Prince before the change, was brilliant. Then we got so-so albums with a few gems. He was unhappy and unfocused. I just kept waiting and hoping for the day that he'd reclaim his birth name and birth funkiness. Praise Jebus, my prayers were answered!

Granted, I was totally pissed when I first heard "TRC" - I was one of those who hated the overt religious tone and the voiceovers. Well, I still hate the voiceovers, but the music has a focus and sense of cohesion approaching perfection that hadn't been there in years. There's no denying that "Everlasting Now" and "The Work Pt. 1" are two of his funkiest songs ever! They still kick my ass.