HE IS SO TALENTED, PRINCE COME ON! YOU GOT SO MUCH TO GIVE, GIVE US ANOTHER "THE MOST BEAUTIFUL...", GIVE US ANOTHER "NOTHING COMPARES...", GIVE US ANOTHER "SOMETIMES IT SNOWS...", GIVE US ANOTHER "DIAMONDS AND PEARLS"...

COME ON, JUST DO IT!

YEAH... WHY THE FUCK NOT??!!

He is a talented man, I think most of his albums have good hit songs on them..

benjamino71 said:

HE IS SO TALENTED, PRINCE COME ON! YOU GOT SO MUCH TO GIVE, GIVE US ANOTHER "THE MOST BEAUTIFUL...", GIVE US ANOTHER "NOTHING COMPARES...", GIVE US ANOTHER "SOMETIMES IT SNOWS...", GIVE US ANOTHER "DIAMONDS AND PEARLS"...

COME ON, JUST DO IT!

Well, where would you like me to start? Other than spending EVERY WAKING MOMENT DOING WHATEVER HE CAN TO AVOID HAVING HIT SINGLES, Pissing everyone in the business off, having business models that AVOID HIT MUSIC AT ALL COSTS...other than that...then I have no idea why he hasn't had any hit singles...no clue whatsoever.

Now I love Prince. I have pissed off a lot of people by saying he is better than the Beatles, U2, and James Brown COMBINED....

but he doesn't even have the business sense of El DeBarge.

Reasons for not having hit singles..

1. Even dating to the Warners days, single choices were sometimes very lame.

2. Having Tony M in the band had to have a negative effect somewhere, even though Gett Off, Sexy MF, and My Name is Prince all featured that waste of space.

3. Saturating the market with too many albums

4. Being so difficult in person to so many in the business, it was easy to see him being blackballed by so many he has probably offended. It says a lot that the 1999 re-release of "1999," was his last Top 40 hit...and that was 11 years and 1 month ago. The hot girl that works at the Burger King down the street was probably 9 years old at the time...

5. Pissing his own fans off by playing awesome on one tour, and then lame on the next one. I remember seeing two girls I met at the Northrop show in 2000 crying at the end, as they had hoped for something resembling his songs live. Instead they got tons of chanting, and lame raps by Doug E Fresh.

6. Pissing his fans off with Crystal Ball. (Won't repeat this story...if you don't know it, you do not know Prince.)

7. Pissing the fans of with websites promising one thing, and then delivering another. Oddly, each website got a little worse than the next, culminating with LotusFailure....charging fans $77 for a T Shirt that would not fit Gary Coleman in 1975.

8. Further pissing off fans by putting 77 tracks on 20Ten to make fun of how he ripped everyone off for $77. That was real low.

9. Not releasing 20Ten in his home country. Making you track it down on ebay...which meant you either got the real thing, or some Chinese bootleg that has an "Open Up," carboard sleeve.

10. I could name about 200 other reasons he has no hit singles....but I won't. The funniest thing is that he probably has around 50 songs worthy of the Top 40, but with him being without Management since like 1985, it wasn't meant to be.

Just in case anybody is wondering what I said about no Management since 1985. Most close observers saw that Spaghetti, Macaroni, Frangoli, and Ravioli were just collecting checks after Purple Rain blew up. By that time, Prince felt he was big enough to tell them how to manage him.

Prince doesn't care.

Because he doesn’t CARE about having hit singles. Prince stopped caring about hits in 1984. And even though he doesn’t sell a lot of albums he still makes more money than most musicians because he doesn’t have a label leeching away most of his income from record sales.

if "black sweat", "fury" and "dance 4 me" didn't manage to break the charts,

why bother anymore at this point?

they were all solid songs. perhaps not number 1s but decent enough.

for the hardcore fans to buy his singles he's gonna need to bulk them up a

fair bit imo. a single should have an extended version and a remix, which

prince did so very well in the 80s and early 90s. plus there should be one

or two new, non album tracks on there.

as it is, the last single i bought was "cinnamon girl" simply because it had

"united states of division" and "dear mr man live" on it. and before that,

the last single was "come on", because i loved the extended remix version.

but none of that really matters anymore today, i think, since it's all about

airplay and stuff like that. or is it? i don't know, i'm almost 33, i'm totally

out of the loop with charts and such.

yet, if these things are in place:

1. good song

2. a decent video

3. promotion

4. prince actually hyping the song on tv and playing it live at gigs

if those things are all in place and still no one plays his song, then what

else can you do?

is it because you need a recordcompany paying for airtime or such? if

that is the case, i'm sure prince is fine just letting things be as they are.

he's above buying a number one, i presume. well, apart from all those

copies of TMBGITW that he bought back in the day.

but still, with a decent single, including bsides, an extended version of

the aside and a good remix, available online in itunes or such, he would

at least sell a solid amount to his fans.

i don't know about you, but i just don't consider buying a single from an

album that i already have when it doesn't include anything beyond the

a side, which is already on the album.

hmmm Prince obviously DOES care about having another hit

'TELLME THAT AINT A HIT" re TGRES...erm nope

Musicology obviously he wanted that to be a hit

CALL MY NAME

BLACK SWEAT

CHOCOLATE BOX

it is odd though becouse most of his pseudo hits are much better than whats passing for hits these days

im sure alot of its politcal...there was a time in the 1980's To 94 where his first single from any album would ALWAYS be a hit

second single usually hit

third/fourth single ALWAYS chart cos he was a megastar with a hit factory behind him

i dont give a fuck whether he has another"hit" however saying that i was truly surprised that BLACK SWEAT wasnt

fucking huge

why was that??? it had a record company behind it etc

anyway at the end Prince will always be "number one at the bank"

jpnyc said:

Because he doesn’t CARE about having hit singles. Prince stopped caring about hits in 1984. And even though he doesn’t sell a lot of albums he still makes more money than most musicians because he doesn’t have a label leeching away most of his income from record sales.

he still sells in the millions for most of his albums...musicology...3121...lotusflower...they all sold over a million....better than a lot of artists who are having hits....when you take into account his lack of radio support and little promotion....he does very well....he has a pretty solid core of fans who will buy almost anything he releases...

.

yes it might not be as many as he sold in the 80s but who is selling as many...?....dont see many album selling 10 million copies now...

The examples you give are MBGITW and NC2U? :vomit:

Because of the CASH FLOW in the musical industry, that's why. Nobody will put him in hit list because teenagers don't buy his music, and teens are the ones who brings most of the money to this industry. That's why people like Justin Beiber will be in the hit list.

And plus how he is getting there if he is all by himself?

But at the end, who cares because he still makes great music and I love it.

If he stopped releasing hard to find singles in just one country or continent and made it available everywhere, with a proper video and all the other bollocks that goes with promotion, he might be in with a shout.

I personally don't like singles, if they don't have at least one other song or a couple of remixes, then it's a waste of time for me. So long as i can get my hands on the album, i'm happy.

TheDigitalGardener said:

If he stopped releasing hard to find singles in just one country or continent and made it available everywhere, with a proper video and all the other bollocks that goes with promotion, he might be in with a shout.

I personally don't like singles, if they don't have at least one other song or a couple of remixes, then it's a waste of time for me. So long as i can get my hands on the album, i'm happy.

he hasnt done any proper promotion since he left warners...get single out...one that has hit written all over it...get great video made....go on massive promotion tour of us,uk,europe and announce world tour ....then release album worldwide with major record company with massive publicity...thats how he should do it....

jpnyc said:

Because he doesn’t CARE about having hit singles. Prince stopped caring about hits in 1984. And even though he doesn’t sell a lot of albums he still makes more money than most musicians because he doesn’t have a label leeching away most of his income from record sales.

I don't think that is true at all. With Diamonds and Pearls it seemed like he was trying very hard to have a hit and I think the same thing is true of Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic. I think that it is obvious that he doesn't care about having hits today, shucks, 20Ten hasn't even been released outside of europe. It's hard to have a hit when you make your music hard to get.

NouveauDance said:

The examples you give are MBGITW and NC2U? :vomit:

No, they also mentioned the massive hit 'Sometimes it Snows in April'.

rialb said:

jpnyc said:

Because he doesn’t CARE about having hit singles. Prince stopped caring about hits in 1984. And even though he doesn’t sell a lot of albums he still makes more money than most musicians because he doesn’t have a label leeching away most of his income from record sales.

I don't think that is true at all. With Diamonds and Pearls it seemed like he was trying very hard to have a hit and I think the same thing is true of Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic. I think that it is obvious that he doesn't care about having hits today, shucks, 20Ten hasn't even been released outside of europe. It's hard to have a hit when you make your music hard to get.

Indeed, he may not care about having a hit now, but he sure did care about them a long time after 1984.

erik319 said:

NouveauDance said:

The examples you give are MBGITW and NC2U? :vomit:

No, they also mentioned the massive hit 'Sometimes it Snows in April'.

Great song, but it would have made a shit single.

TheDigitalGardener said:

erik319 said:

No, they also mentioned the massive hit 'Sometimes it Snows in April'.

Great song, but it would have made a shit single.

Yup

If Prince had released Sometimes it snows in April as a single in 86, then the year after follow it up with If I was your Girlfriend he might as well have released a cover version of 'i'm a little teapot' in 88 to go along with his polkadot/blusher nightmare image and be done with it.

I just think the general public don't have the attention span/patience to dig into a hit single. They want a catchy tune, a singable chorus and a bit they can whistle tunelessly. Let's leave these gems where the belong, tucked away on an album where they can be treasured

stillwaiting said:

benjamino71 said:

HE IS SO TALENTED, PRINCE COME ON! YOU GOT SO MUCH TO GIVE, GIVE US ANOTHER "THE MOST BEAUTIFUL...", GIVE US ANOTHER "NOTHING COMPARES...", GIVE US ANOTHER "SOMETIMES IT SNOWS...", GIVE US ANOTHER "DIAMONDS AND PEARLS"...

COME ON, JUST DO IT!

Well, where would you like me to start? Other than spending EVERY WAKING MOMENT DOING WHATEVER HE CAN TO AVOID HAVING HIT SINGLES, Pissing everyone in the business off, having business models that AVOID HIT MUSIC AT ALL COSTS...other than that...then I have no idea why he hasn't had any hit singles...no clue whatsoever.

Now I love Prince. I have pissed off a lot of people by saying he is better than the Beatles, U2, and James Brown COMBINED....

but he doesn't even have the business sense of El DeBarge.

Reasons for not having hit singles..

1. Even dating to the Warners days, single choices were sometimes very lame.

2. Having Tony M in the band had to have a negative effect somewhere, even though Gett Off, Sexy MF, and My Name is Prince all featured that waste of space.

3. Saturating the market with too many albums

4. Being so difficult in person to so many in the business, it was easy to see him being blackballed by so many he has probably offended. It says a lot that the 1999 re-release of "1999," was his last Top 40 hit...and that was 11 years and 1 month ago. The hot girl that works at the Burger King down the street was probably 9 years old at the time...

5. Pissing his own fans off by playing awesome on one tour, and then lame on the next one. I remember seeing two girls I met at the Northrop show in 2000 crying at the end, as they had hoped for something resembling his songs live. Instead they got tons of chanting, and lame raps by Doug E Fresh.

6. Pissing his fans off with Crystal Ball. (Won't repeat this story...if you don't know it, you do not know Prince.)

7. Pissing the fans of with websites promising one thing, and then delivering another. Oddly, each website got a little worse than the next, culminating with LotusFailure....charging fans $77 for a T Shirt that would not fit Gary Coleman in 1975.

8. Further pissing off fans by putting 77 tracks on 20Ten to make fun of how he ripped everyone off for $77. That was real low.

9. Not releasing 20Ten in his home country. Making you track it down on ebay...which meant you either got the real thing, or some Chinese bootleg that has an "Open Up," carboard sleeve.

10. I could name about 200 other reasons he has no hit singles....but I won't. The funniest thing is that he probably has around 50 songs worthy of the Top 40, but with him being without Management since like 1985, it wasn't meant to be.

Just in case anybody is wondering what I said about no Management since 1985. Most close observers saw that Spaghetti, Macaroni, Frangoli, and Ravioli were just collecting checks after Purple Rain blew up. By that time, Prince felt he was big enough to tell them how to manage him.

Prince has plenty of hits that most likely the red-tape of the industry refused to acknowlege.

stillwaiting...I do not understand why "Crystal Ball," upset Prince fans. I'm a fan and I was never upset. Maybe I'm not a big enough fan to understand where you are coming from.

How could you assume that Prince put 77 tracks on "2010" to upset anyone? Prince sang "2 seven 2gether," in the song "Reflection." Prince likes the number, that's all.

With all that being said, he is still a living legend, has an extensive catalogue, still manages to sell out arenas, even without being attached to a record label. I'd say he's done pretty good and eventually will last longer than any of the current or teenage idols today.

Sad but: Prince is old now - and a washed up singer.

Prince does not have another When Doves Cry in him,

the time for another hit single from Prince is long gone.

Ps Sometimes It Snows In April wasn't a single.

The only way that Prince could have a hit single is if he worked with a 'hot' producer and featured a popular rapper on the song Do you really want him to do that?

i think it would be very unlikely no matter how hard he tried that he would have a hit single at this point in his career. theres very few people that have had a 30+ year career that have hit singles anymore. at whatever point you become 'classic' radio stops playing your new stuff, no matter how good it is, so why should he even try? why do you need him to have a hit anyways, can you only like prince if your friends do too?

thedance said:

Sad but: Prince is old now - and a washed up singer.

Prince does not have another When Doves Cry in him,

the time for another hit single from Prince is long gone.

Ps Sometimes It Snows In April wasn't a single.

Judging from what I've experienced at the IZOD and MSG, if you consider that being washed up I wouldn't mind being washed up.

2elijah said:

With all that being said, he is still a living legend, has an extensive catalogue, still manages to sell out arenas, even without being attached to a record label. I'd say he's done pretty good and eventually will last longer than any of the current or teenage idols today.

Exactly. I mean jeez, who cares at this point. Prince has nothing, NOTHING to prove anymore. He along with many other legends who made their mark back in the day. Time for these new cats to step up their game, but then again, for those who are truly talented putting our masterpieces the record company these days are not interested in them. I don't even know what is considered a hit anymore because what is topping the charts now absolutetly suck!

thedance said:

Sad but: Prince is old now - and a washed up singer.

Prince does not have another When Doves Cry in him,

the time for another hit single from Prince is long gone.

Ps Sometimes It Snows In April wasn't a single.

Actually i found a washed up singer on the beach near my house a couple of years back, strange thing to find on the beach. It was a real old one, so i cleaned it up a bit and found it to be still working, so i took it to the charity shop and they were fucking delighted.

It sold after a couple of weeks. Nice find.

[Edited 1/31/11 6:56am]

It's sad to say but Prince hasn't come out with anything radio ready since 2007's "Guitar" and even that lacked the hook in the first 30 seconds needed to have a real pop hit.

Black Sweat had potential, and while I do think it's P's strongest pop attempt of this decade, it's still not a GREAT song. For dancability it doesn't stand up that well against even stuff by the PCD's, and that says a lot.

3121 featured 2 attempted hit singles, Black Sweat and TAC. Prince was hoping TAC would be another TMBGITW, his only problems were: 1)The song was not as good as Beautiful 2) The song failed to target teenage girls 3)Prince is no longer a major sex symbol with younger girls. 4) No song with Latin Jazz overtones is going to hit big with the younger market. The video for TAC is actually probably his best ever. It's classy and well produced and has a narrative and it is very sweet. It was just the wrong song to put all that effort into.

Black Sweat, while being a strong attempt for post WB Prince, just isn't THAT bumping of a song. It's not that it's bad, it just lacks that certain something that makes a hit single. In my mind Black Sweat really defines Prince's later work. It has elements of modern music, but somehow manages to miss the boat with it's high pitched squealing. Now, I like Black Sweat, but no one hears this song and thinks it's another let's go crazy, or even another Alphabet St. Once again the video is one of Prince's best, it's just not that catchy of a song. Coupled with Prince's divorce and a lack of promotion, 3121 floundered and so did Prince's 'comeback' that began with Musicology

wonder505 said:

2elijah said:

With all that being said, he is still a living legend, has an extensive catalogue, still manages to sell out arenas, even without being attached to a record label. I'd say he's done pretty good and eventually will last longer than any of the current or teenage idols today.

Exactly. I mean jeez, who cares at this point. Prince has nothing, NOTHING to prove anymore. He along with many other legends who made their mark back in the day. Time for these new cats to step up their game, but then again, for those who are truly talented putting our masterpieces the record company these days are not interested in them. I don't even know what is considered a hit anymore because what is topping the charts now absolutetly suck!

I hear you. If we want to talk about current artists, what's being thrown out to the younger generation is "Here today, gone tomorrow, just follow the latest vibe type of artists". Not enough originality or creativity. This is why when artists like Janelle Monae comes out with something "different" it's hard for the younger generation to swallow, because they're all so used to sampling and the "same" sound, yet she's a very, creative artist, and it's not hard to see that she has an Outkast influence in her music, because she's worked with them in the past.

I also have to say Bruno Mars' music is not bad, as it has that pop sound of MJ, but then again, he sounds too much like MJ's sound, although I think he will do well down the road

Even in the 80s through the mid 90s, music lovers embraced all types of different sounds of music from artists, until around the late 90s to early mid 2000s when the music industry went into Timbaland, Eminem, JayZ, 50 cents, Usher, Omarion, Timberlake and Beyonce overdrive. All of a sudden all the music sounded the same and too much of the same thing. Then you had the newcomers to the r&b sound, like Robin Thicke, J. Timberlake, Adele, Duffy, Amy Whinehouse, just to name a few and some record labels seemed to grab them up and and promote the few artists who captured that sound.

Then later came Rihanna, and the Rihanna and Eminem collaborations or anyone that Rihanna would not say no to collaborate with; Lady Gaga aka Madonna-copy cat taken to the extreme;Ke$ha singing mickey mouse garbage trash;Justin Bieber reincarnation of a teenage idol aka J. Timberlake duplicate, etc., and none of these artists listed will be legendary, because as they get older, the record labels will dump them and replace them with some other manufactured teeny bopper to make a quick buck off of them.

Truth is, we may never see music legends like the real musicians from back in the day, that are still around today and actually have a long-lasting catalogue that are classics.

[Edited 1/31/11 7:46am]

0ne0n0ne said:

stillwaiting said:

Well, where would you like me to start? Other than spending EVERY WAKING MOMENT DOING WHATEVER HE CAN TO AVOID HAVING HIT SINGLES, Pissing everyone in the business off, having business models that AVOID HIT MUSIC AT ALL COSTS...other than that...then I have no idea why he hasn't had any hit singles...no clue whatsoever.

Now I love Prince. I have pissed off a lot of people by saying he is better than the Beatles, U2, and James Brown COMBINED....

but he doesn't even have the business sense of El DeBarge.

Reasons for not having hit singles..

1. Even dating to the Warners days, single choices were sometimes very lame.

2. Having Tony M in the band had to have a negative effect somewhere, even though Gett Off, Sexy MF, and My Name is Prince all featured that waste of space.

3. Saturating the market with too many albums

4. Being so difficult in person to so many in the business, it was easy to see him being blackballed by so many he has probably offended. It says a lot that the 1999 re-release of "1999," was his last Top 40 hit...and that was 11 years and 1 month ago. The hot girl that works at the Burger King down the street was probably 9 years old at the time...

5. Pissing his own fans off by playing awesome on one tour, and then lame on the next one. I remember seeing two girls I met at the Northrop show in 2000 crying at the end, as they had hoped for something resembling his songs live. Instead they got tons of chanting, and lame raps by Doug E Fresh.

6. Pissing his fans off with Crystal Ball. (Won't repeat this story...if you don't know it, you do not know Prince.)

7. Pissing the fans of with websites promising one thing, and then delivering another. Oddly, each website got a little worse than the next, culminating with LotusFailure....charging fans $77 for a T Shirt that would not fit Gary Coleman in 1975.

8. Further pissing off fans by putting 77 tracks on 20Ten to make fun of how he ripped everyone off for $77. That was real low.

9. Not releasing 20Ten in his home country. Making you track it down on ebay...which meant you either got the real thing, or some Chinese bootleg that has an "Open Up," carboard sleeve.

10. I could name about 200 other reasons he has no hit singles....but I won't. The funniest thing is that he probably has around 50 songs worthy of the Top 40, but with him being without Management since like 1985, it wasn't meant to be.

Just in case anybody is wondering what I said about no Management since 1985. Most close observers saw that Spaghetti, Macaroni, Frangoli, and Ravioli were just collecting checks after Purple Rain blew up. By that time, Prince felt he was big enough to tell them how to manage him.

Prince has plenty of hits that most likely the red-tape of the industry refused to acknowlege.

stillwaiting...I do not understand why "Crystal Ball," upset Prince fans. I'm a fan and I was never upset. Maybe I'm not a big enough fan to understand where you are coming from.

people ordered it. and they waited. and waited. and waited. and when it shipped, got their credit cards charged multiple times. and it showed up in nation wide record store chains before it showed up in the mailboxes of people that pre-ordered it (it was supposed to be available only to orders, not in stores). and when people complained or started asking questions, they were mocked by the love4onenoather website as "Naysayers" and told that they would be eating their words on toast. even though they still hadn't received the item. and on top of all of that, he was sending out cease & desist letters to fanzines and websites as a gestapo tactic to control all of the Prince online community.

it was not good times to be a Prince fan.

I would love a new single, extended version, or b-side - but if you haven't noticed, 90% of the stores who used to sell them have disappeared.

Walmart and Target don't sell singles. Best Buy's cd section has shrunk, and they're singles section is dismal- at least where I live.

Golly gee internet, thanks for nothing. But I get a hundred penis/breast enlargement emails a day. Whoopeee!!