OldFriends4Sale said:

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

By Funky DESIGN.

Apollonia is not a quote unquote white girl she is more Spanish than White I see her on the Spanish speaking channels and or movies. Regardless of her shade I would invade she is still hella fine. I would drop Vanity's skinny no /ta tah's having ass as well. Apps over Van already!!

Paisley4u said:

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!

[Edited 7/23/13 2:25am]

[Edited 7/23/13 2:26am]

vainandy said: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, JohnJesse son, 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. Indeed, I bougth singles or albums from those U mention!(also Da Krash, General Kane, One Way...) Loved Prince's music but this funky sound was so great....still listen to it these days!

[Edited 8/14/13 11:22am]