When fans like Stillwaiting can write essays of that calibre, you just wonder why Prince does not listen to his fans more, as that was truly excellent.

That essay pretty much summed up everything that went wrong in the Prince camp in 1984 - 1988. But I think too, Prince may have overestimated the chart audience when he released some of those flops like America, Anotherlover..., and Girlfriend. Great songs they are, but too complex and jaded to a 12 year old teeny bopper from the mid 80s with rainbow brite hair and the wantings of more accessible artists like Madonna, the Bangles, the Gogos and Rick Astley.

.

I think his black audience may have been isolated a bit by his look at the time, not only was it scarily androgynous and effeminate with the long hair and make up and near dresses he wore and the fact he looked less masculine than Cat, a female. He also looked very Caucasian with some sort of very pale face cream and straightened hair. Looking at photos of him from the time, he could easily pass for a white man. He had looked very white during the Parade era (Mainly because of the movie and several photos and covers being in Black and White) but in colour photos he still looked very black. The only time he would look that white again was during the Gold Experience era.

.

Why did he look so white and what was it, lighting, skin cream, skin bleaching? I know Prince has never been a dark ebony man, but he at least looked blacker during Purple Rain and the 1999 era. In the For You period there was no doubt that he was black and not white. But by Lovesexy he looked very white. Thank god not that many people are so shallow now, but in 1988 with the rise of angry rap music by blacker than blacker people like Public enemy, Cool J, Tone Loc and Bobby Brown, semi white dance pop done by a white looking guy seemed rather fey and selling out. It was also the rise of a second wave of Black is beautiful culture and names Kenya and Tkeymah were becoming popular over white sounding names like Otis Jefferson etc.

.

Also the promotion sucked, unlike with earlier albums, all the videos for the 3 singles released were cheep ass and nasty looking. The Alphabet street one is inventive and quirky, but still looks cheep by late 80s standards. The Glam Slam one is just 3 minutes of live sequences snipped together and is probably the most pleasing of the lot. I wish u heaven is an abortion set to film.

thedance said:

F*ck the USA, 1988.



The americans did not get Lovesexy, I guess the music is too complex on this album, for them...

Afaik, Prince and Lovesexy was huge in Europe....... #1 in the UK? and selling good elsewhere in Europe?

28,000 people saw his Lovesexy concert in Idrætsparken, Denmark 1988.

Thats rather impressive imo.

Lovesexy sold better than most previous Prince-albums in Europe, afaik.....

I love the album, and I judge it on the artistic values - more than sales figures,


but ok it was a little frustrating - and unfair - Lovesexy did not sell at all in the USA.

Was Prince a radio monster in Denmark around that time?

Adorecream said:

When fans like Stillwaiting can write essays of that calibre, you just wonder why Prince does not listen to his fans more, as that was truly excellent.

That essay pretty much summed up everything that went wrong in the Prince camp in 1984 - 1988. But I think too, Prince may have overestimated the chart audience when he released some of those flops like America, Anotherlover..., and Girlfriend. Great songs they are, but too complex and jaded to a 12 year old teeny bopper from the mid 80s with rainbow brite hair and the wantings of more accessible artists like Madonna, the Bangles, the Gogos and Rick Astley.

.

I think his black audience may have been isolated a bit by his look at the time, not only was it scarily androgynous and effeminate with the long hair and make up and near dresses he wore and the fact he looked less masculine than Cat, a female. He also looked very Caucasian with some sort of very pale face cream and straightened hair. Looking at photos of him from the time, he could easily pass for a white man. He had looked very white during the Parade era (Mainly because of the movie and several photos and covers being in Black and White) but in colour photos he still looked very black. The only time he would look that white again was during the Gold Experience era.

.

Why did he look so white and what was it, lighting, skin cream, skin bleaching? I know Prince has never been a dark ebony man, but he at least looked blacker during Purple Rain and the 1999 era. In the For You period there was no doubt that he was black and not white. But by Lovesexy he looked very white. Thank god not that many people are so shallow now, but in 1988 with the rise of angry rap music by blacker than blacker people like Public enemy, Cool J, Tone Loc and Bobby Brown, semi white dance pop done by a white looking guy seemed rather fey and selling out. It was also the rise of a second wave of Black is beautiful culture and names Kenya and Tkeymah were becoming popular over white sounding names like Otis Jefferson etc.

.

Also the promotion sucked, unlike with earlier albums, all the videos for the 3 singles released were cheep ass and nasty looking. The Alphabet street one is inventive and quirky, but still looks cheep by late 80s standards. The Glam Slam one is just 3 minutes of live sequences snipped together and is probably the most pleasing of the lot. I wish u heaven is an abortion set to film.

.

.

LOL I've felt like I was the only one who noticed that! His skin color seems to change very consistently, or at least did back then.

On American Bandstand 1980 he looked light caramel, but looked darker on SNL one year later. In the 1999 and Purple Rain eras he looked like a dark person (look at him shirtless in Computer Blue or whilst performing the PR finale), he was most obviously a black man. Not even a YEAR later in Raspberry Beret, his hair was straightened, his facial hair gone and his skin was pale looking.

.

Parade he seemed dark at times but also light (Kiss video)

.

Sign O the Times he seemed to have gotten darker but not as dark as Purple Rain. 1988-1990 he seemed to just get lighter and lighter and I was really shocked while watching Graffiti Bridge...his skin was so pale and light and his features more delicate, he didn't look like Mr. Let's Go Crazy. Watch Three Chains o Gold...when he was making love to that girl he picked up in Sexy MF video he looks like he's Puerto Rican or a mix. His palest was Gold Experience (he looked paler than MJ!!!!) It was obvious he was on some white white whitey makeup and to add the fact he looked very underweight adn tiny at the time.

.

The Prince of 1984 and the Prince of 1994 were like different people.

Like what you wrote, stillwaiting - except would say Prince made the bad decisions. Warner Bros. overall just tried to keep Prince on track, while not ruffling things up with him. WB would have wanted Prince to take time out after Purple Rain. Prince wanted If I was your girlfriend to be a single. Prince decided not to do a SOTT tour in the US. Then WB apparently had promotion lined up to coordinate with Lovesexy US tour dates. The US tour was booked, then Prince decided, last-minute to tour Europe first. [That could have gone badly as he found himself looking to book venues with Madonna and Michael Jackson both on tour there, at the time].

.

In 1988, Prince faced declining record sales, experienced 2 film flops in theaters and so on. What did he do? Decided to pose nude on the album cover. In a way, nothing has changed. Prince still has a tendency to make poor or self-sabotaging decisions.

fbueller said:

Like what you wrote, stillwaiting - except would say Prince made the bad decisions. Warner Bros. overall just tried to keep Prince on track, while not ruffling things up with him. WB would have wanted Prince to take time out after Purple Rain. Prince wanted If I was your girlfriend to be a single. Prince decided not to do a SOTT tour in the US. Then WB apparently had promotion lined up to coordinate with Lovesexy US tour dates. The US tour was booked, then Prince decided, last-minute to tour Europe first. [That could have gone badly as he found himself looking to book venues with Madonna and Michael Jackson both on tour there, at the time].

.

In 1988, Prince faced declining record sales, experienced 2 film flops in theaters and so on. What did he do? Decided to pose nude on the album cover. In a way, nothing has changed. Prince still has a tendency to make poor or self-sabotaging decisions.

.

Warner Bros. should have been much firmer with Prince. Yeah, he was the zeitgeist of 1984 and a huge international star but being in the business much longer than he had been, shouldn't they have known just how quickly a superstar could be dethroned? Fine release ATWIAD if he really wants to, but they did a stretch by doing little promotion for it and then releasing such a terrible movie 1 year later. When Prince wanted to release Lovesexy after ALL OF THAT, they should have forced him to promote Sign 'O' the Times some more (it had freaking 16 tracks, he could promote it for another year), and later on had some input on Lovesexy (such as declining that cover and declining the 1 track idea). His worst career suicide attempt was the 1993 incident, but they had no control over that.

fbueller said:

Like what you wrote, stillwaiting - except would say Prince made the bad decisions. Warner Bros. overall just tried to keep Prince on track, while not ruffling things up with him. WB would have wanted Prince to take time out after Purple Rain. Prince wanted If I was your girlfriend to be a single. Prince decided not to do a SOTT tour in the US. Then WB apparently had promotion lined up to coordinate with Lovesexy US tour dates. The US tour was booked, then Prince decided, last-minute to tour Europe first. [That could have gone badly as he found himself looking to book venues with Madonna and Michael Jackson both on tour there, at the time].

.

In 1988, Prince faced declining record sales, experienced 2 film flops in theaters and so on. What did he do? Decided to pose nude on the album cover. In a way, nothing has changed. Prince still has a tendency to make poor or self-sabotaging decisions.

Thanks for the compliment. Obviously Prince made a lot of decisions, but together, both of them fumbled and bumbled their way to career sabotage. U2 and Michael Jackson had much better album sales by usually waiting a few years between releases...actually, MJ took a bit too long...U2 did it just right...but now they are taking longer than Prince is with PE, but that's another story.

My bottom line is that Prince and Warners worked hard together to destroy his career. A little bit more effort from Warners to keep Prince in check would've been great. I've got another huge essay in my mind about how they could've kept it from going wrong... , but haven't written it yet.

SuperSoulFighter said:

And to all those folks saying Prince was wrong for not doing an American Sign o' the Times tour, you're probably right, but look at it from Prince's perspective: at the end of 87 he had decided not to release an album of new music and replace it with another album of new music. In other words, in 1988, SOTT was already old news in Prince's mind. What's the point of doing a tour then?

It was huge. Since Prince had already started his downfall, a US tour might not have been as successful as projected, but the SOTT tour was in many fans opinions, his greatest live achievement, and the reviews it would have got likely would've helped the album sell a little more since it was so heavy on the new songs. He had gone 26 months without touring in the USA when the 1987 tour started. Had he started in the USA right at the time of the album's release, it would have been pretty big. Still, it would've really helped if he had saved "Kiss" for SOTT...Kiss and U Got The Look as back to back singles followed by Housequake, and SOTT...that woud've been 4 huge top 10 hits. Housequake got airplay in my hometown of Tallahassee, FL...and Atlanta, and other cities. If it was an actual single...history would have been re-written Fo Sho!

CharismaDove said:

I remember going to see the Lovesexy tour in the U.S. and he played 2 nights. I can't remember which night I attended but I recall that most of the audience would sit down during the Lovesexy material and stand up whenever he did a song from Purple Rain. I wanted to stand the entire time but the fans behind me couldn't see so I was forced to sit. There was also no encore. It was a strange evening in my opinion. But I also remember how great it was. It only made me like him more. A few years later when I got my hands on a VHS tape of the Nude Tour in Tokyo, I became an even bigger fan.

This thread is interesting!

I haven't had time to read all of the previous posts but the ones I did read took me back in time. 1988 was a weird, wonderful, transitional time for Prince. It was the apex of almost a decade of invention and reinvention. It was also the beginning of the commercial slide of Prince and kind of a rough year for fans of the pop star side. I would love to write an essay to properly capture the era, because it is still so vivid in my mind but instead I will just offer some random memories of 1988.

1. Alphabet Street was an exciting, cool sounding single that sounded like nothing else on the radio. The video was very, very cheap looking and the single was so short that it felt like it was over in a blink. My radio station played the CD version of the song and since CDs were still a relatively recent phenomenon, they would announce it as a "CD exclusive" and then you would get to hear the Cat rap and the awesome guitar riff for another 3 minutes.
2. Glam Slam, which had a cool video and a great vibe but lyrics written by an inarticulate 3rd grader, BOMBED on radio. Just BOMBED. I mean my local radio station would not touch it despite a number of bordering on stalking requests from your's truly. Maybe "flick a nipple" line was too much for radio. But weraing the blindfold in the video, just sick.
3. Prince wore pajamas pretty much the whole year. Every damn Lovesexy outfit looked like pajamas with big old words written on the sides. Only Prince, and no one else in history, could get away with wearing what he and his bandmates wore in 1988.
4. Philosophers theorized. Politicians took sides. Wars were fought with multiple casualities. Op ed columns were written. People stopped theorizing on Stonehenge and Easter Island and collectively tried to decipher the great mystery of the era. Why in the HELL was Prince bucknaked on the cover.
5. Walmart and other record stores could not display the album cover with the flower erection so I sent my Mom to buy the CD which was behind the counter of the local music store like it was porn. So it was like getting my Mom to buy porn which was disturbing.
6. My room was covered with artifacts of the times. I had the Prince with the police hat and the makeup that ceased to be makeup and was instead a third layer of skin above the dermis and epidermis. And the 12 inch singles for Alphabet St and Glam Slam were in clear wrappers with cool stickers with the title on it so I took the stickers off the clear covers and stuck them on the wall. Plus I cut out some pictures from some magazines...my room kicked freaking ass.
7. All parties involved stopped fighting about seeing Prince's pistil/pistol on the cover of the CD and all agreed on one united principle, that singletrackiing the Lovesexy CD was the stupidest thing since New Coke. Frustrated Prince fans that felt a hankering to listen to Positivity or Dance On had to listen to the Chipmunk version of Lovesexy just to get there.
8. The CD went gold and petered out. The video for I Wish U Heaven was cool but the song was not played on radio at all. The 12 inch single kicked miles of ass but only Prince fans were privy to this.
9. I missed the concert tour which I think I would have enjoyed. It would have been cool seeing the Thunderbird being driven out on stage and the basketball court and the dueling evil versus good Princes that bracketed the first and second part of the show. It sure sounded cool.
10. Everyone said Prince was done (again). George Michael was now more Prince than Prince was. If only Prince had a venue to get back to the mainstream, some kind of project that, you know everyone would go gaga about. Prince needed a hero to get his fame back. Cue 1989 and the bat signal...

[Edited 7/16/14 20:18pm]

SuperSoulFighter said:

And to all those folks saying Prince was wrong for not doing an American Sign o' the Times tour, you're probably right, but look at it from Prince's perspective: at the end of 87 he had decided not to release an album of new music and replace it with another album of new music. In other words, in 1988, SOTT was already old news in Prince's mind. What's the point of doing a tour then?

A WB executive has said that they wanted "more time with the SOTT album".They apparently felt that they could milk that album for several more months,release more singles and keep the momentum going.A 2-record set can have a longer lifespan on the charts.But of course,Prince was ready to move on.Such a shame,though.There is no doubt in my mind that a US SOTT tour would have been HUGELY successful.Imagine if he went out on tour in November 1987 and didn't wrap the tour up until April or May 1988.A few more singles could have been released (perhaps "Adore" and "It,or even "Strange Relationship"),the album would have sold more,and he would be dazzling fans and critics with an amazing tour.

CharismaDove said:

Adorecream said:

When fans like Stillwaiting can write essays of that calibre, you just wonder why Prince does not listen to his fans more, as that was truly excellent.

That essay pretty much summed up everything that went wrong in the Prince camp in 1984 - 1988. But I think too, Prince may have overestimated the chart audience when he released some of those flops like America, Anotherlover..., and Girlfriend. Great songs they are, but too complex and jaded to a 12 year old teeny bopper from the mid 80s with rainbow brite hair and the wantings of more accessible artists like Madonna, the Bangles, the Gogos and Rick Astley.

.

I think his black audience may have been isolated a bit by his look at the time, not only was it scarily androgynous and effeminate with the long hair and make up and near dresses he wore and the fact he looked less masculine than Cat, a female. He also looked very Caucasian with some sort of very pale face cream and straightened hair. Looking at photos of him from the time, he could easily pass for a white man. He had looked very white during the Parade era (Mainly because of the movie and several photos and covers being in Black and White) but in colour photos he still looked very black. The only time he would look that white again was during the Gold Experience era.

.

Why did he look so white and what was it, lighting, skin cream, skin bleaching? I know Prince has never been a dark ebony man, but he at least looked blacker during Purple Rain and the 1999 era. In the For You period there was no doubt that he was black and not white. But by Lovesexy he looked very white. Thank god not that many people are so shallow now, but in 1988 with the rise of angry rap music by blacker than blacker people like Public enemy, Cool J, Tone Loc and Bobby Brown, semi white dance pop done by a white looking guy seemed rather fey and selling out. It was also the rise of a second wave of Black is beautiful culture and names Kenya and Tkeymah were becoming popular over white sounding names like Otis Jefferson etc.

.

Also the promotion sucked, unlike with earlier albums, all the videos for the 3 singles released were cheep ass and nasty looking. The Alphabet street one is inventive and quirky, but still looks cheep by late 80s standards. The Glam Slam one is just 3 minutes of live sequences snipped together and is probably the most pleasing of the lot. I wish u heaven is an abortion set to film.

.

.

LOL I've felt like I was the only one who noticed that! His skin color seems to change very consistently, or at least did back then.

On American Bandstand 1980 he looked light caramel, but looked darker on SNL one year later. In the 1999 and Purple Rain eras he looked like a dark person (look at him shirtless in Computer Blue or whilst performing the PR finale), he was most obviously a black man. Not even a YEAR later in Raspberry Beret, his hair was straightened, his facial hair gone and his skin was pale looking.

.

Parade he seemed dark at times but also light (Kiss video)

.

Sign O the Times he seemed to have gotten darker but not as dark as Purple Rain. 1988-1990 he seemed to just get lighter and lighter and I was really shocked while watching Graffiti Bridge...his skin was so pale and light and his features more delicate, he didn't look like Mr. Let's Go Crazy. Watch Three Chains o Gold...when he was making love to that girl he picked up in Sexy MF video he looks like he's Puerto Rican or a mix. His palest was Gold Experience (he looked paler than MJ!!!!) It was obvious he was on some white white whitey makeup and to add the fact he looked very underweight adn tiny at the time.

.

The Prince of 1984 and the Prince of 1994 were like different people.

There's some shots in Purple Rain where he looks pale as a vampire.

[img:$uid]http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/21303846/sn/814137608/name/1630_8_large.jpg[/img:$uid]

•

I always thought he looked his darkest in the Alphabet St. video. It's like he vacationed in Hawaii and got some sun. Looks healthy.

[Edited 7/16/14 20:43pm]

Adorecream said:

When fans like Stillwaiting can write essays of that calibre, you just wonder why Prince does not listen to his fans more, as that was truly excellent.

That essay pretty much summed up everything that went wrong in the Prince camp in 1984 - 1988. But I think too, Prince may have overestimated the chart audience when he released some of those flops like America, Anotherlover..., and Girlfriend. Great songs they are, but too complex and jaded to a 12 year old teeny bopper from the mid 80s with rainbow brite hair and the wantings of more accessible artists like Madonna, the Bangles, the Gogos and Rick Astley.

.

Also the promotion sucked, unlike with earlier albums, all the videos for the 3 singles released were cheep ass and nasty looking. The Alphabet street one is inventive and quirky, but still looks cheep by late 80s standards. The Glam Slam one is just 3 minutes of live sequences snipped together and is probably the most pleasing of the lot. I wish u heaven is an abortion set to film.

Thanks so much for the compliment, it means a lot. I usually put a lot of ramblings on this site, and don't usually share my best writings for some odd reason. Had he only put his best work out every 3 years, making albums with 4 solid singles, and 5-8 serious songs like Dorothy Parker, Large Room With No Light, Witness, Rock Hard In A Funky Place, etc...he could have had the best of both worlds...4-6, maybe even close 10 million in album sales, each album with 3-5 Top 10 hits, and occasional #1...but no. And in the 90's...songs like Jughead get played every night, while "Computer Blue" and many other classics are not played, or are simply medley fodder...and gems like "Moonbeam Levels," and the original "Old Friends 4 Sale" rot in the vault only to gain a solid reputation among a small contigent of bootleg buyers.

GottaLetitgo said:

1. Everyone said Prince was done (again). George Michael was now more Prince than Prince was. If only Prince had a venue to get back to the mainstream, some kind of project that, you know everyone would go gaga about. Prince needed a hero to get his fame back. Cue 1989 and the bat signal...

[Edited 7/16/14 20:18pm]

You made some great points, and touched on some of mine...Great Job. As far as the success with the Batman album? Kind of a double edged sword...you have to remember that it was the #1 movie of the summer, and the year. The album would have to be terrible to not sell at least 1 million, and it sold 2 million. Considering how strong the album was, 2 million sales was kind of a letdown. Prince was still reeling from Under The Cherry Moon, and all the failed singles, and the Lovesexy cover faux pas. Batdance #1, Partyman Top 20, Arms of Orion Top 40, Scandalous Top 10 R&B...again, smash hit #1 movie, and only 2 million sold? Some people bought the soundtrack because it was Prince, many people didn't buy it because it was Prince, and a lot of people on middle ground bought it simply due to the movie.

controversy99 said:

This is a great thread. I'm really enjoying reading everybody's memories and analysis of 1988. Here's mine: I turned 16 and started my junior year in high school. I had become a Prince fan a year earlier. I was at soccer camp and a bunch of kids went around chanting "Who in the house know about the quake? We do. I'm really, really." They were cool and hilarious at the same time. I bought SotT. It was awesome.

Contro99, I love posts like yours that give detail on the subject, and what you were thinking about at the time. You did a great job conveying your experiences and memories at the time....Well Done!

[Edited 7/16/14 21:02pm]

Darn site!!!!!!!

[Edited 7/16/14 21:33pm]

fbueller said:

Like what you wrote, stillwaiting - except would say Prince made the bad decisions. Warner Bros. overall just tried to keep Prince on track, while not ruffling things up with him. WB would have wanted Prince to take time out after Purple Rain. Prince wanted If I was your girlfriend to be a single. Prince decided not to do a SOTT tour in the US. Then WB apparently had promotion lined up to coordinate with Lovesexy US tour dates. The US tour was booked, then Prince decided, last-minute to tour Europe first. [That could have gone badly as he found himself looking to book venues with Madonna and Michael Jackson both on tour there, at the time].

.

In 1988, Prince faced declining record sales, experienced 2 film flops in theaters and so on. What did he do? Decided to pose nude on the album cover. In a way, nothing has changed. Prince still has a tendency to make poor or self-sabotaging decisions.

Prince doesn't normally(especially back in the 80's) make traditional choices. He purposeful chooses an artistic point of view decision over a business decision (IE Prince in jeans or in Prince clothes/heels/makeup). I wouldn't be so quick to call out self-sabotage.

I personal have chosen artistic viewpoints that I know the general audiences may not get and I'm okay with that.

kewlschool said:

Prince doesn't normally(especially back in the 80's) make traditional choices. He purposeful chooses an artistic point of view decision over a business decision (IE Prince in jeans or in Prince clothes/heels/makeup). I wouldn't be so quick to call out self-sabotage.

I personal have chosen artistic viewpoints that I know the general audiences may not get and I'm okay with that.

I don't think anyone is being "quick" on this thread. We are describing events that happend 25-30 years ago. Sure, hindsight is 20-20, but let's see:

Purple Rain 9 million sold in its chart run

AWITD 4 million

Parade 1.2 million

SOTT 600,000 (counted as 1.2 million as double albums got credit for sales of 2 units)

Lovesexy 500,000

This looks like a trend, huh? And these are estimated sales during the year of release, I'm sure Bart Van Halen has the actual figures.

Since every single album from 1985-1988 sold less and less, and he continued to follow the same practices, and same mind-numbing business decisions, I'd say it was as close to self-sabotage as can be. And it's not like he was cranking out awful music...this was some of the best music in pop history that Prince and Warners teamed up to somehow make it not sell even half of what it deserved.

And Prince not being traditional? In 1990, in an effort to sell more, he followed a severe trend, by trying to get rap in his music. Instead of getting a true rapper, he got the worst possible thing: Tony M...a shouter, not a rapper, and not a shouter in a good way, a shouter in the worst possible ways.

Allowing that hack to not only record on his albums, but actually BE IN THE BAND...started a new trend for Prince: Instead of creating trends, he started following them. Diamonds And Pearls may have sold 2 million, but 3 Top 40 hits and a #1 hit for a superstar usually translated to 4-6 million in album sales way back then. Not for Prince, and after DAP, he only had one more album with at least 2 legit Top 40 hits...the next year in 1993(CORRECTON: 1992...not 1993!!!) ...sad, that it has been that long. Yes, you could argue that Gold had 2 hits, but Beautiful Girl In The World was a hit over a year before the actual album even came out.

Some artists chase hits, some chase critical success...

Prince EASILY could have had both, but with some great help from Warners, they managed to squander everything. If he was some hack like Keith Sweat, or a singer who couldn't really write like Bobby Brown, fine. We're talking about the greatest pop musician who ever lived. People don't just write songs like Dorothy Parker and Anna Stesia by the dozens. For one man to have just the material he wrote from 1985-1988 would be incredible...but Prince and Warners blew it...big time.

[Edited 7/17/14 5:36am]

stillwaiting said:

kewlschool said:

Prince doesn't normally(especially back in the 80's) make traditional choices. He purposeful chooses an artistic point of view decision over a business decision (IE Prince in jeans or in Prince clothes/heels/makeup). I wouldn't be so quick to call out self-sabotage.

I personal have chosen artistic viewpoints that I know the general audiences may not get and I'm okay with that.

I don't think anyone is being "quick" on this thread. We are describing events that happend 25-30 years ago. Sure, hindsight is 20-20, but let's see:

Purple Rain 9 million sold in its chart run

AWITD 4 million

Parade 1.2 million

SOTT 600,000 (counted as 1.2 million as double albums got credit for sales of 2 units)

Lovesexy 500,000

This looks like a trend, huh? And these are estimated sales during the year of release, I'm sure Bart Van Halen has the actual figures.

Since every single album from 1985-1988 sold less and less, and he continued to follow the same practices, and same mind-numbing business decisions, I'd say it was as close to self-sabotage as can be. And it's not like he was cranking out awful music...this was some of the best music in pop history that Prince and Warners teamed up to somehow make it not sell even half of what it deserved.

And Prince not being traditional? In 1990, in an effort to sell more, he followed a severe trend, by trying to get rap in his music. Instead of getting a true rapper, he got the worst possible thing: Tony M...a shouter, not a rapper, and not a shouter in a good way, a shouter in the worst possible ways.

Allowing that hack to not only record on his albums, but actually BE IN THE BAND...started a new trend for Prince: Instead of creating trends, he started following them. Diamonds And Pearls may have sold 2 million, but 3 Top 40 hits and a #1 hit for a superstar usually translated to 4-6 million in album sales way back then. Not for Prince, and after DAP, he only had one more album with at least 2 legit Top 40 hits...the next year in 1993...sad, that it has been that long. Yes, you could argue that Gold had 2 hits, but Beautiful Girl In The World was a hit over a year before the actual album even came out.

Some artists chase hits, some chase critical success...

Prince EASILY could have had both, but with some great help from Warners, they managed to squander everything. If he was some hack like Keith Sweat, or a singer who couldn't really write like Bobby Brown, fine. We're talking about the greatest pop musician who ever lived. People don't just write songs like Dorothy Parker and Anna Stesia by the dozens. For one man to have just the material he wrote from 1985-1988 would be incredible...but Prince and Warners blew it...big time.

I see your point, but you don't see mine. I refrenced the 80's not the 90's, Prince transition to more business decisions over artistic decisions in the 90's, and more so after each decade.

One good example of Prince following his artistic muse over his business decision making is Parade. Nothing on Pop radio has sounded like Parade since it's release. That was an artistic choice. That meant sales wouldn't be as high and that was okay. I wouldn't call Parade a bad self sabotage move, I call it an artistic choice, knowing full well that some or the majority might not be hip to it. (He could have put Manic Monday on his album to have another "hit", but he didn't. Was that decision a bad business one or an artistic one?) Hint: artistic.

You might not be an artist, but sometimes you do things with your art or craft, because you choose to regardless of sales. Prince did that again when he released the Rainbow Children.

D& P sold 7 million between USA/Canada/Britain.

But in the 90's he did start following trends, went more R&B in sound (And since R&B wasn't as popular anymore and that rap had sort of taken over meant he wouldn't have as much in sales.)

I've said this before....

Lovesexy might have been a bigger success if Prince had done these two things....

***release the dynamic title track as the second single,instead of the mediocre "Glam Slam".

***chose a 'normal' album cover (instead of a nude cover).As someone pointed out,most heterosexual males wouldn't dare buy an album with a nude man on the cover! he lost out on alot of sales

SoulSplash said:

Speaking from what I remember as a 17-year old, I think Prince really depressed his USA fan base in '87 when he didn't bring the Sign O' The Times tour to the States. I watched the movie in a theater with maybe 6 or 7 other people. There were rarely any interviews or television performances, and then the single "Alphabet Street" came out. I don't remember hearing it once on the radio, and when I requested it to be played, the DJ told me, "Prince ain't IN anymore. Sorry." And that was when the song somehow charted at #8. The following singles had poor chart showings, and by the time the Lovesexy tour made it here, it was months after he had anything on the radio, and almost a year after "ICNTTPOYM" and "U Got The Look" were all over MTV and the radio. I don't remember a lot of promotion for the Lovesexy album or tour; though, MTV was kind to play all the videos from the album. I think the time was ripe for the fun-filled song "Lovesexy" in the Fall of '88, but it didn't happen. Apparently, the tour wasn't too successful; though, to Prince at this time, I think it was more about the message than the money. (I could be wrong). However, the two Oakland shows in November '88 seemed to be sold out. Though, it was a big production, and overall it might've cost him more than it was worth. It was also the beginning of the end between Prince & Sheila (but that could've started later, maybe early '89) who wouldn't be close again until Spring 2001. In conclusion, I figure Lovesexy could've been a big let-down for Prince in the States after it was so well-received in Europe and the UK (basically as big as Purple Rain was in the US 4 years earlier).

This is my experience as well. I was just turning 18 in June of 1988. Fan since '82, BIG fan in '84 on...

No one knew Lovesexy was out. Got NO radio play here in Los Angeles. I didn't have cable so no MTV, but watched plenty of broadcast music video shows. I was hard pressed to see Alphabet St video more than twice in 1988. Saw I Wish U Heaven once, and only caught the last 10 seconds of Glam Slam video one day. (it was probably not until 1992 that I saw the full Glam Slam video on TV) This after hours and hours of watching and recording on my VCR these video programs.

Went to the concert here in Los Angeles in November 1988. While waiting in line to buy my tickets, met a guy who was talking about the black album. I had no clue what he was talking about. He gave me his number and address and told me to swing by and he'd give me a cassette. Dude lived in Compton, I still went and got my tape and was blown away.

Thing is... Sign O the times started strong. U got the look was big, but then If I was your girlfriend ruined the momentum of the album (great song, but highly misunderstood by casual fans, and simply a BAD choice for a single), and I could never take the place almost did, but ultimately failed to revive it. I could never take the place video was in medium rotation on the music video shows on regular broadcast tv. Could catch it at least once a day. No word on the street though. Never heard it on radio. Never heard about the movie until 3 days before it was out. I kept thinking it was a mistake. I never heard there was a movie. I thought it would be like Under the cherry moon. Was very surprised to see a concert film in the theatre. I really wasn't aware that that was even a possibility. I saw it on opening night. There were probably less than 15 people in the theatre. 4 of them walked out about 10 minutes in. I think they were expecting a movie with story and acting. (I know did. at about the 20 minute mark I finally realized "oh, this is gonna be all concert footage... ok, cool") The film flopped, and was gone in a week or two. (I LOVED it!)

By the end of the Sign o the times run, people were no longer interested. Lovesexy got No radio play. Little bit of media coverage ridiculing the album cover was all the publicity it got.

kewlschool said:

stillwaiting said:

Prince EASILY could have had both, but with some great help from Warners, they managed to squander everything. If he was some hack like Keith Sweat, or a singer who couldn't really write like Bobby Brown, fine. We're talking about the greatest pop musician who ever lived. People don't just write songs like Dorothy Parker and Anna Stesia by the dozens. For one man to have just the material he wrote from 1985-1988 would be incredible...but Prince and Warners blew it...big time.

I see your point, but you don't see mine. I refrenced the 80's not the 90's, Prince transition to more business decisions over artistic decisions in the 90's, and more so after each decade.

One good example of Prince following his artistic muse over his business decision making is Parade. Nothing on Pop radio has sounded like Parade since it's release. That was an artistic choice. That meant sales wouldn't be as high and that was okay. I wouldn't call Parade a bad self sabotage move, I call it an artistic choice, knowing full well that some or the majority might not be hip to it. (He could have put Manic Monday on his album to have another "hit", but he didn't. Was that decision a bad business one or an artistic one?) Hint: artistic.

You might not be an artist, but sometimes you do things with your art or craft, because you choose to regardless of sales. Prince did that again when he released the Rainbow Children.

D& P sold 7 million between USA/Canada/Britain.

But in the 90's he did start following trends, went more R&B in sound (And since R&B wasn't as popular anymore and that rap had sort of taken over meant he wouldn't have as much in sales.)

I do see your point. Prince was convinced Cherry Moon was going to be a smash movie. He was even convinced Gaffiti Bridge was great AFTER it bombed. He has no clue what is good. He was still chasing sales, and getting more and more frustrated when he didn't get them. He easily could have used nearly all of Parade's tracks...just not all at once, and not on a new album every 9-14 months. A new album every 3 years keeps the audience hungry. He could have still released the same music, but with a different approach. In fact, he could have released MORE music, and still not over-saturated the market. He could have put out a new album every 3 years, and starting in 1995 or so, he could have put out a 5-10 disc box set of vault material every 3-5 years...so even though he would have only had a new album every 3 years, there would be Vault projects that would have emptied the vault, meaning we would've got more music then we ended up getting in the first place, and Prince would've got sales with the U2 approach of not flooding the market. (The box sets would not get airplay, and would be released at long intervals)

We can disagree, but first of all...Diamonds And Pearls was double platinum in the 3 countries you mentioned, and sold 160,000 in Canada, 600,000 in the UK, and 2 million in the USA. That is still less than 3 million combined in all 3. That's still Double Platinum sales in each country. It was double platinum in all 3 countries...Here's a good source to explain how many sales it takes to get double platinum in each country:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_music_recording_certifications

Anytime sales are declining for a major artists, a new approach is taken to stop the bleeding. By the time Prince and Warners got around to it, his career was almost done as far as sales go, and taking stabs at rap and trend following helped for a second, but likely made it worse. Prince has had one top 40 hit from 1996-2014, a span of 18 years? And what was that smash hit? "1999" was released again in 1999, and hit #40 for ONE week.

My point is that by the time Prince and Warners took any steps to stop the bleeding, it was far too late.

Lovesexy was a very hard time 2 b a prince fan. Prince was over in the main stream. People were sick of Him lookin sad all the time. I saw the Tour 15 times each show was NEVER sold out.They were try 2 give tickets away right before shows. BUT on the other hand this is when aftershows became a Private Joy! Fans had hotline with message about when the next show would take place! Very underground!

I saw many of them lots of FRONT ROW! GREAT TIMES! LOTS of waiting!! HA HA!

Then the 90;s came around and things got even more UNDERGROUND!!!

Milty said:

RodeoSchro said:

Hmmmmm...

He was well-known in 1988 but he wasn't what I'd call "big". Of course you have to remember that after the incredible success of "Purple Rain", there was nowhere to go but down. A lot of people still were fans, and millions more were of a "Oh, I remember that Purple Rain movie" mindset. IIRC, Prince hadn't had a hit single or video since "Raspberry Beret" in 1985.

There is not, never has been, and never will be any entertainer that can be the biggest star in the world for much more than two or three years. Especially in this download-a-minute world.

Attention spans are shorter now than they were 25 years ago.

"Prince hadn't had a hit single or video since "Raspberry Beret" in 1985."??

What about Kiss, U Got The Look, Sign 'o' The Times and ICNTTPOYM?

[Edited 7/15/14 19:56pm]

Thanks! For some reason the song on "Sing O' The Times" just completely escaped my mind. "Kiss" was huge.

CharismaDove said:

RodeoSchro said:

Hmmmmm...

He was well-known in 1988 but he wasn't what I'd call "big". Of course you have to remember that after the incredible success of "Purple Rain", there was nowhere to go but down. A lot of people still were fans, and millions more were of a "Oh, I remember that Purple Rain movie" mindset. IIRC, Prince hadn't had a hit single or video since "Raspberry Beret" in 1985.

There is not, never has been, and never will be any entertainer that can be the biggest star in the world for much more than two or three years. Especially in this download-a-minute world.

Attention spans are shorter now than they were 25 years ago.

It's interesting to note Prince was "around" for about 11/12 years (1983-1995) and his career is looked at as "very long". The only other artists from his decade that were around cranking hits that long were MJ, Madonna, Whitney, and Bruce (iirc). Nowadays an 11/12 year career is normal. Look at Usher, Britney, Christina Aguilera, and seveal others who have been around since the nineties and are still huge in 2014.... it might have to do with the internet and having celebrities at your fingertips, but something has changed.

That's a very good point! You are right, it sure does appear that careers are longer now.

CharismaDove said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

Prince even in 1985 ATWIAD should have never declined. That album because it was so new and different needed the promotion via videos, and live performances throught 1985. That's the kind of album that gains popularity with performances. People see the color of the album differently.

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Parade is probably the most creative sounding album ever. the Movie directed by Prince screwed the possibilities of heightened success. As much as I love the movie. Prince is not an actor-proper. He's the best actor though behind the music. So the movie should have had live performances with bands. As hot as the Purple Rain music was, the visuals of the live performances took it to another level.

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I agree he should have performed the US with SOTT, he did not promote it well. No videos excepet for U Got the Look. And the SOTT throw away video was a disrespect to the song. Such a colorful album again and he just throw it away. Also no real Madhouse presence. I thought the Madhouse: Hard Knock Life movie(should have been done better) the videos etc could have been a good path for Madhouse.

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Then the awaited Black album get's shelved and quickly the look and sound changes again to Lovesexy. Sometimes too much change too quickly can throw people off

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If Prince made the movie in color, multiple rivoting performances by the band, less corny humor, and a deeper story, it would have been close to Purple Rain levels of fame. He lost all his mystique .. Whereas in Purple Rain he gave himself a badass troubled musician with problems (which worked lmao), UTCM gave him the look of some lame pop star trying to make a 'funny' movie.... there was ZERO indication of his skills in that movie

I agree, I actually love the black n white, but it would have been unique to release a color & black n white movie at the same time. The outfits were so colorful and interesting. When U think of the Girls & Boys scene, the Girls & Boys video where the band like bandits take over the party would have worked perfectly in the movie. Being hired to perform at Mary's party :New Position. The band performing Alexis de Paris while Prince and Kristen danced. Jill Jones & the Revolution -Mia Bocca. The piano bar solo Prince scenes were cool especially the opening An Honest Man scene. Sheila E & the Family doing a song too
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It was a bit too much like Morris Day & Jerome in Purple Rain. If he kept the mystery, of course a little different from PR with darker humor would have worked. And yes a deeper story that someone else besides Prince wrote and directed

thedance said:

F*ck the USA, 1988.



The americans did not get Lovesexy, I guess the music is too complex on this album, for them...

Afaik, Prince and Lovesexy was huge in Europe....... #1 in the UK? and selling good elsewhere in Europe?

28,000 people saw his Lovesexy concert in Idrætsparken, Denmark 1988.

Thats rather impressive imo.

Lovesexy sold better than most previous Prince-albums in Europe, afaik.....

I love the album, and I judge it on the artistic values - more than sales figures,


but ok it was a little frustrating - and unfair - Lovesexy did not sell at all in the USA.

I don't think it was about complex music. I got Lovesexy but it took a bit of time. Even Eric Leeds and a few people in the band/camp said they didn't get what this new Lovesexy was.

You have to remember from mid 1985 - 1988 Prince almost took a sojourn in Europe. It was a new playground for him. Prince sorta became absent from America for a while.

CharismaDove said: