The only way he would've been "bigger in the 80's" is if he turned out to be a sell-out.

He didnt. Hence why there are only a handful of us.

Thank you Prince.

he was already the biggest selling pop star on the planet at the end of 1984....all he had to do to stay there was not release the around the world in a day album less than a year after a huge sucess of purple rain....if he had waited 2 or 3 years then released another rock tinged album....it would have sold by the bucketload....but he decided to release a completely different album soo soon after a huge album was prince turning his back on huge sales and going in a more artistic direction which may have cost him millions of fans and future album sales but made him a true artist who would last.....i will always admire him for making that decision and it made him far more than just another big 80s pop star like madonna or mj where sales was the be all and end all...

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I am a Prince fan from waaaaay back not so much on his music now I do peep some new stuff at times but the 80's Prince was on top of his game . How he could have made the 80's "MJ status" as far as mo money and legendary status... is not release Around the World in A Day so soon after PR. I would have let PURPLE RAIN ride 4 about another 18 months after the tour. Then he came that corny ass movie only a real Prince fans enjoyed I think Lol Under The Cherry Moon I have it on DVD but I cant watch it 2 often.

He should not have made so many cd's in the 80's most were great but that Lovesexy and Around the World

were not as good as they could or should have been. Toured Sign "O" the Times.

Last but not least and most of the all, Purple People co-sign with me on this 1.

How he could have been bigger was not breaking up The Revolution, what a dummy move.

I know the 30th "anni" of PR is next yr and how he can make himself on point again is to get the real PR tour

The Time/O7 back , get the Revolution back , release new material ,30th anniversary of Purple Rain DVD/TV Special 30th PR tour The Time and Prince and the Revolution that is how he can stack his chedda up and

have us party like it's 1984!!!

Prince knew the Game

Prince loathed the Fame

Prince changed the Game

..........and he changed his Name.

He did not want 2 play the game................as it was written

So..............he didn't.

funksterr said: You can't overstate how much the ATWIAD album cover killed Prince's momentum. Yes Rapberry Beret was a hit, but the album cover was a slap in the face to multiple sub-cultures in the United States. Particularly African Americans who were already pissed that Prince dropped Vanity in favor of a white girl in Purple Rain. Yes, today we know the facts were not nearly quite that simple, but nevertheless at the time, the African American community was somewhat uncofortable with Purple Rain becaue the black men are fighting over a white girl. For many it was an unwelcome stereotype and seemed to signify that a major motion picture love story, starring a black man and a black woman still could not be a pop culture smash in the United States due to the racism of the white majority. When ATWIAD came out it only added fuel to that fire because now you have some white sounding music and hippies and Prince's African American features are nowhere in sight on the cover. Yes I know, that the primary reason for this is that Prince plays a reduced role on the album and the cover was meant to reflect that this album was more of a band effort, but... for that era of black Americans, who had stood on the front lines of the civil rights era, the album cover decision had racial undertones. It was reminicent of the Jim Crow south and race records where black artists could not be featured on album covers. At that point, Prince was an Uncle Tom sellout afraid to stand on his ethnicity. So that part of his base quit his azz at that point and never really did return until fairly recent times. Then you had the white side of the equation, that was sensitive to Prince's heavy handed, damn near plagarizing, of the Beatles' albums imagery. WTF does he think he is? Rock critics openly laughed during their revews. Prince was panned as a too-big-for-his-britches wanna-be. The album itself was weird and unfocused. It sounds exactly like Purple Rain, but devoid of hunger and immediacy. As though Prince feels as though he's arrived to the circle of rock elite, and can release a throw-away record if he feels like it. Add to that the "We Are The World" bad press, The Big Chick National Enquirer expose and then the blatant trampling over the same sensitivites with "Under The Cherry Moon" and no wonder Parade and SOTT was largely ignored and Prince was teetering near bankruptcy by 1988. BTW I know Prince had No.1 hits on Parade and SOTT, but the public wasn't truly having any of it. The industry makes hits out when they choose to.

It's true that the public didn't go out and buy a Prince single or album just like that, without a first listen, after ATWIAD, the dissapointing follow up according 2 the general public.That's why, I guess, it took Kiss a while 2 climb the charts. I remember that it debuted on the charts in Holland at nr38 and it took some time 2 get past nr30!!But what a hit it became...profing what a great song it is, they didn't buy it because of Prince.I don't believe the business choses the hits, they can try 2 make something a hit but the public still decides.And SOTT and Parade were a succes in Europe...the hits were there, the concerts and lots of airplay...no feeling of decline here in those years!

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Really he couldn't have been too much bigger. Look at it this way...MJ had 17 top ten pop hits in the 80s. Madonna had 16 I think. Springsteen had 11. Prince had 14. MJ had 2 number one albums, Madonna 2, Springsteen 3, Prince 3. He could have skipped ATWIAD, Parade, and UTCM and just followed up Purple Rain with SOTT (maybe with "Kiss" tacked on to SOTT) but all that would really have accomplished was giving us less music. No thanks.

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Let's not forget that taste-making in the US was reigned by Indie-Promo-criminals in the 1980s (and beyond). While it's almost certain that Warners used these evil cocksuckers on selected "product" to a certain extended, there's just no question that Michael Jackson's cast of string pullers (Yetnikoff, Dileo etc) were sharing snorts regularly with these criminals.

It is no mystery that the US is and has been the most potent market for pop-music. Let's just imagine the following scenario: Mr Ostin and his Warner-crew were not to thrilled with the follow-ups to Purple Rain and did decide to not spend as many Dollars to back-up ATWIAD, Parade and SOTT. If they didn't pay let's say a 100.000 Indie-Promo-Dollars to get certain singles much airplay, it would have done irretrievable harm to any artist's reputation among US-pop-consumers.

Now, since it's been said before that Warners (in the US) narrow-minded way of thinking had almost prevented KISS from being Parade's first single. Keeping all of that in mind, I wonder why anyone is still being puzzled about Prince's career taking a downhill turn after Purple Rain in the US. At the same time his reputation among Europeans rose fast and steadily. Maybe because Indie-Promo was never such a big thing here, maybe because we always propelled individualism into stardom (at least up until the 1990s), and certainly because record executives knew their territories rather well culturally in those days.

Remember "I Want To Break Free" by Queen? While America couldn't handle a bunch of musician-tarts in drag, even Europeans who couldn't stand Queen before, took to the band wholeheartedly. Around the same time Prince was having his "classic period" and I am convinced that his whole imagery lend itself very well indeed to the liking of freaks among Europeans.

While I agree that he went over the top with considering himself to being an unbeatable genius and thus making some very bad career-moves (Under The Cherry Moon, not touring SOTT and Parade extensively), it is out of the question that he was blessed with epic artistry.

It's easy to say what should have been done with the luxury of hindsight. One thing is not negotiable, though: Prince was haven for many non-conformists and there were a lot more obvious ones in those days. At least in Europe. Or else, as the great Frank Zappa said: "There's mor of us ugly motherfuckers than you are, so watch out".

renfield said:

Really he couldn't have been too much bigger. Look at it this way...MJ had 17 top ten pop hits in the 80s. Madonna had 16 I think. Springsteen had 11. Prince had 14. MJ had 2 number one albums, Madonna 2, Springsteen 3, Prince 3. He could have skipped ATWIAD, Parade, and UTCM and just followed up Purple Rain with SOTT (maybe with "Kiss" tacked on to SOTT) but all that would really have accomplished was giving us less music. No thanks.

^ I like your answer, renfield.

Clever.

He should have just done Purple Rain and no more feature films, it would've allowed for more free time and more touring. It just seems like he had way too many things going on at the same time. As if Paisley Park wasn't enough...

He could have very easily been much bigger. All he had to do was keep releasing albums in the same vein as "1999" and "Purple Rain" and they would have continued to have big sales. His sound was hot at the time and other artists were starting to try to copy it and they continued trying to copy it for the rest of the 1980s. Hell, his sound on Janet Jackson's "Control" made her a superstar. Then there was folks giving it a shot like Ready For The World, Jody Watley, Georgio, Krystol, Madame X, Chaka Khan, The Barkays, Vesta Williams, Egyptian Lover, Jane Child, Cherrele, and not to mention his own former protegees, Jesse Johnson, Morris Day, Andre Cymone, and all the Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis productions. They don't try to copy something that isn't considered hot.

As for waiting two or three years after "Purple Rain" to release an album, y'all are going by 1990s to present standards. This was the 1980s before money hungry artists and record labels milked every song on an album and wore the album completely out to the point that people were sick of hearing the songs before releasing a new album. The 1980s stayed fresh and new and kept the new jams coming and didn't wear songs out. Damn near every artist released an album a year back then except for Michael Jackson who is probably the one who started this whole milking an album for all it's worth mess. If a song was released in the summer, hell, it was considered old by Christmas time. Prince himself even milked "Purple Rain" for all it was worth by releasing a fourth single "Take Me With U", so it was definitely time for a new album and people were also waiting for one at the time. "Purple Rain" had come out in the summer before my senior year in high school and "Around The World In A Day" came out a few weeks before I graduated so that's not really too soon for a new album. Hell, it was almost a year and "Purple Rain" had already lost it's steam. I remember people anxiously awaiting a new album. They just weren't happy with the TYPE of album they received. Here it was, the mid 1980s and everything was sounding all modern/futuristic (a sound which Prince himself was known for) and then here he comes sounding all retro hippie psychadelic. People weren't studying it and he even tricked them into buying it by not even releasing a lead single as a warning.

SoulAlive said:

Angelix said:

He should have toured the U.S. during SOTT.

In my opinion,not touring the States in 1987 was his biggest career mistake.If there was ever a "right time" for Prince to tour the US,it was in 1987.The Sign O The Times album was a true return to form...critics were going nuts over it,three of its singles reached the Top 10,and even a few tracks that weren't released as singles were getting radio airplay.I think a tour would have taken that album to new heights,commercially.

I think the tour would have had decent attendance but nothing huge like the "Purple Rain" tour. I think the "Sign O The Times" tour here in the States would have been mainly people like me, the hardcore fans that stuck with him, disappointed or not, hoping the "Old Prince" would return after going off in his little "far out" direction experimenting in "La La Retro Land" and also many people who gotten older, like me, and was not fortunate enough to see him in his earlier "Dirty Mind", "Controversy", etc. days and would go to a concert now just for the chance to finally see Prince. But the "Sign O The Times" movie attendance was proof that the Prince that people wanted had not returned. Hell, there were about 15 people in the theater when I went to see it. And as for the radio, I remember people liking "Adore" because the radio played the hell out of it but they were still saying that Prince was in his "far out" mode and ain't never came back to the old "Dirty Mind", "Controversy", or even "1999" Prince we knew.

digitalelectric said:

Interested in some informed opinions.

This always gets slammed, but reorganizing PR with a few different tracks might have raised the bar even higher.

Also including a deck of never-known ones on a second album much like the previous release might have taken the bar and plunged it into the ground.

How could P have been bigger in the 80's?

[Edited 7/19/13 0:43am]

My question is why?

Well the ultimate irony is we all know what could have made Prince bigger but I doubt us lot would have been here 30 years later if he had made those choices!

jcurley said:

Well the ultimate irony is we all know what could have made Prince bigger but I doubt us lot would have been here 30 years later if he had made those choices!

Exactly.

ABSOLUTELY AGREE. PERFECTLY SAID.

itsjustaroundthecorner said:

a LOT of it was public relations...

Not doing We are the World and Live Aid were bad moves just from a PR standpoint. Who cares about it now 30 years later... But just to answer the question... he really looked like a A-HOLE to the masses by not participating...

Besides that...

ATWIAD came out too fast - Take Me With U was still in the top 40 and Raspberry Beret came out.

I kind of feel like, he should have had a breather after PR. Maybe release a soundtrack single or two in between albums, but ATWIAD should have come out for XMAS '85 (OH and it should have included She's Always in My Hair and THAT should have been a single).

PARADE era - good god.. why did he think he could be a movie star/director/writer. UTCM should NOT have been released in theaters. It should have gone STRAIGHT to video and been marketed as a longform music video. And I actually think he could have scored points this way - it would have been impressive to release a giant long form music video and had it self directed. But as a theatrical film, it was a joke.

GIRLS AND BOYS should have been single #2 without a doubt. this is a monster jam, the perfect follow up to Kiss, that is now limited to being a fan favorite.

ANOTHERLOVER should have been the 3rd single

Mountains is one of my favorite P songs of ALL TIME, but its NOT A SINGLE.

SOTT - good lord where do we begin? NO TOUR IN THE USA? WHAT??????????? of course IIWYGF should never have been a single, it is a classic album track. U Got the Look should have been a #1 song as the follow up to SOTT. HOT THING should have been a single on its own. HOUSEQUAKE should have been a single on its own. ADORE should have been released as a single to rnb and would have been a mega hit. I kind of always thought Strange Relationship and Forever in My Life could have been singles too.

But man, that album could have been a blockbuster.. and with a tour to back it up?????????

LOVESEXY - this should NEVER have been released so fast. SOTT should have been a 2.5 year project.

Save Lovesexy for some other time.. forget the naked picture, forget the single track cd, forget all the jesus stuff in the concert, forget glam slam as the 2nd single.. it was just a mess... and kind of a heartbreak to watch him freefall out of the publics favor.

and even though it is 90's.. someone should have talked some sense into Prince's fool head about graffiti bridge. that was just a GIANT GIANT error.

NOW.. this was all stuff to have him be BIGGER in the 80's... now, does any of it matter? not really.. he is still going strong, revered and considered an icon.. so maybe it all comes out in the wash in time....

SquirrelMeat said:

Good topic for a bit of fun.I became a hardcore fan because of the often weird decisionsmade in the mid 80’s , but with it came a frequent need to defend him or receiveharsh criticism.The material Prince was making was perfectly capable ofmaking him as commercially big as MJ and Madonna for the rest of the decade, he just need to market it differently.If would have been game set and match if he’d.........Cancelled the release of Around the World in a Day.....waited until November 85 and releases a double album called “The Dance Electric”.Track list for a four sided LP:The DanceElectric Manic MondayGirls &BoysNothingCompares 2 U Kiss She’s Alwaysin My HairMutinySometimes itsnows in April RaspberryBeret Toy BoxPop LifeScreams of Passion AmericaA LoveBizarre The Ladder Seven Singles, with unreleased Double A-SidesThe Dance Electric / Anotherloverholenyouhead (Nov 85)Kiss / Temptation (Jan 86)Manic Monday / Paisley Park (March 86)Nothing Compare 2 U / Condition of the Heart (May 86)Raspberry Beret / Sister Fate (July 86)A Love Bizarre / Around the world in a day (Sept 86)The Ladder / Heaven (Nov 86)Style – The Kiss Look. Videos for both A sides 24 month world tourWorld Domination complete.

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this is brilliant, squirrelmeat.. i think im in love

different singles, better videos.

Lovesexy album cover hurt him, I worked in a record store and saw the damage taken. He should have released the Black Album instead.

His creativity slowed down by 88, imo...his sound changed during Graffiti Bridge and he seemed to be trying to keep up with what was trending with popular music at the time.

Graffiti Bridge has the elements of both era's. The outtakes from older projects(JIR, ICSTFIG,WCF, TTB, SWSAT) along with the new NPG sound. He lost his touch.

By replacing MJ and Madonna, but obviously the bigwigs wasn't having it.

bonnie184 said:

different singles, better videos.

Lovesexy album cover hurt him, I worked in a record store and saw the damage taken. He should have released the Black Album instead.

His creativity slowed down by 88, imo...his sound changed during Graffiti Bridge and he seemed to be trying to keep up with what was trending with popular music at the time.

Graffiti Bridge has the elements of both era's. The outtakes from older projects(JIR, ICSTFIG,WCF, TTB, SWSAT) along with the new NPG sound. He lost his touch.

Lol.........I suppose that is why he is still going strong in 2013.

funksterr said:

You can't overstate how much the ATWIAD album cover killed Prince's momentum. Yes Rapberry Beret was a hit, but the album cover was a slap in the face to multiple sub-cultures in the United States. Particularly African Americans who were already pissed that Prince dropped Vanity in favor of a white girl in Purple Rain. Yes, today we know the facts were not nearly quite that simple, but nevertheless at the time, the African American community was somewhat uncofortable with Purple Rain becaue the black men are fighting over a white girl. For many it was an unwelcome stereotype and seemed to signify that a major motion picture love story, starring a black man and a black woman still could not be a pop culture smash in the United States due to the racism of the white majority.


When ATWIAD came out it only added fuel to that fire because now you have some white sounding music and hippies and Prince's African American features are nowhere in sight on the cover. Yes I know, that the primary reason for this is that Prince plays a reduced role on the album and the cover was meant to reflect that this album was more of a band effort, but... for that era of black Americans, who had stood on the front lines of the civil rights era, the album cover decision had racial undertones. It was reminicent of the Jim Crow south and race records where black artists could not be featured on album covers. At that point, Prince was an Uncle Tom sellout afraid to stand on his ethnicity. So that part of his base quit his azz at that point and never really did return until fairly recent times.

Then you had the white side of the equation, that was sensitive to Prince's heavy handed, damn near plagarizing, of the Beatles' albums imagery. WTF does he think he is? Rock critics openly laughed during their revews. Prince was panned as a too-big-for-his-britches wanna-be. The album itself was weird and unfocused. It sounds exactly like Purple Rain, but devoid of hunger and immediacy. As though Prince feels as though he's arrived to the circle of rock elite, and can release a throw-away record if he feels like it. Add to that the "We Are The World" bad press, The Big Chick National Enquirer expose and then the blatant trampling over the same sensitivites with "Under The Cherry Moon" and no wonder Parade and SOTT was largely ignored and Prince was teetering near bankruptcy by 1988.

BTW I know Prince had No.1 hits on Parade and SOTT, but the public wasn't truly having any of it. The industry makes hits out when they choose to.

1.)Ok. What killed the momentum with ATWIAD was that Prince didn't promote it, didn't choose to promote it. When you make a switch like that you have to Promote, he did secret shows like the Birthday one in 1985 the show in France and 1 or 2 others, he should have pushed this album. It was too colorful too diverse to just expect it to stand on it's own.

.

2.) I seriously doubt the AA community was upset about the Vanity/Apollonia thing, most people didn't even know what happened or why, Most people didn't even know there was a Purple Rain movie in the making that would star Vanity.

.

3.) This is the 1st time I've heard anyone refer to Apollonia as a 'White Girl'. The real 'white' girl he left dated after Vanity was Susannah Melvoin. And he kept the relationship private. Most of us didn't know of Susannah until 1985.

.

4.) In the movie Apollonia was most likely considered 'Creole' from Louisiana. Most people thought like all the others Apollonia was some kind of mulatta. I've never ever heard of any issue my AA friends had of Prince & Apollonia and viewing her as 'white'

Graycap23 said:

metallicjigolo said:

Graycap23 said:

Prince knew the Game

Prince loathed the Fame

Prince changed the Game

..........and he changed his Name.

He did not want 2 play the game................as it was written

So..............he didn't.

Thank you. I could have not put it any better myself. He didn't want that type of success. It was too much. I think he's done very well regardless of album sales or radio play. He's happy and Alive and still creating music, his way. What more could he possibly ask for?!?

I don't Prince would go back and change a lot of things.

1. every record from 1999 on should have been double albums including the b-sides and full versions of many of the edited versions that ended up on the shorter records

2. prince should have toured each of the 4 big ones more extensively 1999 - sott and dare i say .. waited a bit longer between releases and also focussed more on each of the new releases with each tour instead of cramming say parade and around the world into one tour .. or doing hits with a few 1999 songs

3. under the cherry moon was a great movie .. just presented very poorly as almost an embarrasment before it had a chance .. the proper pr could have marketed this as the silly funky movie it was instead of everyone expecting pr 2 and being dissappointed

4. sott should have been split in 2 with 2 double records including b-sides and crystal ball trax toured with revolution in the us

5. prince should not have broken up the the revolution or dumped suzanna

6. after sott and crystal ball prince and rev should have taken a 2 year break and come back with some prime material or gone off to have families and what not .. had prince not dropped the ball on his quality control after sott and waited a while .. the anticipation would have been crazy .. then if he dropped something mindblowing at that point with the revolution .. woulda had another pr level success on our hands ..

7. prince should never ever ever ever ever ever have included rap in anything he ever did ever

no matter if the sales reflected "bigger" instantly or in the long run .. this path would have cemented him like pink floyd .. people never stop buying that pink floyd record and with double disks of prince best period there would have been 5 double records of his prime material with bsides included that would be irresistable on that darkside of the moon level .. songs like how come u dont call would have crossed prince over even more .. songs like shes always in my hair would have filled out weaker records to give them a little more status in the cannon .. dance songs on pr would have cemented him even more with his club crowd making pr even more of a success .. as would extending some of the edited songs on the records .. a huge gap followed by quality instead of frequency after sott would ensure global domination

oh and releasing that birthday show mixed with the purple rain show highlights "a case of you" "computer blue" "electric intercouse" etc ... would have been pretty awesome too

hell if he did all this now he just might restore his legend and cause people to forget what really happened to his career

oh ps.

prince should have let on much sooner that he was the mastermind behind all those other bands and their hits

SuperSoulFighter said:

By wearing even higher heels.

Yeah he could have been bigger, fewer albums. Also not so experimental ie changing his sound so often and appearing more "friendly".

But the reason I like prince is cos he flipped the script so much and did it well.

TrevorAyer said:

1. every record from 1999 on should have been double albums including the b-sides and full versions of many of the edited versions that ended up on the shorter records

2. prince should have toured each of the 4 big ones more extensively 1999 - sott and dare i say .. waited a bit longer between releases and also focussed more on each of the new releases with each tour instead of cramming say parade and around the world into one tour .. or doing hits with a few 1999 songs

3. under the cherry moon was a great movie .. just presented very poorly as almost an embarrasment before it had a chance .. the proper pr could have marketed this as the silly funky movie it was instead of everyone expecting pr 2 and being dissappointed

4. sott should have been split in 2 with 2 double records including b-sides and crystal ball trax toured with revolution in the us

5. prince should not have broken up the the revolution or dumped suzanna

6. after sott and crystal ball prince and rev should have taken a 2 year break and come back with some prime material or gone off to have families and what not .. had prince not dropped the ball on his quality control after sott and waited a while .. the anticipation would have been crazy .. then if he dropped something mindblowing at that point with the revolution .. woulda had another pr level success on our hands ..

7. prince should never ever ever ever ever ever have included rap in anything he ever did ever

no matter if the sales reflected "bigger" instantly or in the long run .. this path would have cemented him like pink floyd .. people never stop buying that pink floyd record and with double disks of prince best period there would have been 5 double records of his prime material with bsides included that would be irresistable on that darkside of the moon level .. songs like how come u dont call would have crossed prince over even more .. songs like shes always in my hair would have filled out weaker records to give them a little more status in the cannon .. dance songs on pr would have cemented him even more with his club crowd making pr even more of a success .. as would extending some of the edited songs on the records .. a huge gap followed by quality instead of frequency after sott would ensure global domination

oh and releasing that birthday show mixed with the purple rain show highlights "a case of you" "computer blue" "electric intercouse" etc ... would have been pretty awesome too

hell if he did all this now he just might restore his legend and cause people to forget what really happened to his career

Great thoughts there, totally following U on those

He keeps so much stuff secret that it took away from how awesome things really were