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...

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

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.

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.

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 and WB:

- As u mention, the album's sales weren't good as expected, 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. 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 was convinced that this one would be a major success (denial is a strong thing!). WB blamed for his lack of judgement and commitment with the label in general, blamed WB for not promoting the Paisley Park records properly.

- In spring 1993, 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 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). , 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, 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 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 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 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. , 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 was he was still there, and it's also very likely that 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

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.

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.

databank said:

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.

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.

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...

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.

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 ??

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

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 album had some big singles. Debut #1. The 3 different releases of the greatest hits all went top 5, the 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]

^^ 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.

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.

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 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 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, 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.

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, 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, 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 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 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 album, that was insignificant.

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 and WB:

- As u mention, the album's sales weren't good as expected, 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. 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 was convinced that this one would be a major success (denial is a strong thing!). WB blamed for his lack of judgement and commitment with the label in general, blamed WB for not promoting the Paisley Park records properly.

- In spring 1993, 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 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). , 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, 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 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 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 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. , 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 was he was still there, and it's also very likely that 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.

databank said:

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 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 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, 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.

databank said:

The albums really didn't get much promo. No videos nor TV shows for Come, 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 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 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 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.

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.

databank said:

- At about the same time, in reaction, 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 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 to release [...] in 1995, Exodus in the US.

.

No, WB were going to release it but 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 .

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?

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.

TrevorAyer said:

databank said:

According to Alan Leeds 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 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, 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 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 , only toying with the tracks in the studio. 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.

BartVanHemelen said:

databank said:

- At about the same time, in reaction, 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.

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

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WB then released The Black Album in 94

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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