Would his career not suffered as much as it did??

thoughts??

WB didn't have a problem with Dream Factory, the plug was pulled on that because of the Revolution disbanding, and it evolving into Crystal Ball/SOTT.

TGE - well, releasing it at the same time as Come as Prince wanted would've been pretty neat - other artists have done the same where they release records at the same time by different 'alter-egos', I love that kind of thing.

Could Prince promote two full releases properly though? He can barely do one, and given the friction at the time, even if they had said yes to this, I think the writing was on the wall - remember the contract he signed stipulated that he had to reach a certain number of sales for each release - likelyhood of that number being achieved with two simultaneous releases, and probably a couple of months down the road him ranting on about Exodus, Mayte's album or another of his own future projects - yeah, I think the contract doomed his time with Warners whatever.

There is very little on Dream factory that is as commercially accessible as "u got the look" for example. IMO Sign is a better album.

TGE would have likely sold more copies if it had been released earlier.

On TGE, both sides lost in screwing themselves by trying to screw the other. I never understood why couldn't Come and TGE be a double album, one by Prince and the other by O=>\? Prince gets what he wants, WB isn't screwed by Prince flooding the marketplace competing with himself, and who knows...maybe sell OK if they had capitalized immediately after TMBGITW being a surprise major hit. It would've been a pretty solid double CD album.

But alas, NouveauDance is right. That marriage would've ended inevitably on poor terms sooner or later. (Not to mention this was around when WB terminated Paisley Park Records. Mr. P never forgave them surely for killing his vanity project.)

As for DF...well would it have been DF or Crystal Ball in this giant What If? I agree DF is great, but commercially? I could see the critics loving it, but people not exactly behind it. I mean this will be pretty unpopular thing to say, but DF is practically a repeat of Around the World in a Day, but better, more polished, and more ambitious.

and Crystal Ball, a 3 LP album? I know very few of them ever released by the lables, and such famous examples like Sandinista! and All Things Must Pass, there were royalty concessions to make them budget releases so people could afford to buy them. Why? Because 3 LPs at regular price is...pretty darn expensive.

Unless WB did something like that, I just don't see them going for it unless they really truely believed it was a winner long-term and making a short-term loss an acceptable gamble. And really if it was full price, wouldn't it be very possible that CB would be just like Sandinista! as in an album given a polarizing critical reception: Some adore it and cultishly defend it as the new White Album or whatever, while others slap it as too self-indulgent, too much filler, "a great LP buried in that stew."?

Fact is, SOTT became a hit because of its hit tracks...including the biggest of that record, U Got the Look.

4 one thing I don't think Prince's career has really "suffered" from anything: we're talking about a living musical legend, an iconic figure in modern music history, someone who fills stadiums and is a multimillionaire... I can think of many worse careers...

As stated earlier, WB had nothing to do with DF's cancelation. As 4 Crystal Ball, the ideal compromise woulda been a limited 3-LP release and a 1-LP version with all the singles. Why neither WB nor Prince thought of that compromise? I'm puzzled! CB would without a doubt have become as historical, if not more, as SOTT.

As 4 TGE, even if WB didn't want to release 2 albums, they made the dummy choice: releasing the less commercial album, the one Prince had no interest in promoting, instead of releasing the commercial one that Prince wanted to be a hit, all that just because they feared a album would bomb in comparison to a "Prince" album...

databank said:

As 4 TGE, even if WB didn't want to release 2 albums, they made the dummy choice: releasing the less commercial album, the one Prince had no interest in promoting, instead of releasing the commercial one that Prince wanted to be a hit, all that just because they feared a album would bomb in comparison to a "Prince" album...

I don't think that was WB's choice, by all accounts they were very disappointed with Come.

It's a shame that TGE wasn't released in the summer of 1994,as Prince intended it to be.If he had released it at that time,with amazing songs like "Days Of Wild","Ripopogodazippa",and "Interactive" still part of the tracklist,it would have been HUGE! It could have been one of his biggest-selling albums.

I've just been listening to Dream Factory! With that in mind does anyone have a definitive track list of this and Crystal Ball (the 3xLP version)?

Wikipedia and the usual torrent forums aren't the most reliable as they all seem to contradict each other.

The various known configurations of DF are listed here: http://www.princevault.co...am_Factory

Crystal Ball: http://www.princevault.co..._Ball_1986

And for completists sake, Camille: http://www.princevault.co...m:_Camille

NouveauDance said:

databank said:

As 4 TGE, even if WB didn't want to release 2 albums, they made the dummy choice: releasing the less commercial album, the one Prince had no interest in promoting, instead of releasing the commercial one that Prince wanted to be a hit, all that just because they feared a album would bomb in comparison to a "Prince" album...

I don't think that was WB's choice, by all accounts they were very disappointed with Come.

Indeed, but according to Scififilmnerd's (great) articles about this era:

" delivered The Gold Experience into Warner Bros. around the same time as this new version of Come. He proposed that Warner Bros. should release Come by “Prince” and, a few weeks later, The Gold Experience by “,” and he wanted both to count toward the fulfillment of his contract. The idea didn’t meet with much enthusiasm, however. Flooding the market with material was exactly what the executives wanted to avoid. Nor were they optimistic about releasing music with an unpronounceable symbol, rather than the powerful “Prince” trademark on the front cover. They agreed to release Come; The Gold Experience would have to wait. Again, was furious and complained that the label was censoring him."

I agree that after the massive success of TMBGITW and the massive buzz around the name change it makes little sense that these guys would believe that a non-commercial Prince album would sell more than a commercial album, but on the other hand Scifi's articles are very documented, so I'd tend to believe what is written there ...

avasdad said:

Would his career not suffered as much as it did??

thoughts??

not much different, except for some different music.

the music industry would have gone the same way it did and prince/wb would have probably dealt with it the same way. his issues with warners would have also still been there.

why it wouldn't have, I dont see

databank said:

NouveauDance said:

I don't think that was WB's choice, by all accounts they were very disappointed with Come.

Indeed, but according to Scififilmnerd's (great) articles about this era:

" delivered The Gold Experience into Warner Bros. around the same time as this new version of Come. He proposed that Warner Bros. should release Come by “Prince” and, a few weeks later, The Gold Experience by “,” and he wanted both to count toward the fulfillment of his contract. The idea didn’t meet with much enthusiasm, however. Flooding the market with material was exactly what the executives wanted to avoid. Nor were they optimistic about releasing music with an unpronounceable symbol, rather than the powerful “Prince” trademark on the front cover. They agreed to release Come; The Gold Experience would have to wait. Again, was furious and complained that the label was censoring him."

I agree that after the massive success of TMBGITW and the massive buzz around the name change it makes little sense that these guys would believe that a non-commercial Prince album would sell more than a commercial album, but on the other hand Scifi's articles are very documented, so I'd tend to believe what is written there ...

I wasn't disagreeing with you

Just about them making the 'dummy choice' because of the name - they did want to hold off on the release of TGE maybe in part because of the name change, and also because of too much product - But I think it wasn't their choice to release Come first over TGE as an album (regardless of the 'name' of the artist), Prince gave them that one on purpose.

A technicality I guess - whatever it was, Prince only shot himself on the foot by releasing albums he took a dump on in the media.

[Edited 12/15/11 10:24am]

I think Dream Factory would have taken Prince to another level of musical maturity and respect.

There were some good songs that would be good radio play, especially in 1987

I also think if the Parade era was developed even better via the Family, the movie-including the musical acts, and even the Sheila E/Mazarati/Family tour, it would have brought a higher recognition to Prince's vision & music

Dream Factory

All My Dreams

Movie Star

Witness 4 the Prosecution

Last Heart

Power Fantastic

Sexual Suicide

Strange Relationships

stay along similar paths of artistry with the photography and videos

promo the album with some good videos

NouveauDance said:

The various known configurations of DF are listed here: http://www.princevault.co...am_Factory

Crystal Ball: http://www.princevault.co..._Ball_1986

And for completists sake, Camille: http://www.princevault.co...m:_Camille

Wow, I always thought that Adore came after IGBABN on Crystal Ball. Adore before IGBABN never made any sence. I'm glade they finally cleared this up. Now, if I can only get my hands on that in-house cassette sequence of the album!