My opinion:

- The Rebels: made sense, went well with the music and the post punk era, a little too obvious maybe but OK.

- The Time: great name, doesn't mean much but just sounds great.

- Vanity 6: The Hookers woulda been funny but harder to sell, Vanity 6 sounds great, it's pretty straight to the point without being vulgar.

- The Revolution: wonderful name for a mid-80's new wave band, can imply a social, spiritual and/or musical revolution, that sounded just great!

- Apollonia 6: definitely not as sassy as "Vanity 6", and much less sexy, but it had to follow the pattern I guess...

- The Family: now who the fuck did Prince think would buy a record by a band named like this? This is a stupid name, totally unimaginative, and it doesn't say much about the glamorous concept of the band (fDeluxe is much better in that regard).

- The Flesh: intriguing and sounds great for a mysterious jazz-funk band.

- Madhouse: not so original but it sounded good for a somewhat mad sounding jazz funk project.

- New Power Generation: it was OK when it was a concept for Prince's philosophy or a song title, but as a band name I don't know. I mean who the fuck would call themselves like this and what is it supposed to mean in the end? A bit corny if you ask me. "N.P.G." sounds good, though.

- Minneapolis/MPLS/The Crayons: I liked The Crayons a lot: bloody meaningless but a colorful name for a colorful project. Minneapolis (or MPLS, that one was confusing) was a bit obvious but at least it made it very clear who the musical scene of MPLS belonged to back then.

- The NPG Orchestra: well, it says what it says... Not original for a penny but at least gives the tone for the project, and sounds like a natural extention of the New Power Generation.

I did not include names of Paisley Park bands such as Mazarati and Good Question, or other projects such as MC Flash and Graham Central Station, as Prince didn't find the names for these bands.

The Revolution is the best name. Perfect name for the time. It was genius, and not only was the band gone too soon, but so was the name.

New Power Generation is clunky. I love the song immensely, but the name has really outlived any coolness it ever had.

I love all the other names. The Rebels, The Flesh, Madhouse...those are just great. The Time, The Family, Vanity/Apollonia 6...those are incredible, too.

Efan said:

The Revolution is the best name. Perfect name for the time. It was genius, and not only was the band gone too soon, but so was the name.

New Power Generation is clunky. I love the song immensely, but the name has really outlived any coolness it ever had.

I love all the other names. The Rebels, The Flesh, Madhouse...those are just great. The Time, The Family, Vanity/Apollonia 6...those are incredible, too.

I respect your opinion but you have to explain to me how can "The Family" be "incredible"

databank said:

Efan said:

The Revolution is the best name. Perfect name for the time. It was genius, and not only was the band gone too soon, but so was the name.

New Power Generation is clunky. I love the song immensely, but the name has really outlived any coolness it ever had.

I love all the other names. The Rebels, The Flesh, Madhouse...those are just great. The Time, The Family, Vanity/Apollonia 6...those are incredible, too.

I respect your opinion but you have to explain to me how can "The Family" be "incredible"

Wait, did I really say "incredible"? I think I was just throwing words around. I should be more careful.

I just meant that they're good band names. Basically, New Power Generation is the only band name of his that I think is not cool.

It's well past time that he dropped the NPG. I still wish he'd gone ahead with renaming the band 10,000 back in 94.

New Power Generation sounds like a cult. Awful name.

"New Power Generation" sounded pretty cool to me during the early part of the 90s. I was still a teenager myself though. By the time he released Emancipation it had started to sound pretty corny and he was actually asking his fans on the dawn -site if he should change it.He really should have stopped using it by that point.

"Revolution" is nice enough, but I'm not sure if he ever realized that "revolutions" have been usually about taking the power away from the royalty (the irony being being that he is a "prince" himself).

The Time, Vanity 6 / Apollonia 6, The Family, Madhouse are all pretty mundane band names if you ask me. Then again, I don't think band names really need to be that great.

databank said:

Efan said:

The Revolution is the best name. Perfect name for the time. It was genius, and not only was the band gone too soon, but so was the name.

New Power Generation is clunky. I love the song immensely, but the name has really outlived any coolness it ever had.

I love all the other names. The Rebels, The Flesh, Madhouse...those are just great. The Time, The Family, Vanity/Apollonia 6...those are incredible, too.

I respect your opinion but you have to explain to me how can "The Family" be "incredible"

I think if we got a full time period with them, it would have come together, It already started with the photo album pictures

I wish he would have had the full band members in there though such as Mico Wally & Gregory

OldFriends4Sale said:

databank said:

I respect your opinion but you have to explain to me how can "The Family" be "incredible"

I think if we got a full time period with them, it would have come together, It already started with the photo album pictures

I wish he would have had the full band members in there though such as Mico Wally & Gregory

I never understood why Mico wasn't officially in the band (or in the video) anyway since he was credited in the booklet for all guitar playing and playing live with them. I love, deeply LOVE this album and its glamorous concept and the booklet is cool, but the whole thing didn't make any sense in terms of a band project. For one thing there's that thing with Mico. And Eric playing the goddamn bass in the video (), and now with the name: Paul and Susannah were supposed to be lovers (in the songs I mean), with 3 sexually frustrated male chaperonnes hanging around (Jerome, Eric and Jelly), so tell me what the f... this "family" was supposed to be save an incestuous disfonctional decadent disaster?

I see your point, though

i'd even prefer a simple "prince and the band" at this point.

i understand his affection for NPG as a sort of umbrella that

houses a record company, a band, and everything else he

decided to shove under there.

but it's old and tired.

and it feels kind of cultish when band members talk about

being 'a part of the npg' etc etc. i don't know.

i don't hate it or anything. it's just that when the 1995 NPG

closed the door and turned off the lights, he should have

just retired the name completely or just kept it on as the

name of the record company.

all the other bandnames are just fine/cool.

IstenSzek said:

i'd even prefer a simple "prince and the band" at this point.

i understand his affection for NPG as a sort of umbrella that

houses a record company, a band, and everything else he

decided to shove under there.

but it's old and tired.

and it feels kind of cultish when band members talk about

being 'a part of the npg' etc etc. i don't know.

i don't hate it or anything. it's just that when the 1995 NPG

closed the door and turned off the lights, he should have

just retired the name completely or just kept it on as the

name of the record company.

all the other bandnames are just fine/cool.

Yeah, the NPG is outdated.

When there are similar members in the band for a stretch of time, it's ok, but when u get a totally different band far removed from the former its done

A lot of people call the Revolution the band from either 1978 or starting with the DirtyMind or Controversy band because overall you have mostly the same members even into the SOTT years you still have the people who were in the Revolution or performing with them even since Purple Rain ie Eric Leeds Sheila E Mico Weaver

databank said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

I think if we got a full time period with them, it would have come together, It already started with the photo album pictures

I wish he would have had the full band members in there though such as Mico Wally & Gregory

I never understood why Mico wasn't officially in the band (or in the video) anyway since he was credited in the booklet for all guitar playing and playing live with them. I love, deeply LOVE this album and its glamorous concept and the booklet is cool, but the whole thing didn't make any sense in terms of a band project. For one thing there's that thing with Mico. And Eric playing the goddamn bass in the video (), and now with the name: Paul and Susannah were supposed to be lovers (in the songs I mean), with 3 sexually frustrated male chaperonnes hanging around (Jerome, Eric and Jelly), so tell me what the f... this "family" was supposed to be save an incestuous disfonctional decadent disaster?

I see your point, though

I don't know either, maybe because he was still officially in Sheila E's band,

Wendy Melvoin played guitar on a few (the Family) songs too though

lol you know Prince back then thrived off sex and mind games, maybe that was the fuel

But again the title doesn't fully make sense especially after I found out there were the other 2 dancers with Jerome, a rehearsal by the Family was described in a 1985 Prince interview about them ending a song falling down twitching and rolling on the stage

The who project is still a 'dream defered' project I love the music

Like Jill Jones he should have presented them as a full band

Agree about the naming of 'The Family' for sure, although I think 'Fdeluxe' sounds a bit like some posh beddding...like an 'Fdeluxe matress' LOL

Still their recent album was v. impressive

[Edited 10/19/12 13:59pm]

Madhouse

Apollonia 6

Vanity 6

Carmen Electra

Best names ever!!!

The Revolution

Best backing band name.

NPG is better than New Power Generation.

The Time, The Family were alright for the 80's but kind of bland in retrospect.

HonestMan13 said:

Madhouse

Apollonia 6

Vanity 6

Carmen Electra

Best names ever!!!

The Revolution

Best backing band name.

NPG is better than New Power Generation.

The Time, The Family were alright for the 80's but kind of bland in retrospect.

What should we say, then, about Michael B.?

All of them are OK except for "New Power Generation" which sounds childish and when shortened to "NPG" it sounds and looks shit hoppish, especially when he puts those tacky looking letters all over his clothes, it ends up looking like some sort of sports jersey.