Yes, I always understood that just as Prince was screwed by Arista, they also screwed Clive Davis.

Just a case of bad-timing on both their parts.

I see most of y'all are new so here is a version of what happened.

Clive Davis' exile from Arista Records was the reason for the Rave album's disapointing sales. Prince gave up more control of this album than any other album since PRINCE.When the coup started at Arista,Prince at first thought that Clive was not trying to promote the album.What we know now is that LA Reid and others was forcing Davis out and these people certainly did not want this album to succeed. Prince started having flashbacks to Emancipation & started to act like, well, Prince.

The rest is history.

Now let me state this one more time.
The Rave album is not the best Prince album.It is not the best Prince album of the 90's.But this album could have been a huge hit with the same type of promotion that Santana's album received.Debate if you want.Diss if you want.Rave could have been a hit.

I just wish how many people would have DIFFERENT opinions of this album if it was a hit ?
[This message was edited Wed Feb 26 18:51:06 PST 2003 by muleFunk]

muleFunk said:

I think it could have been a hit with So Far, So Pleased as the first single (imagine the videoclip with Gwen Stefani), followed by Baby Knows (with Sheryl Crow) as the second single and TGRES as the last single. The first two being commercial rocksongs and the latter being the RnB flavor song.

Of course let's not forget some proper promotion and airplay. I think it could have been a hit album, although I don't like the album much myself. Gimme some TRC over Rave anytime!
[This message was edited Thu Feb 27 15:39:16 PST 2003 by funkaholic1972]

muleFunk said:

---
Thanks for setting the record straight. RAVE would not have sold 10 million copies but, some big hits could have come off of the cd if Clive had not been booted from the Arista.
Prince was a victim and so was Clive of LA Reid bullshit.
Now Arista is not doing so great so what come around goes arount.

From uptown news>..."The continued lack of chart impact of Rave, however, apparently led Prince to reconsider plans.

In late January, he met with Davis to discuss the (rave) project and express his dissatisfaction. Davis, in turn, made clear his own disappointment over Prince’s growing disengagement from the project. Reportedly, Davis said to Prince, "I thought you’d be different from what I’ve read about you.. Everyone warned me."

http://www.uptown.se/2002...rave.shtml

That account from Uptown pretty much says it all with just one addition necessary.

Prince made one last ditch effort to revive Rave by getting "So Far So Pleased" released as a single -- a move that the fans were begging for. But Interscope Records blocked the move because they wanted Gwen to solely focus on No Doubt's latest album, Return of Saturn, which was having its own chart troubles. It's really too bad because "SFSP" was almost assured to be a top 10 hit.

In retrospect, I think Rave was cursed. Everything that could go wrong that project seemed to do so. And for that reason I understand Prince's desire to just move on.

As for going to a major label with his next release, I hope he's ready to try again. Surely his karma has improved by now.

Peace, David

Nothing
from
that
album
would
even
dent
top
40

BorisFishpaw said:

yeah

What exactly was Clive Davis' title and position at Arista at the time?
Also the same for L.A. Reid? Title and position?

Who is president and CEO and the top dog(s)? Power structure?

livewire said:

yeah!



yeah



yeah!

livewire said:

Very well said. But I wonder how different things would be if "So Far So Pleased" had been a hit and perhaps even "Baby Knows" after that. If "Rave" ended up multi-platinum would Prince have even gone down the road that produced "TRC"? Would we have "One Nite Alone" the piano CD? Would we have "Xpectation"? Would there have ever been a fantastic concert tour called "One Nite Alone...Live" and the box set that followed?

I think a resounding "NO" would be the answer to all of these questions.

But perhaps Prince has something coming together right now that he wants to reach a wider audience with and that's why he's attending industry parties. If true, though, hopefully the difference this time will be that the songs are organically commercial like "Purple Rain" rather than being like "Diamonds and Pearls" or "Rave", two albums that sound much more targeted than inspired.

Rave couldv'e been a massive hit, the record label didnt stand by prince...it was a deal b/t clive and , the fact that clive was fighting the label around the same time prince's album was released, gave clive no chance to promote this album as he had promised.

and Clive then had a situation that none of us knew...how did ppl even get the transcipts to a conversation b/t the two LOL

I bet this record would had sold at least 3-5 million if promoted properly with the machine(record label) behind it!

Come on...EVE, GWEN, Sheryl Crow and Chuck D. on the project that was an all star line up that shouldn't have failed!

It was a good Prince Album for tha time!
probably wouldv'e been better if he'd included 'Busta Rhymes' on the new master version of 1999 and included it on the Rave Record...instead of Doug e. fresh!

But I'm glad to two have seemed to gotten bck in touch with oneanother and hopefull will work together in the near future

I bet Clive wouldn't mind Prince composing or writing some great music from some of his major artists... (His center stage days are long over, and certainly not a money maker that any label is going to take a risk on.) Perhaps we're about to see the beginning of a great transition of Prince as a behind the scenes music creator with huge world impact in the next 10 years.

See this article from Foxnews about Arista and their problems since Clive left. In this environment RAVE had no chance.

N.Y. Times Arista Piece: Puff Daddy of All Time

I have to say it was with some amusement that record industry insiders read yesterday's New York Times feature on Arista Records head L.A. Reid. I like Reid and admire his tenacity.

Now I admire his spin control.

To read the Times, his life has been a fairy tale. Buried toward the end of the long, puffy article was the concession that some recent records hadn't sold.

Right: There was no mention of Whitney Houston walking off with $20 million cash and subsequently selling a paltry 540,000 copies of her album. There was also no indication that recent disasters by TLC and Toni Braxton had anything to do with the nasty legal battles they had had with Reid at La Face Records in Atlanta before he took over Arista.

The Times article also failed to mention the chaos surrounding Usher's album 8701. An early single called "Pop Ya Collar" was released only to radio and never made it out as a record at all.

A $2 million video was made for the single but never shown because Reid "hated the song so much he wouldn't watch the video," says a source. The first version of 8701 was scrapped and the album was re-recorded. Arista, critics tell me, has been spending money like crazy under Reid, millions and millions more than necessary.

Also missing from the Times story is the recent brouhaha between Reid and British manager Simon Fuller, who created American Idol and manages Annie Lennox. Fuller took his business to Reid's rival Clive Davis after Reid yelled at Fuller for being late to a meeting. Now Davis has Lennox on J Records and Idol sensation Tamyra Gray on RCA.

The Times also got the impression that Reid was newly well-groomed and natty. They obviously missed our story about him shopping in Gucci on afternoons when he had just taken over the running of Arista. (Now he wears Brioni.) Clips from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution would suggest that he has always been the well-turned-out exec, and that moving to New York didn't start him down that path.

I did like the skipping over of his divorce from Perri "Pebbles" Reid, now Perri Nixon, the former pop singer who accused L.A. of snatching TLC from her (she was their manager) after she'd built them into superstars from nothing. Perri has since left the music business to become a preacher in Atlanta.

As for the TLC and Braxton lawsuits, each of them would have been good references to the pre-New York L.A. Reid. The Times story is called "And They Said He Couldn't Run a Major Record Label." But quite the contrary: Reid, who patterned himself on Motown's Berry Gordy, knew better than most how to run a label when he took over in 2001. Like Gordy, he underpaid his artists on their original contracts, then resisted giving them more of a share of profits when their careers took off.

Then, of course, the Times could have looked into Reid's conflicts of interest at Arista with publishing and management. He still owns HitCo South Music Publishing, which signs and administers the rights of songwriters and producers. Many of those songs, including three that were on Houston's album, kick money back to Reid.

Still, the label has had success with Avril Lavigne and Pink, the former giving them a shield to hide behind. But last week, as this column reported, the losses forced the ouster of Lionel Ridenour, the head of black music at Arista, after a decade of service and loyalty to Reid when he first arrived.

There was no mention in the article of other acts, however, that Arista trumpeted when Reid took over. A female singer named Lennon and a rock act called Adema have both disappeared. And Blu Cantrell, who had a novelty hit just as Reid came in, has still not released her follow-up album. It was due last winter, and is now scheduled for the end of June.

The new Santana album, Shaman, has been a disappointment compared to the prior hit, Supernatural. Arista has not been able to translate the radio success of Santana's single "Game of Love" into album sales.

Also unmentioned is the comeback album by former Motown act Boyz II Men, which came and went without a peep. As well, Arista recently lost a hot new act called Thicke, which was signed to Babyface's NuAmerica label, to Interscope Records.

Babyface, whose real name is Kenneth Edmonds, was at one point Reid's close associate and business partner. When Reid took over Arista he bailed Edmonds out of his long-term deal at Epic Records and set him up with NuAmerica at Arista. Edmond's own solo album at Arista was a bust, and NuAmerica has moved to Interscope, which is part of Universal Music Group.

And there's still no sign of a new album by Dido, the folky British songstress whose album was released on the Clive Davis-run Arista. After Davis left the Dido album took off, and the Reid regime took credit for making it a sensation. "Reid didn't even know who Dido was when he came in," said one former Arista staffer. "He used to call her 'Diddo.'"