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]

more pizza...

The Purple Rain album was perfect for the time. Whilst we recognise albums like Dirty Mind and 1999 are classics, in '84 Prince still hadn't had a smash hit album and wasn't a megastar. PR propelled him into a different league.

Had it been reorganised with additional songs, it might not have worked. The album is a classic and compliments the movie prefectly. Remember, whilst we have The Time and Apollonia in the movie, the film is all about Prince and why we all wanted to see the movie back then.

Back on topic, the decision to cancel the SOTT concerts in the UK was a bad one. I say that because I had a ticket (!), but I think it would've made the album a massive seller. Remember, whislt it's considered as his masterpiece, it didn't sell massive amounts back in the day.

And, has been discussed many times on here, some of the single choices were odd. More than once, the strong lead single would be followed by a much weaker second single which in my opinion, stalled album sales. Examples; If I was your Girlfriend, Glam Slam, Mountains. I love these songs, but there were stronger alternatives for a second single.

Recording a Gold Experience like Album after Purple Rain, keep the rock flowing and he would have been invincible.

Next team up with Michael Jackson on bad, that would have blown him into the stratosphere, but I am glad he didn't.

Purple Rain probably gave him enough a taste of fame that he needed.

Better music videos?

Honestly, i think that's the only thing he couldn't really be arsed with.

Maybe doing 'Live Aid' properly in '85 . People might have gone to watch Cherry Moon the following year

[Edited 7/19/13 5:13am]

1. Not be a drag queen

2. Release less albums that are more in tune with what the public expects and squeeze each one for it's maximum worth over 3-4 years

3. Be more commercially-minded with regards to singles - better single choices/orders, better promotion (see how few TV appearances and interviews he did in the 80s) and promo videos.

4. Not be a douche and be more open to the media and things like Live Aid

Does any of that sound good outside of him maybe earning more moolah (that is if the momentum kept up)? If we're playing fantasy career league here, I would've certainly made a few different choices like singles for example, but I fear it's like Jenga you move one piece and the whole thing comes crashing down.

why do people want to rewrite history.. BTW, there is no way of ever knowing if any of the BS spewed above would have changed things....

His superstardom was so huge he could have released ATWIAD & Our Destiny(made up name)

.

I was listening to the rock version of Feline, and the PR era sounding version of Desire & Nothing Compares 2 U

.

If Prince released [Our Destiny]

.

1.) Roadhouse Garden

2.) Our Destiny

3.) Dance Electric

4.) Feline

5.) Nothing Compares 2 U

6.) Manic Monday

7.) Jerk Out

8.) Extra Loveable

9.) Lust U Always

10.) Desire

11.) Electric Intercourse

* and could be used as B-sides too

.

The songs still have that 1999/PR continuation, but still have a different touch, a combination 2 different album showcasing a wide range of musical styles and energy, would have opened people to a new style and direction while still giving that high energy.

.

B.) another take: Under the Cherry Moon - could have been HUGE, if Prince followed the direction of the director, included live performances with his bands, Jill Jones, Sheila E. the Family, appearances by Mazarati. more B side releases (his Parade videos were and are still the best) The Parade era could have been HUGE.

Interesting question, and I think the answer is, "He was as big as he possibly could have been in the '80's".

He set the all-time sales record for the biggest record label in the world. He won an Academy Award. He was on the cover of every magazine that matters. He starred in the highest-grossing music movie of all time. He got to direct his own movie. He did the soundtrack for the top-selling superhero movie of all time (at the time).

The only way the '80's could have been better for Prince personally was if he'd had a better record deal with WB. And, maybe, if as Angelix says, he'd taken the SOTT tour to the US.

RodeoSchro said:

Interesting question, and I think the answer is, "He was as big as he possibly could have been in the '80's".

Nope. Only, in 1984 was this true.

---

He was very "out there" in the 80's and it was not until 1989 that mainstream audiences in the USA embraced him again with such fervor. Look at the sales of his post Purple Rain albums. Steep decline.

---

Personally, I am glad he was a mad genius that chased his passion/muse rather than cater to the whims of the fickle pop public. In the 80's, Prince was the anti-Mcchael Jackson. He wasn't trying to be THE BIGGEST of all time. He wasn't constantly competing with Purple Rain, or trying to top it. He was just trying to be Prince. In doing so, he ended up being branded a genius the ages.

[Edited 7/19/13 9:54am]

skywalker said:

RodeoSchro said:

Interesting question, and I think the answer is, "He was as big as he possibly could have been in the '80's".

Nope. Only, in 1984 was this true.

---

He was very "out there" in the 80's and it was not until 1989 that mainstream audiences in the USA embraced him again with such fervor. Look at the sales of his post Purple Rain albums. Steep decline.

---

Personally, I am glad he was a mad genius that chased his passion/muse rather than cater to the whims of the fickle pop public. In the 80's, Prince was the anti-Mcchael Jackson. He wasn't trying to be THE BIGGEST of all time. He wasn't constantly competing with Purple Rain, or trying to top it. He was just trying to be Prince. In doing so, he ended up being branded a genius the ages.

[Edited 7/19/13 9:54am]

Sure, but it's pretty much impossible to be the biggest star on the planet for an entire decade 9as measured by sales). Plenty of other stars throughout history have reached the level Prince did in 1984, but no one has ever maintained that level for the next six years (except maybe the Beatles).

In other words, no one has ever set a most-albums-sold record for their label, and then broken that every time they released another album.

I agree 100% with your last paragraph.

in the 80's and 90's music videos still mattered.
but Prince was a huge and his incredible productivity in the 80s means a lot more than the pursuit of even bigger popularity.

i'm still lost on the career some folks want him to have as opposed to the one he does have. if you change anything, he wouldn't be him. At present, he has one of the largest perfomance and licensing fees of any artist, past or present. I would say you would have to be pretty big and influential to demand the shit that he demands and gets it..how much bigger can he be...

RodeoSchro said:

skywalker said:

Nope. Only, in 1984 was this true.

---

He was very "out there" in the 80's and it was not until 1989 that mainstream audiences in the USA embraced him again with such fervor. Look at the sales of his post Purple Rain albums. Steep decline.

---

Personally, I am glad he was a mad genius that chased his passion/muse rather than cater to the whims of the fickle pop public. In the 80's, Prince was the anti-Mcchael Jackson. He wasn't trying to be THE BIGGEST of all time. He wasn't constantly competing with Purple Rain, or trying to top it. He was just trying to be Prince. In doing so, he ended up being branded a genius the ages.

[Edited 7/19/13 9:54am]

Sure, but it's pretty much impossible to be the biggest star on the planet for an entire decade 9as measured by sales). Plenty of other stars throughout history have reached the level Prince did in 1984, but no one has ever maintained that level for the next six years (except maybe the Beatles).

In other words, no one has ever set a most-albums-sold record for their label, and then broken that every time they released another album.

I agree 100% with your last paragraph.

I agree.

My point is, Prince could have been "bigger" he just didn't seem interested in going that route. He took risks and seemingly made career decisions that made no business sense...just artistic sense to him. That is to be applauded.

__

On the other hand, Michael Jackson did and he WAS the "biggest" star of, arguably, any era. Look what it cost him though.

[Edited 7/19/13 11:36am]

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....

I agree that ATWIAD came out too quickly after Purple Rain. Imagine if he'd waited until 1986 to release the follow-up and filled it with the best of Around the World and Parade...

As a few of you have said,he could have been bigger if he didn't release his albums so frequently.Can you imagine if he had waited two years after Purple Rain before releasing the follow-up?!

skywalker 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.

The 80s was such a volatile era for music. The styles and culture were changing rapidly. I don't know if anyone could have remained on top that long. In 84 and 85, the Minneapolis synth funk dominated the airwaves. Everyone wanted that Prince sound and androgynous look. By 86, funk was practically dead, R and B was smoothed out Anita Baker and Freddie Jackson, and the masculine front of hip hop was gaining speed. That was just the black music scene. Actually, I'm impressed that he made it to the 90s because so many acts didn't.

[Edited 7/19/13 22:01pm]

[Edited 7/19/13 22:02pm]

Two different ways.

Strategy #1.

Follow the same path: PR, ATWIAD, Parade & SOTT, but make sure that Parade was a good movie, with a real plot, and more tension. People were confused by ATWIAD, and by Parade, but by the time SOTT came around, it was well accepted that he was a genius, not just eccentric.


Strategy #2.

Follow PR up with another PR sounding album, but with more tracks and more umph. (sort of like a Gold experience version of PR). Tour like hell for the second one. Take 2 years off after that and release SOTT. Tour Europe AND the USA. Released a live accoustic album and performed on MTV's unplugged to seal the deal that he's a genius fringe musician who made it big, and not just a pop star.


Also for both, do more live performances. More SNL, more David Letterman, etc. Prince's strong suit has always been his live performances.

The MJ USA For Africa, We Are The World "incident" in 1985 didn't help on Prince's popularity.

It killed some of the momentum he had after the Purple Rain phenomenon, Prince was made into a weird unsensitive spoiled superstar by the press, because he refused to be there:

I blame the MJ camp for this incident...

Anyway, Prince has sold 100 million records, that's actually very impressive.

I think Prince wanted to be the biggest artist of the 80s,but on his own terms.I also think that he (naively) assumed that the Purple Rain audience would remain with him and follow him on his experimental journeys.It seems that many of those people jumped ship after ATWIAD.

Black Album/Lovesexy double album

Hindsight eh?

Here goes...

an album every 2 calendar years after PR...flooding the market was fine before 1984, added to the momentum he was building.

A massive undertaking of 1987 touring SOTT - easy to say now...but that album could have been a monster right into 1988. Furthermore, space the touring out into 1988 allowing for a year without a new album and the '2 year' theory. Means P is actually on the radar in some way for every year mentioned without necessarily having a new project, and giving people the time to look forward to the album posted below.

An album that's the best of the Black Album and Lovesexy together - I would agree with the double in theory but not if it's in the wake of SOTT - too much. Trim it down to a 40 min classic - this would be released in 1989, allowing for the Batman thing (he could manage all that in 1989, right?). Could possibly make for another huge year (1989-90)

[Edited 7/20/13 17:54pm]

[Edited 7/20/13 17:55pm]

SoulAlive said:

I think Prince wanted to be the biggest artist of the 80s,but on his own terms.I also think that he (naively) assumed that the Purple Rain audience would remain with him and follow him on his experimental journeys.It seems that many of those people jumped ship after ATWIAD.

Thats a very interesting statement, deserves its own thread IMO. There is a alot to be discussed in hindsight regarding the release of ATWIAD 9 months after PR but I find it hard to believe Prince thought that he would get the majority of his new PR audience to appreciate what he was doing. There are many reports of him being fed up with the whole PR tour thing and alienating this segment of bandwagon fans was exactly what he wanted.

That is what makes him different to the rest...

The image of the Warners Execs hearing ATWIAD in some boardroom with dollar signs in their eyes must have been priceless...

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.