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Thread started 10/11/14 10:39am

feeluupp

Love Symbol Album/Warner Contract

1992 was a pivotal year for Prince, perhaps his most pivotal year since the international superstardom he achieved in his 1984 Purple Rain and his 1986-1987 musical creative output with albums projects such as The Dream Factory, Camille, Crystal Ball and Sign O The Times.

1992 was the year that Prince signed the Warner Brothers contract worth 100 million which was reported to be the biggest contract in the history of the music industry. That contract came with some stiuplations, a 6 album deal, and $10 million advance per album granted his previous albums sold 5 million copies.

1992 was also the year Prince released the Love Symbol album, and considered by most fans to be his last "real commercial and musically satisfying" Prince album with the exception of The Gold Experience.

The Love symbol album over all was a strong album, making his real debut of the 90's, unlike Graffiti Bridge which was released in 1990, it didn't feel like his debut in the new century because many of the tracks were old recordings, and Diamonds and Pearls although commercially very sucessfull, many fans consider it to be just an "average" album with way too mang songs being tailored to the mainstream pop audience.

With the commerical sucess of Diamonds and Pearls selling over 6 million copies worldwide, Prince signed the 100 million dollar deal with Warners and The Love Symbol was the first album issued on the new contract. The Love Symbol album, during the short time frame that the conrtact was established, didn't meet the expectations of Warners, causing a riff among Prince and Warners, Prince arguing that it didn't promote the album correctly. During the time from 1992-1994 The Love Symbol album is reported to have sold over 3 million copies worlwide, later numbers totaled the album to sell over 5 million copies to this day long after the new Warners contract was issued.

Because Prince failed to sell at least 5 million copies during the new signing of the contract, Warners did not grant him the 10$ million and Prince and Warners started to feud.

The contract was short lived because after The Love Symbol album, when he released the 3 Chains of Gold VHS in early 1993, he already declared Prince had died, and that was just less than 1 year into the new Warners contract. He later released contract fillers like Come, The Black Album, The Gold Experience and Chaos And Disorder, the last contract filler being The Vault.

My main question is, what were those circumstances withtin that 1 year of the contract signed in 1992, the release of the Love Symbol album, and by 1993 he declared Prince was dead changed his name to the symbol and had the whole feud with Warners... How could just in one years time he sign the most lucrative deal, and by the next year Prince starts his "commercial" doward spiral...

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Reply #1 posted 10/11/14 10:45am

Doozer

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Prince is a master of many things. Unfortunately, changing his mind is one of them.

Check out The Mountains and the Sea, a Prince podcast by yours truly and my wife. More info at https://www.facebook.com/TMATSPodcast/
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Reply #2 posted 10/11/14 10:53am

NouveauDance

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They probably expected too much after the success of D&P.

.

Consider - the first single consistented of repeatedly saying "motherfucker" and the second single had him wearing a ridiculous chainmail hat covering his face in the video, with an alternative adult "playboy" video. The album was a silly, pompus rock opera with nonsense segues and an overbloated tracklist. Great for fans, not so great for promoting to a wider audience.

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Reply #3 posted 10/11/14 11:31am

andykeen

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How are Come and TGE fillers?

Keenmeister
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Reply #4 posted 10/11/14 11:33am

feeluupp

andykeen said:

How are Come and TGE fillers?

Because at that point after the feud with WB he just released those to fill his contract. I wasn't implying those are bad albums by saying "fillers" just saying those were the contractual albums released to fill his contract.

I really like Come, and of course TGE.

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Reply #5 posted 10/11/14 1:00pm

databank

avatar

feeluupp said:

1992 was a pivotal year for Prince, perhaps his most pivotal year since the international superstardom he achieved in his 1984 Purple Rain and his 1986-1987 musical creative output with albums projects such as The Dream Factory, Camille, Crystal Ball and Sign O The Times.

1992 was the year that Prince signed the Warner Brothers contract worth 100 million which was reported to be the biggest contract in the history of the music industry. That contract came with some stiuplations, a 6 album deal, and $10 million advance per album granted his previous albums sold 5 million copies.

1992 was also the year Prince released the Love Symbol album, and considered by most fans to be his last "real commercial and musically satisfying" Prince album with the exception of The Gold Experience.

The Love symbol album over all was a strong album, making his real debut of the 90's, unlike Graffiti Bridge which was released in 1990, it didn't feel like his debut in the new century because many of the tracks were old recordings, and Diamonds and Pearls although commercially very sucessfull, many fans consider it to be just an "average" album with way too mang songs being tailored to the mainstream pop audience.

With the commerical sucess of Diamonds and Pearls selling over 6 million copies worldwide, Prince signed the 100 million dollar deal with Warners and The Love Symbol was the first album issued on the new contract. The Love Symbol album, during the short time frame that the conrtact was established, didn't meet the expectations of Warners, causing a riff among Prince and Warners, Prince arguing that it didn't promote the album correctly. During the time from 1992-1994 The Love Symbol album is reported to have sold over 3 million copies worlwide, later numbers totaled the album to sell over 5 million copies to this day long after the new Warners contract was issued.

Because Prince failed to sell at least 5 million copies during the new signing of the contract, Warners did not grant him the 10$ million and Prince and Warners started to feud.

The contract was short lived because after The Love Symbol album, when he released the 3 Chains of Gold VHS in early 1993, he already declared Prince had died, and that was just less than 1 year into the new Warners contract. He later released contract fillers like Come, The Black Album, The Gold Experience and Chaos And Disorder, the last contract filler being The Vault.

My main question is, what were those circumstances withtin that 1 year of the contract signed in 1992, the release of the Love Symbol album, and by 1993 he declared Prince was dead changed his name to the symbol and had the whole feud with Warners... How could just in one years time he sign the most lucrative deal, and by the next year Prince starts his "commercial" doward spiral...

The release of the 3 Chain' O'Gold video was delayed until August of 1994, it wasn't released in early 1993.

.

There were in fact several factors that led to tensions between prince and WB:

- As u mention, the prince album's sales weren't good as expected, prince didn't get the money he expected and he blamed WB for the sales not reaching 5M. He felt there was a lack of promotion. On the other hand WB were against Sexy MF and My Name Is Prince being the lead singles: the first contained profanity and the second was all but catchy, and US radios were reluctant to play both. prince had forced the singles on WB and they felt they had promoted the album as much as they could (which I think they did).

- In early 1993, the Carmen Electra album was released and bombed, despite WB spending between one and 2 millions on the project. This was the last of a long series of Paisley Park albums failing to chart but for some reason prince was convinced that this one would be a major success (denial is a strong thing!). WB blamed prince for his lack of judgement and commitment with the label in general, prince blamed WB for not promoting the Paisley Park records properly.

- In spring 1993, prince wanted to release an EP of new material on June 7th (with Papa, Race, Come, Peach), and in June he also asked WB to release Gold Nigga in summer. WB declined to release both projects: the EP was too soon, with the prince album still being promoted, and WB guessed Gold Nigga would be another commercial failure + WB were already planning to release a greatest hits compilation in 1993 at this point (The Hits/The B-Sides). prince, who's not famous for being able to take "no" for an answer, was infuriated by both refusals.

- At about the same time, in reaction, prince changed his name to a symbol and publicly announced that he would fulfill his contract with "vault" material, and that was the beginning of the end. Later in 1994 prince would release TMBGITW and 1-800 New-Funk independently and send the 2 "promo tapes" of live and new material to European radios, alongside the Beautiful Experience TV special. Then WB shut down Paisley ParK, prevented prince to release Love Sign and The Undertaker independently, as well as to release both Come and TGE at the same time and, in 1995, Exodus in the US. A drastic change of management at WB, leading away the people prince had been working with for years, as well as the fact that he came to realize that he couldn't get his masters with him when he'd leave WB just made things worse. prince, on the other hand, starting a public feud with WB and from then on it was a series of retaliations from both parties. WB then released The Black Album in 94 and the Undertaker and Sacrifice Of Victor videos in 95 in order to capitalize on prince was he was still there, and it's also very likely that prince decided to butcher the 3 Chains O'Gold video in 94 by editing down almost all the songs to half their lenght only to spoil the project and piss WB off (but we purchasers were the first victimes of that). There was virtually no promo for Come from neither parties, and in 95 the same can be said about TGE.

.

For more details, I suggest u read Scififilmnerd's awesome series of articles on this era. The first one can be found here (the links to the next articles are at the end of the first one): http://prince.org/msg/7/317254

A COMPREHENSIVE PRINCE DISCOGRAPHY (work in progress ^^): https://sites.google.com/...scography/
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Reply #6 posted 10/11/14 2:04pm

Noodled24

feeluupp said:

My main question is, what were those circumstances withtin that 1 year of the contract signed in 1992, the release of the Love Symbol album, and by 1993 he declared Prince was dead changed his name to the symbol and had the whole feud with Warners... How could just in one years time he sign the most lucrative deal, and by the next year Prince starts his "commercial" doward spiral...

Speculation: Perhaps there was a stipulation in the contract which stated Album A had to sell 5 million copies before Prince was issued with the next advance of $10 million to create album B.
Prince liked to release an album each year. WB were no so keen on that. So by stipulating 5 million in sales they could (they thought) milk more from each album and every 2 or 3 years drop another Prince LP.
This was all too slow for Prince. He decided to have a bitch fight and was surprised to learn his fans didn't care about him wanting a bigger slice of an already inflated pie. Both he and WB took out full page adverts in a newspaper/magazines to bitch at eachother.

His commercial downward spiral only happened due to his erratic behaviour (some of which was genuinely funny - the silent interview for one - and didn't he try to threaten WB by saying he'd release a country album??) but when someone has $10 million dollars and crys about not having $20 million (while carying a custom made cane) nobody gives a shit.

Come, TGE and Chaos all scored top 40 hits in the UK. Prince also showed up on TOTP to perform Dinner with Deloris. Each of these albums are in interesting insight. None of them (as far as I know) were simply thrown together - which is a common misconception I think - each album was worked on.

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Reply #7 posted 10/11/14 2:18pm

novabrkr

feeluupp said:

andykeen said:

How are Come and TGE fillers?

Because at that point after the feud with WB he just released those to fill his contract. I wasn't implying those are bad albums by saying "fillers" just saying those were the contractual albums released to fill his contract.

I really like Come, and of course TGE.


Fair enough.

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Reply #8 posted 10/11/14 2:24pm

Noodled24

databank said:

prince decided to butcher the 3 Chains O'Gold video in 94 by editing down almost all the songs to half their lenght only to spoil the project and piss WB off (but we purchasers were the first victimes of that). There was virtually no promo for Come from neither parties, and in 95 the same can be said about TGE.

.

For more details, I suggest u read Scififilmnerd's awesome series of articles on this era. The first one can be found here (the links to the next articles are at the end of the first one): http://prince.org/msg/7/317254

Never knew that about the 3 Chains video. smile

Come however - there were 2 maxi singles each one with several remixes. The Space maxi single is a stunning little disc. Anyway - there were no videos other than something I think WBs threw together. But the Come album was worked on, there was even a test pressing (which made it's way into circulation) before it was reconfigured. However the songs Come, Space, Loose!, Race, Dark - maybe more - were all staples in his live shows. He loved those songs.

He threatened to release only songs from his vaults... but did he actually do that? Come, TGE, Chaos, even parts of The Vault - were all new songs at the time of the dispute (or at least the majority of them had been recorded in the past year or two) - by the time WB released TGE and Chaos I guess they were a few years older. Prince was at a creative peak in these years with something to prove like never before.

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Reply #9 posted 10/11/14 2:24pm

JoeTyler

worst contract ever, don't know what Prince AND Warners were thinking...5 million sales means a mega-hit album (more than 10 a HISTORIC album)

that said, Love Symbol surely is Prince last GREAT album; it's dated, that's for sure, and it could have been shorter, but many of the songs of that album are some of VERY BEST SONGS OF THE FIRST HALF OF THE '90s, of any artist, any genre...

tinkerbell
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Reply #10 posted 10/11/14 2:40pm

SoulAlive

Prince wanted to compete with the lucrative deals that Madonna and Michael had signed,but his 1992 contract with Warners was unrealistic.There are only a few Prince albums that have sold 5 million copies (or more).When Love Symbol didn't become the huge success that they expected,that's when things went sour.The two sides should have worked out a more realistic deal and maybe there would not have been any problems.

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Reply #11 posted 10/11/14 2:56pm

lastdecember

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AS the years go on and we get further from this whole era of PRINCE, we can sit back and really realize that like it was said by many then, was true. Prince was behaving like a child who thought he should have the toys everyone else had, which is how it always happens when artists HIT that age where they just are not "IT" anymore. One of Prince's biggest DISASTERS was trying to fit in, and as much as people say he didnt, he SO wanted to cash in on rap in his own way, but his work was terrible, Tony M, Gold Nigga, Carmen Electra, OMG that whole campaign of her pic "sshhhhh" in every magazine showing off her hot legs and looks that is WHERE that whole thing should have stayed, Carmen was a hot little number for videos and attempts at acting but having a record at that time (or any time) was a disaster and just plain dumb, but PRINCE does think alot with his "dick" sorry to say people, he is a male and he was sleeping with or having relations with most of these women, but he has NO attention span, and still really doesnt, he tires SO QUICKLY, the only reason Andy Allo is still out there is that she was doing this all on her own before prince. I mean where is TAMAR now, what the hell happend to ROSIE GAINES, BRIA VALENTE anyone ??


"We went where our music was appreciated, and that was everywhere but the USA, we knew we had fans, but there is only so much of the world you can play at once" Magne F
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Reply #12 posted 10/11/14 3:00pm

Askani

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Shouldn't have fired his lawyers and managers before he went into negotiations.

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Reply #13 posted 10/11/14 4:17pm

Noodled24

lastdecember said:

AS the years go on and we get further from this whole era of PRINCE, we can sit back and really realize that like it was said by many then, was true. Prince was behaving like a child who thought he should have the toys everyone else had, which is how it always happens when artists HIT that age where they just are not "IT" anymore.

Prince was very much "IT" at the time. D&P only made #2 on the charts but spent over a YEAR in the UK charts. He had some huge singles. Even the prince album had some big singles. Debut #1. The 3 different releases of the greatest hits all went top 5, the prince album #1, Come #1

One of Prince's biggest DISASTERS was trying to fit in, and as much as people say he didnt, he SO wanted to cash in on rap in his own way, but his work was terrible, Tony M, Gold Nigga, Carmen Electra, OMG that whole campaign of her pic "sshhhhh" in every magazine showing off her hot legs and looks that is WHERE that whole thing should have stayed, Carmen was a hot little number for videos and attempts at acting but having a record at that time (or any time) was a disaster and just plain dumb, but PRINCE does think alot with his "dick" sorry to say people, he is a male and he was sleeping with or having relations with most of these women, but he has NO attention span, and still really doesnt, he tires SO QUICKLY, the only reason Andy Allo is still out there is that she was doing this all on her own before prince. I mean where is TAMAR now, what the hell happend to ROSIE GAINES, BRIA VALENTE anyone ??

Outside of Princes core fan base. Nobody knew who any of these people were. We didn't really have the internet so unless you subscribed to a Fanzine nobody knew or cared. Having said that I remember the song "Fantasia Erotica" being played a lot at the time. Pretty sure she/Prince had at least one top 40 song from that album.

Early 90's Dance music - it was competing with the likes of 2Unlimited with "No Limits". It was on a par with what was going on in the music scene then. Far too much time and effort went into the project but it didn't detract from his own output at the time.


[Edited 10/11/14 16:20pm]

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Reply #14 posted 10/11/14 6:45pm

SoulAlive

^^ Over $2 million was spent to promote the Carmen Elektra album.After it flopped,that was the last straw.Warner Bros. shut down Paisley Park Records.I think this also played a part in Prince going to war with them.He was pissed that they (Warners) took away his record label.

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Reply #15 posted 10/11/14 6:56pm

SuperFurryAnim
al

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The fued started as far back as Sign o the Times.
What are you outraged about today? CNN has not told you yet?
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Reply #16 posted 10/11/14 7:38pm

TrevorAyer

I wanna know how "splash" got released and what was supposed to be on Roadhouse Garden and how all the rev stuff got squashed so quick. Was it WB? Was it the Rev? probably should start my own thread but it did seem prince was about to do something really cool with Roadhouse and Splash and then it just ended quick like.

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Reply #17 posted 10/12/14 12:48am

databank

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TrevorAyer said:

I wanna know how "splash" got released and what was supposed to be on Roadhouse Garden and how all the rev stuff got squashed so quick. Was it WB? Was it the Rev? probably should start my own thread but it did seem prince was about to do something really cool with Roadhouse and Splash and then it just ended quick like.

According to Alan Leeds prince wasn't allowed to release anything recorded during his time with WB, both studio and live vault material, as long as they held the rights to his masters and anything else recorded during those years. If this is true prince just pushed it as much as he could with Crystal Ball, Rave (the song) and NPGMC, and it's very possible that WB turned a blind eye at first then let their lawyers tell him that they wouldn't tolerate any more. This would explain why no more 78-95 vault material ever surfaced after 2001, but this is only speculation. Notably, prince even released stuff that had already been released by WB and therefore belonged to them (Good Love, Interactive, the Come/TGE remixes, Horny Pony, Thieves In The Temple Extended) during those years, so we know for a fact that he was trying their patience.

A COMPREHENSIVE PRINCE DISCOGRAPHY (work in progress ^^): https://sites.google.com/...scography/
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Reply #18 posted 10/12/14 1:01am

databank

avatar

Noodled24 said:

feeluupp said:

My main question is, what were those circumstances withtin that 1 year of the contract signed in 1992, the release of the Love Symbol album, and by 1993 he declared Prince was dead changed his name to the symbol and had the whole feud with Warners... How could just in one years time he sign the most lucrative deal, and by the next year Prince starts his "commercial" doward spiral...

Speculation: Perhaps there was a stipulation in the contract which stated Album A had to sell 5 million copies before Prince was issued with the next advance of $10 million to create album B.
Prince liked to release an album each year. WB were no so keen on that. So by stipulating 5 million in sales they could (they thought) milk more from each album and every 2 or 3 years drop another Prince LP.
This was all too slow for Prince. He decided to have a bitch fight and was surprised to learn his fans didn't care about him wanting a bigger slice of an already inflated pie. Both he and WB took out full page adverts in a newspaper/magazines to bitch at eachother.

His commercial downward spiral only happened due to his erratic behaviour (some of which was genuinely funny - the silent interview for one - and didn't he try to threaten WB by saying he'd release a country album??) but when someone has $10 million dollars and crys about not having $20 million (while carying a custom made cane) nobody gives a shit.

Come, TGE and Chaos all scored top 40 hits in the UK. Prince also showed up on TOTP to perform Dinner with Deloris. Each of these albums are in interesting insight. None of them (as far as I know) were simply thrown together - which is a common misconception I think - each album was worked on.

4 the 5M figure to be reached, prince would have had to go like Madonna, release an album every 2/3 years and promote it for 2 years every time. I think WB expected him to do that, but of course he wouldn't.

The albums really didn't get much promo. No videos nor TV shows for Come, prince was promoting TMBGITW and 1-800 New-Funk instead (and even TGE with Dolphin but the album wasn't out yet). TGE was so delayed that prince had lost interest at the time (he was already working on Emancipation) and there was just one videos either for Gold at the time of release, though he did the VH1 TV special but WB wasn't involved in that. In 95 prince did more to promote Exodus than TGE. There was one video and a few TV shows for C&D it's true, though, but I guess at this point both parties knew it was their last thing together so better make some quick cash with it before the split. I mean if you comare this to the high effort that were put into promoting both D&P and the prince album, that was insignificant.

A COMPREHENSIVE PRINCE DISCOGRAPHY (work in progress ^^): https://sites.google.com/...scography/
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Reply #19 posted 10/12/14 1:39am

dodger

databank said:



feeluupp said:


1992 was a pivotal year for Prince, perhaps his most pivotal year since the international superstardom he achieved in his 1984 Purple Rain and his 1986-1987 musical creative output with albums projects such as The Dream Factory, Camille, Crystal Ball and Sign O The Times.



1992 was the year that Prince signed the Warner Brothers contract worth 100 million which was reported to be the biggest contract in the history of the music industry. That contract came with some stiuplations, a 6 album deal, and $10 million advance per album granted his previous albums sold 5 million copies.



1992 was also the year Prince released the Love Symbol album, and considered by most fans to be his last "real commercial and musically satisfying" Prince album with the exception of The Gold Experience.



The Love symbol album over all was a strong album, making his real debut of the 90's, unlike Graffiti Bridge which was released in 1990, it didn't feel like his debut in the new century because many of the tracks were old recordings, and Diamonds and Pearls although commercially very sucessfull, many fans consider it to be just an "average" album with way too mang songs being tailored to the mainstream pop audience.



With the commerical sucess of Diamonds and Pearls selling over 6 million copies worldwide, Prince signed the 100 million dollar deal with Warners and The Love Symbol was the first album issued on the new contract. The Love Symbol album, during the short time frame that the conrtact was established, didn't meet the expectations of Warners, causing a riff among Prince and Warners, Prince arguing that it didn't promote the album correctly. During the time from 1992-1994 The Love Symbol album is reported to have sold over 3 million copies worlwide, later numbers totaled the album to sell over 5 million copies to this day long after the new Warners contract was issued.



Because Prince failed to sell at least 5 million copies during the new signing of the contract, Warners did not grant him the 10$ million and Prince and Warners started to feud.



The contract was short lived because after The Love Symbol album, when he released the 3 Chains of Gold VHS in early 1993, he already declared Prince had died, and that was just less than 1 year into the new Warners contract. He later released contract fillers like Come, The Black Album, The Gold Experience and Chaos And Disorder, the last contract filler being The Vault.



My main question is, what were those circumstances withtin that 1 year of the contract signed in 1992, the release of the Love Symbol album, and by 1993 he declared Prince was dead changed his name to the symbol and had the whole feud with Warners... How could just in one years time he sign the most lucrative deal, and by the next year Prince starts his "commercial" doward spiral...





The release of the 3 Chain' O'Gold video was delayed until August of 1994, it wasn't released in early 1993.


.


There were in fact several factors that led to tensions between prince and WB:


- As u mention, the prince album's sales weren't good as expected, prince didn't get the money he expected and he blamed WB for the sales not reaching 5M. He felt there was a lack of promotion. On the other hand WB were against Sexy MF and My Name Is Prince being the lead singles: the first contained profanity and the second was all but catchy, and US radios were reluctant to play both. prince had forced the singles on WB and they felt they had promoted the album as much as they could (which I think they did).


- In early 1993, the Carmen Electra album was released and bombed, despite WB spending between one and 2 millions on the project. This was the last of a long series of Paisley Park albums failing to chart but for some reason prince was convinced that this one would be a major success (denial is a strong thing!). WB blamed prince for his lack of judgement and commitment with the label in general, prince blamed WB for not promoting the Paisley Park records properly.


- In spring 1993, prince wanted to release an EP of new material on June 7th (with Papa, Race, Come, Peach), and in June he also asked WB to release Gold Nigga in summer. WB declined to release both projects: the EP was too soon, with the prince album still being promoted, and WB guessed Gold Nigga would be another commercial failure + WB were already planning to release a greatest hits compilation in 1993 at this point (The Hits/The B-Sides). prince, who's not famous for being able to take "no" for an answer, was infuriated by both refusals.


- At about the same time, in reaction, prince changed his name to a symbol and publicly announced that he would fulfill his contract with "vault" material, and that was the beginning of the end. Later in 1994 prince would release TMBGITW and 1-800 New-Funk independently and send the 2 "promo tapes" of live and new material to European radios, alongside the Beautiful Experience TV special. Then WB shut down Paisley ParK, prevented prince to release Love Sign and The Undertaker independently, as well as to release both Come and TGE at the same time and, in 1995, Exodus in the US. A drastic change of management at WB, leading away the people prince had been working with for years, as well as the fact that he came to realize that he couldn't get his masters with him when he'd leave WB just made things worse. prince, on the other hand, starting a public feud with WB and from then on it was a series of retaliations from both parties. WB then released The Black Album in 94 and the Undertaker and Sacrifice Of Victor videos in 95 in order to capitalize on prince was he was still there, and it's also very likely that prince decided to butcher the 3 Chains O'Gold video in 94 by editing down almost all the songs to half their lenght only to spoil the project and piss WB off (but we purchasers were the first victimes of that). There was virtually no promo for Come from neither parties, and in 95 the same can be said about TGE.


.


For more details, I suggest u read Scififilmnerd's awesome series of articles on this era. The first one can be found here (the links to the next articles are at the end of the first one): http://prince.org/msg/7/317254



I read that thread a while ago it's brilliant.
.
This was when I started getting into Prince after D&P, he was big news and there was so much going on. There seemed to be singles, albums, TV specials, video compilations and associated artists stuff coming out every week.
.
I remember getting the 3 Chains Of Gold VHS and being a bit disappointed some of the videos were edited versions and no video for 3 Chains Of Gold (the song) as it was listed on the back.
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Reply #20 posted 10/12/14 3:01am

databank

avatar

dodger said:

databank said:

The release of the 3 Chain' O'Gold video was delayed until August of 1994, it wasn't released in early 1993.

.

There were in fact several factors that led to tensions between prince and WB:

- As u mention, the prince album's sales weren't good as expected, prince didn't get the money he expected and he blamed WB for the sales not reaching 5M. He felt there was a lack of promotion. On the other hand WB were against Sexy MF and My Name Is Prince being the lead singles: the first contained profanity and the second was all but catchy, and US radios were reluctant to play both. prince had forced the singles on WB and they felt they had promoted the album as much as they could (which I think they did).

- In early 1993, the Carmen Electra album was released and bombed, despite WB spending between one and 2 millions on the project. This was the last of a long series of Paisley Park albums failing to chart but for some reason prince was convinced that this one would be a major success (denial is a strong thing!). WB blamed prince for his lack of judgement and commitment with the label in general, prince blamed WB for not promoting the Paisley Park records properly.

- In spring 1993, prince wanted to release an EP of new material on June 7th (with Papa, Race, Come, Peach), and in June he also asked WB to release Gold Nigga in summer. WB declined to release both projects: the EP was too soon, with the prince album still being promoted, and WB guessed Gold Nigga would be another commercial failure + WB were already planning to release a greatest hits compilation in 1993 at this point (The Hits/The B-Sides). prince, who's not famous for being able to take "no" for an answer, was infuriated by both refusals.

- At about the same time, in reaction, prince changed his name to a symbol and publicly announced that he would fulfill his contract with "vault" material, and that was the beginning of the end. Later in 1994 prince would release TMBGITW and 1-800 New-Funk independently and send the 2 "promo tapes" of live and new material to European radios, alongside the Beautiful Experience TV special. Then WB shut down Paisley ParK, prevented prince to release Love Sign and The Undertaker independently, as well as to release both Come and TGE at the same time and, in 1995, Exodus in the US. A drastic change of management at WB, leading away the people prince had been working with for years, as well as the fact that he came to realize that he couldn't get his masters with him when he'd leave WB just made things worse. prince, on the other hand, starting a public feud with WB and from then on it was a series of retaliations from both parties. WB then released The Black Album in 94 and the Undertaker and Sacrifice Of Victor videos in 95 in order to capitalize on prince was he was still there, and it's also very likely that prince decided to butcher the 3 Chains O'Gold video in 94 by editing down almost all the songs to half their lenght only to spoil the project and piss WB off (but we purchasers were the first victimes of that). There was virtually no promo for Come from neither parties, and in 95 the same can be said about TGE.

.

For more details, I suggest u read Scififilmnerd's awesome series of articles on this era. The first one can be found here (the links to the next articles are at the end of the first one): http://prince.org/msg/7/317254

I read that thread a while ago it's brilliant. . This was when I started getting into Prince after D&P, he was big news and there was so much going on. There seemed to be singles, albums, TV specials, video compilations and associated artists stuff coming out every week. . I remember getting the 3 Chains Of Gold VHS and being a bit disappointed some of the videos were edited versions and no video for 3 Chains Of Gold (the song) as it was listed on the back.

3COG is, in fact, there: the instrumental, orchestral track at the end, when Mayte reads the letter and they bury the chains and there's the Japanese contract and stuff, is an alternate mix of 3COG.

A COMPREHENSIVE PRINCE DISCOGRAPHY (work in progress ^^): https://sites.google.com/...scography/
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Reply #21 posted 10/12/14 3:52am

dodger

databank said:



dodger said:


databank said:


The release of the 3 Chain' O'Gold video was delayed until August of 1994, it wasn't released in early 1993.


.


There were in fact several factors that led to tensions between prince and WB:


- As u mention, the prince album's sales weren't good as expected, prince didn't get the money he expected and he blamed WB for the sales not reaching 5M. He felt there was a lack of promotion. On the other hand WB were against Sexy MF and My Name Is Prince being the lead singles: the first contained profanity and the second was all but catchy, and US radios were reluctant to play both. prince had forced the singles on WB and they felt they had promoted the album as much as they could (which I think they did).


- In early 1993, the Carmen Electra album was released and bombed, despite WB spending between one and 2 millions on the project. This was the last of a long series of Paisley Park albums failing to chart but for some reason prince was convinced that this one would be a major success (denial is a strong thing!). WB blamed prince for his lack of judgement and commitment with the label in general, prince blamed WB for not promoting the Paisley Park records properly.


- In spring 1993, prince wanted to release an EP of new material on June 7th (with Papa, Race, Come, Peach), and in June he also asked WB to release Gold Nigga in summer. WB declined to release both projects: the EP was too soon, with the prince album still being promoted, and WB guessed Gold Nigga would be another commercial failure + WB were already planning to release a greatest hits compilation in 1993 at this point (The Hits/The B-Sides). prince, who's not famous for being able to take "no" for an answer, was infuriated by both refusals.


- At about the same time, in reaction, prince changed his name to a symbol and publicly announced that he would fulfill his contract with "vault" material, and that was the beginning of the end. Later in 1994 prince would release TMBGITW and 1-800 New-Funk independently and send the 2 "promo tapes" of live and new material to European radios, alongside the Beautiful Experience TV special. Then WB shut down Paisley ParK, prevented prince to release Love Sign and The Undertaker independently, as well as to release both Come and TGE at the same time and, in 1995, Exodus in the US. A drastic change of management at WB, leading away the people prince had been working with for years, as well as the fact that he came to realize that he couldn't get his masters with him when he'd leave WB just made things worse. prince, on the other hand, starting a public feud with WB and from then on it was a series of retaliations from both parties. WB then released The Black Album in 94 and the Undertaker and Sacrifice Of Victor videos in 95 in order to capitalize on prince was he was still there, and it's also very likely that prince decided to butcher the 3 Chains O'Gold video in 94 by editing down almost all the songs to half their lenght only to spoil the project and piss WB off (but we purchasers were the first victimes of that). There was virtually no promo for Come from neither parties, and in 95 the same can be said about TGE.


.


For more details, I suggest u read Scififilmnerd's awesome series of articles on this era. The first one can be found here (the links to the next articles are at the end of the first one): http://prince.org/msg/7/317254



I read that thread a while ago it's brilliant. . This was when I started getting into Prince after D&P, he was big news and there was so much going on. There seemed to be singles, albums, TV specials, video compilations and associated artists stuff coming out every week. . I remember getting the 3 Chains Of Gold VHS and being a bit disappointed some of the videos were edited versions and no video for 3 Chains Of Gold (the song) as it was listed on the back.

3COG is, in fact, there: the instrumental, orchestral track at the end, when Mayte reads the letter and they bury the chains and there's the Japanese contract and stuff, is an alternate mix of 3COG.



Yes I did notice that later but at the time I was hoping/expecting a video or live clip of the album version as it was listed on the back with the other tracks.
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Reply #22 posted 10/12/14 5:46am

TrevorAyer

databank said:

TrevorAyer said:

I wanna know how "splash" got released and what was supposed to be on Roadhouse Garden and how all the rev stuff got squashed so quick. Was it WB? Was it the Rev? probably should start my own thread but it did seem prince was about to do something really cool with Roadhouse and Splash and then it just ended quick like.

According to Alan Leeds prince wasn't allowed to release anything recorded during his time with WB, both studio and live vault material, as long as they held the rights to his masters and anything else recorded during those years. If this is true prince just pushed it as much as he could with Crystal Ball, Rave (the song) and NPGMC, and it's very possible that WB turned a blind eye at first then let their lawyers tell him that they wouldn't tolerate any more. This would explain why no more 78-95 vault material ever surfaced after 2001, but this is only speculation. Notably, prince even released stuff that had already been released by WB and therefore belonged to them (Good Love, Interactive, the Come/TGE remixes, Horny Pony, Thieves In The Temple Extended) during those years, so we know for a fact that he was trying their patience.

Thanks ... I have heard some of this before but I am still curious .. I recall prince saying roadhouse was primarily in need of some arranging by w+l to finish it off .. did they start? .. was "splash" finished by the girls at that time .. was prince open to working with the rev at that time? .. did wb kill a rev reunion tour by denying roadhouse? .. did the rev ever meet and discuss going forward with roadhouse? .. however it was it really seemed like prince was open to working with the rev again and was not so much about "never looking back" and all that .. I wonder if working with WB now will open up the legal options to release Roadhouse Garden.

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Reply #23 posted 10/12/14 6:19am

Noodled24

databank said:

The albums really didn't get much promo. No videos nor TV shows for Come, prince was promoting TMBGITW and 1-800 New-Funk instead (and even TGE with Dolphin but the album wasn't out yet).

Letitgo had a video of sorts - but the songs were a staple in his live gigs at the time. Prince was immensely proud of those songs. Plus the various mixes on the come maxi singles. There was no TV promo for come granted but Pheromone became the theme of a VH1 or BET show also I think?

TGE was so delayed that prince had lost interest at the time (he was already working on Emancipation) and there was just one videos either for Gold at the time of release, though he did the VH1 TV special but WB wasn't involved in that. In 95 prince did more to promote Exodus than TGE.

Videos were made for TGE though? P.Control had a video (unreleased) Endorphinmachine was on the interactive CD? TMBGITW and Gold a video was made for dolphin (don't know if that was released) Plus various live performances.

There was one video and a few TV shows for C&D it's true, though, but I guess at this point both parties knew it was their last thing together so better make some quick cash with it before the split. I mean if you comare this to the high effort that were put into promoting both D&P and the prince album, that was insignificant.

Well I guess thats true, but this was due to the feud and things moving too slowly for Prince. There were no hugely expensive videos for come/gold/chaos a la D&P but come went through various incarnations - it wasn't just random tracks thrown together. At some point wasn't Chaos going to be a concept album of sorts with a mini theme running between 18&Over, Zanalee and Empty Room?

The only album that was thrown together with no purpose was "the Vault" - which still has some great songs on it.

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Reply #24 posted 10/12/14 9:23am

BartVanHemelen

avatar

feeluupp said:

The contract was short lived because after The Love Symbol album, when he released the 3 Chains of Gold VHS in early 1993, he already declared Prince had died

.

This is nonsense. The contract was in place until WB execs allowed Prince to leave after he delivered two of the final three albums he was due. There's a whole bunch of info about the contract in the Princepedia on this site, read that first.

© Bart Van Hemelen
This posting is provided AS IS with no warranties, and confers no rights.
It is not authorized by Prince or the NPG Music Club. You assume all risk for
your use. All rights reserved.
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Reply #25 posted 10/12/14 9:30am

BartVanHemelen

avatar

databank said:

- At about the same time, in reaction, prince changed his name to a symbol and publicly announced that he would fulfill his contract with "vault" material, and that was the beginning of the end.

.

Which was never going to fly.

.

Later in 1994 prince would release TMBGITW

.

He was allowed by WB to do so. And was in fact forbidden from using any of their infrastructure, partners etc.

.

Then WB [...] prevented prince to release [...] in 1995, Exodus in the US.

.

No, WB were going to release it but prince had to stop badmouthing the company in the press. Guess what happened a few weesk later? Hence WB cancelling the release of Exodus.

.

WB then released The Black Album in 94

.

This was one of the remnants of a separate deal negociated by Prince's lawyer. This is all detailed @ http://prince.org/wiki/Th..._1994_Deal .

© Bart Van Hemelen
This posting is provided AS IS with no warranties, and confers no rights.
It is not authorized by Prince or the NPG Music Club. You assume all risk for
your use. All rights reserved.
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Reply #26 posted 10/12/14 9:31am

BartVanHemelen

avatar

Noodled24 said:

feeluupp said:

My main question is, what were those circumstances withtin that 1 year of the contract signed in 1992, the release of the Love Symbol album, and by 1993 he declared Prince was dead changed his name to the symbol and had the whole feud with Warners... How could just in one years time he sign the most lucrative deal, and by the next year Prince starts his "commercial" doward spiral...

Speculation: Perhaps there was a stipulation in the contract which stated Album A had to sell 5 million copies before Prince was issued with the next advance of $10 million to create album B.

.

Why speculate when WE KNOW THE FACTS?

© Bart Van Hemelen
This posting is provided AS IS with no warranties, and confers no rights.
It is not authorized by Prince or the NPG Music Club. You assume all risk for
your use. All rights reserved.
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Reply #27 posted 10/12/14 9:34am

BartVanHemelen

avatar

JoeTyler said:

worst contract ever, don't know what Prince AND Warners were thinking...

.

Warners were hoping he'd grown up and learned a lesson from D&P (i.e. work hard + promote your album). Prince was blinded by the dollar figures and wanting a bigger deal than madonna or Michael Jackson. Meanwhile REM and Metallica were both signing deals with WEA companies that gave them control of their back catalogue + ownership of future recordings.

© Bart Van Hemelen
This posting is provided AS IS with no warranties, and confers no rights.
It is not authorized by Prince or the NPG Music Club. You assume all risk for
your use. All rights reserved.
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Reply #28 posted 10/12/14 9:39am

databank

avatar

TrevorAyer said:

databank said:

According to Alan Leeds prince wasn't allowed to release anything recorded during his time with WB, both studio and live vault material, as long as they held the rights to his masters and anything else recorded during those years. If this is true prince just pushed it as much as he could with Crystal Ball, Rave (the song) and NPGMC, and it's very possible that WB turned a blind eye at first then let their lawyers tell him that they wouldn't tolerate any more. This would explain why no more 78-95 vault material ever surfaced after 2001, but this is only speculation. Notably, prince even released stuff that had already been released by WB and therefore belonged to them (Good Love, Interactive, the Come/TGE remixes, Horny Pony, Thieves In The Temple Extended) during those years, so we know for a fact that he was trying their patience.

Thanks ... I have heard some of this before but I am still curious .. I recall prince saying roadhouse was primarily in need of some arranging by w+l to finish it off .. did they start? .. was "splash" finished by the girls at that time .. was prince open to working with the rev at that time? .. did wb kill a rev reunion tour by denying roadhouse? .. did the rev ever meet and discuss going forward with roadhouse? .. however it was it really seemed like prince was open to working with the rev again and was not so much about "never looking back" and all that .. I wonder if working with WB now will open up the legal options to release Roadhouse Garden.

Non, no no, W&L denied ever been contacted by prince at the time, though he said he didn and they wouldn't reply. Splash is the way it was in 85. No work with The Revolution was done at the time and there was never any hints at a live reunion by prince, only toying with the tracks in the studio. prince would certainly never have toured with the old band again, he had another band back then. Honestly IDK what he had in mind, no one does, but I suspect it was just a short-lived lunacy or BS he said to create a hype. I suspect he was planning to release the songs as such. It's even not known whether a tracklist was ever completed for the project so don't hold your breath, if those songs ever surface it probably won't be the way they were intended to be released at the time.

A COMPREHENSIVE PRINCE DISCOGRAPHY (work in progress ^^): https://sites.google.com/...scography/
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Reply #29 posted 10/12/14 9:41am

databank

avatar

BartVanHemelen said:

databank said:

- At about the same time, in reaction, prince changed his name to a symbol and publicly announced that he would fulfill his contract with "vault" material, and that was the beginning of the end.

.

Which was never going to fly.

.

.

No, WB were going to release it but prince had to stop badmouthing the company in the press. Guess what happened a few weesk later? Hence WB cancelling the release of Exodus.

.

WB then released The Black Album in 94

.

This was one of the remnants of a separate deal negociated by Prince's lawyer. This is all detailed @ http://prince.org/wiki/Th..._1994_Deal .

Yes, I knew all that, I just took short cuts. Thx for clarifying smile

A COMPREHENSIVE PRINCE DISCOGRAPHY (work in progress ^^): https://sites.google.com/...scography/
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