The other day I was listening to all 3 versions of that album and I came to realize that the second config may have been the best (see here for all 3 configs: http://www.princevault.co...n_Electra)

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Please keep in mind that we're talking about a concept that was flawed from the beginning: Carmen was a lame performer (All That is an obvious example of how she spoke her lyrics as if she was reading the phone book), the ego-trip lyrics Prince wrote for her could have been funny on a few songs but not on 11 or 14 consecutive ones, and there was no way this could have been a hit no matter what. So please refrain from saying "this album sucks, I hate it". We know it sucks. We know it's not a fan favorite. What I'm interested in here is discussing how it could have been a little better (less bad at least) because actually, to be honest, I think musically there are plenty of good jams among both the released and unreleased tracks. Not classic Prince material but decent, funky stuff. So let's try to just speak about this album and its configurations with an open mind

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When Prince submitted the album to WB (insisting that it would be a hit) WB, instead of telling him "there's no way we'll sell more than 1000 copies of that" told him "OK, but please toy with the tracklist a bit in order to make it more commercial", and so did he.

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Casualties: Power From Above, Carmen On Top, Go Carmen Go, Powerline, The Juice

Added: Everybody Get On Up, Step To The Mic

Significantly modified: This Is My House, All That

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For one thing I think the tracks order was better on the second configuration. Power From Above is a decent opener while the lame Go-Go Dancer makes the listener feel uncomfortable straight from the beginning. Then while Good Judy Girlfriend works incredibly well in the middle of the album, it's a complete downer as the second track.

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I have to admit that I kinda dig all the outtakes: none is genius but all have a funny ol' skool hip-hop feeling to them that I like. I'd rather have seen more of them making it to the final cut but certainly not instead of Everybody Get On Up and Step To The Mic, which are 2 of the most dynamic tracks from those sessions but instead of Go-Go Dancer and Fantasia Erotica: those 2 lame techno-dance tracks had nothing to do on a hip-hop album, and while Prince strangely believed they could be appealing singles, they just made it a confusing ensemble by undermining what very little cohesiveness it had. So adding the 2 new tracks was a good move, yeah, but the ones that were taken away were not necessarely the good ones IMHO.

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Then the 2 tracks that were reworked were simply slaughtered. All That originally sounded much more like Adore and worked relatively well: by making it less organic and more electronic, Prince just took away whatever little sexiness it had in the first place. As for This Is My House I always hated that one... until I heard the original. While not a great track, it originally had a soul vibe to it and suddenly it was once again made more electronic and turned into a gross, lame techno-dance track that became an embarrasment just as much as Go-Go Dancer and Fantasia Erotica.

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So in the end I think that if, instead of taking away 5 songs, changing 2 and adding 2, Prince had just taken off Go-Go and Fantasia, added instead the 2 he did add and left the 2 he changed as they were, we could have had something better. Now OK, maybe there were too many old skool hip-hop songs for 1993 (they sounded like 1989), so maybe some of the outtakes did deserve to be taken away IDK. Go Carmen Go amuses me a lot but I'm pretty sure everybody would have hated it back then. Powerline and Carmen On Top also lacks some dynamism. I think Power From Above worked decently as an opener, though (with its Batdance reference), and The Juice definitely is my jam! So sticking to 11 songs and admitting Prince really liked All That and This Is My House, maybe something like this:

1. Power From Above (works as an opener)

2. Go On (Witcha Bad Self) (more dynamic to go straight to the point but would have needed to be segued straight from the previous track's ending without silence)

3. Step To The Mic (keeps the dynamic)

4. S.T. (keeps the dynamic)

5. Good Judy Girlfriend (works as a Vanity 6 kind of interlude and works well after S.T., also a good ending for side A for LPs and cassettes)

6. Everybody Get On Up (brings back the dynamic and efficiently starts side B for LPs and cassettes)

7. Fun (keeps the dynamic)

8. Just A Little Lovin' (smooth jam)

9. All That (original) (smooth jam)

10. This Is My House (original) (I guess P wanted a pseudo-political song so here we go)

11. The Juice (to end with something more punchy)

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What do you think?

[Edited 1/13/15 8:55am]

[Edited 1/13/15 8:58am]

I liked Go go dancer back than...even bought the cd single with remixes

There are a lot of great Carmen remixes out there.

Good that you made it into its own thread, Databank. But... you don't like Carmen On Top enough to put it on the final tracklist?
I'm hoping Mayte's versions surfaces one day, although I fear to hear her delivery...

The out-takes are just as dire as the final product.

I say this but I like the album a lot, I just know it's a load of wank.

I'd like to hear the Prince scratch vocal tracks, if they exist. A lot of these songs sound a little more farmed out than normal, production wise though. Aside from the studio seduction stories, I don't know a lot about these sessions. How involved was he?

With her on the lead vocals..............NOTHING could have saved this project.

[Edited 1/13/15 12:54pm]

Go-Go Dancer and FantasiaErotica to me were always the best two tracks on this album.

FantasiaErotica or at least one of the remixes, was played quite often in clubs around the time. When you look back at what else was in the charts at the time this wasn't too far removed. It was just ill conceived trying to position Carman as a hip-hop act. Had this been a collaboration with a real MC of the time it could have worked out. But ultimately it was manufactured pop with Prince at the helm.

Graycap23 said:

With her on the lead vocals..............NOTHING could have saved this project.

[Edited 1/13/15 12:54pm]

^^^This. Just Imagine Salt N Peppa doing this album. It would have been a hit.

that wierd kid shouting "Gaaarmen!" always amuses me.

treehouse said:

I'd like to hear the Prince scratch vocal tracks, if they exist. A lot of these songs sound a little more farmed out than normal, production wise though. Aside from the studio seduction stories, I don't know a lot about these sessions. How involved was he?

Basically he was 100% involved, it really was his project from the beginning.

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There's still a grey area regarding the lyrics attributed to Carmen Electra, though: he gave her not only the credits but also the royalties (something he's done on several other occasions, with Sheila on Romance 1600, the full NPG band on Gold Nigga and Exodus, Tamar on Milk And Honey...) and even though they couldn't find anyone to testify that Carmen did not write those lyrics, Per Nilsen and the researchers from Uptown weren't able to find anyone who could attest that she did write them either as far as I know, so in doubt they didn't attribute those credits to Prince except for Good Judy Girlfriend, which was known to have been composed and originally recorded by Prince in 1989, before he even met Carmen.

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So in the end, several things make me believe that Carmen didn't write a damn line of lyrics:

- The fact that in the case of GJG, Carmen was attributed credits and royalties for a verified Prince composition.

- The fact that as far as I know, no one's ever been able to find anyone to attest that Carmen did write those lyrics.

- The fact that she reportedly had no interest in becoming a singer, let alone a songwriter, before Prince decided to make her one (she was first auditioned as a dancer and obviously wanted to pursue a career as an actress, which she eventually did).

- The fact that she didn't compose a single damn song ever since.

- The fact that she had no involvement in the album's tracklisting (!): when asked last year in an interview why The Juice had been left out she shrugged and said that she had no idea: one day the tracklist was this and the next day it was that, Prince wouldn't even ask her her opinion about which songs to keep and which ones to discard, nor about the order of the tracklist. She was really just a puppet on a string and the whole project was totally out of her hands.

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I mean when u put 2 and 2 together the chances for her to have written all those lyrics is close to zero, but I'm always the first one to claim that theory isn't proof so, therefore, I'll acknowledge that there's still a reasonable doubt about who wrote those lyrics. I hope one day someone involved can clear this once and for all.

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Apart from that Prince was almost entirely responsible for composing and recording the music altogether, with some contributions by Levi who at the time acted as an in-house producer for Paisley Park projects, co-composed some tracks and probably did play some instruments as well; and some input by a few other usual suspects such as the NPG, Kathleen johnson, Rosie Gaines, the Hornheads, The Steeles, Eric Leeds and KC Cohen (vocals and/or instruments) as well as Tony M. and Monie Love (who both composed some lyrics and, in the case of Tony, provided some vocals as well).

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Prince was also the "mastermind" (lol!) behind all three configurations of the tracklist and he most likely was the one to validate the cover and booklet's art and design as well, so it really was his pet-project entirely.

kewlschool said:

Graycap23 said:

With her on the lead vocals..............NOTHING could have saved this project.

[Edited 1/13/15 12:54pm]

^^^This. Just Imagine Salt N Peppa doing this album. It would have been a hit.

I'm soooooo glad they released Very Necessary instead, that album ROCKS!!!

I respect but am very surprised at some of the positive feed-back for Go-Go Dancer and Fantasia Erotica above. I mean I'm a huge fan of electronic music and I can tell you: from the standpoint of the electronic scene of 1993, those tracks make no sense at all, they're really just a gross pastiche of what was going on at the time. And that includes all those Junior Vasquez remixes (though the most intrumental ones were by far the most decent ones). Of course there was all that Europop crap on the radio at the time and one could say that's where those songs belong but IDK. I'm surprised FE was ever played in a club, I take it that it was a VERY mainstream club (correct me if I'm wrong). I just can't see this being played in a hip club in London at the time. What I know is that all my friends in the 90's, some who were into hip-hop and some into electronica and techno, would have found those 2 tracks totally ridiculous (some who heard them actually did). Maybe with proper promo they may have seduced more mainstream listeners but somehow I doubt it, not because they were bad (the eurodance shit on the radio at the time sucked real hard) but because they took themselves too seriously (the whole "look at me I'm so hot" ego-trip, which was a hip-hop thing, not a eurodance one). Once could compare some of the stuff on Madonna's Erotica with those songs as well but the production value and lyrics of madonna's songs were like 10 times better, and Carmen ain't no Madonna.

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Also yeah, as for some of you this album as a whole is kind of a guilty pleasure for me

databank said:

I'm surprised FE was ever played in a club, I take it that it was a VERY mainstream club (correct me if I'm wrong).

Yes it was a mainstream club, the same kind of place you'd have heard the Gett Off house mixes.

I just can't see this being played in a hip club in London at the time. What I know is that all my friends in the 90's, some who were into hip-hop and some into electronica and techno, would have found those 2 tracks totally ridiculous (some who heard them actually did).

The same could be said of many Prince songs, but Prince was a regular in the top 10 at the time. When he tried to launch a new "artist" people took notice. I'm one person who heard it a couple of times. I'm not saying the song ever went anywhere. Some of the remixes were of the time though.

Personally I've always thought FE and GGD were the two most catchy songs on the album.

Noodled24 said:

databank said:

I'm surprised FE was ever played in a club, I take it that it was a VERY mainstream club (correct me if I'm wrong).

Yes it was a mainstream club, the same kind of place you'd have heard the Gett Off house mixes.

I just can't see this being played in a hip club in London at the time. What I know is that all my friends in the 90's, some who were into hip-hop and some into electronica and techno, would have found those 2 tracks totally ridiculous (some who heard them actually did).

The same could be said of many Prince songs, but Prince was a regular in the top 10 at the time. When he tried to launch a new "artist" people took notice. I'm one person who heard it a couple of times. I'm not saying the song ever went anywhere. Some of the remixes were of the time though.

Personally I've always thought FE and GGD were the two most catchy songs on the album.

Fair enough, I get your point.

However no, the same can't be said about many Prince songs: there are very, very few that I'd be embarrassed to play while my friends are at home. But most of my friends are hipsters. I understand from other threads that mainstream folks can have negative reactions to many Prince songs, though, but those people don't really exist as far as I'm concerned. Some of them aren't actually even people at all if I'm to believe what I see on TV

I'm pretty sure Prince intended the Carmen Electra album to kill hip hop. He tried earlier with TC Ellis, but the movie was too bad and not enough ears received the potion.

The real tragedy here, is that an artist of Prince's stature had to consider making hip hop records in the first place, which are absolutely beneath his talent, intelligence and skillset. Burden of the black man. Sting didn't have to deal with this shit. Springsteen didn't have to either. But Prince had to put out shitty rap records just to get the label off his ass.

I was happy with the different tracklist, as I had one of the mis-printed CD's and sold it for a fair bit of mula!!!

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databank said:

kewlschool said:

^^^This. Just Imagine Salt N Peppa doing this album. It would have been a hit.

I'm soooooo glad they released Very Necessary instead, that album ROCKS!!!

What if they would have released Carmen's album the following year? It could have worked.

databank said:

Prince was also the "mastermind" (lol!) behind all three configurations of the tracklist and he most likely was the one to validate the cover and booklet's art and design as well, so it really was his pet-project entirely.

Interesting. Some of the production sounds more like copycat Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis of the era, so it seemed more like a Paisley Park affair than a Prince, the diabolical genius at work, to me....but some of it, like Fun, is obviously all Prince to my ears. Didn't know Moni Love was involved. Interesting.

treehouse said:

databank said:

Prince was also the "mastermind" (lol!) behind all three configurations of the tracklist and he most likely was the one to validate the cover and booklet's art and design as well, so it really was his pet-project entirely.

Interesting. Some of the production sounds more like copycat Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis of the era, so it seemed more like a Paisley Park affair than a Prince, the diabolical genius at work, to me....but some of it, like Fun, is obviously all Prince to my ears. Didn't know Moni Love was involved. Interesting.

Monie has written lyrics for the last 2 recorded songs (Step and Everybody) and, I've just checked, actually also recorded some bckgrnd vocals on both tracks as well. DJ Graves also contributed some scratches and both were full band recording with the NPG. Basically Monie asked Prince to compose 2 songs with her for her then upcoming album, In A Word Or 2, and in return Prince asked her to compose 2 songs with him for CE.

Levi was involved in a SHITLOAD of Prince songs between 1989 and 1992, he'd either finish stuff for Prince based on demos Prince gave him, or they'd toy with ideas together in the studio. He also received a lot of co-writing credits during those years. For some reason Prince had a lot of faith in his talents and obviously felt comfortable working with him. Levi got co-writing credits for 3 songs on the released configuration of CE, and it's possible he did his fair share of post-production on several tracks that were started by Prince but Princevault doesn't acknowledge such a massive contribution from his part: Prince seems to be the main player/producer on most songs. His input is REALLY obvious on each and every songs, actually: even though some production techniques are not typical Prince, each song has little things spreaded all around them that are all princey.

The recording process of Carmen Electra and were really contemporary, both started in the Spring of 1991 and completed in the Summer of 1992. Interestingly Prince started working on both albums while adding the last touches to D&P and started recording Gold Nigga while adding the last touches to CE and : he really was toying a lot with hip-hop at the time and while was more intended to sound as a group effort, CE was intended to have a more typically hip-hop, samples and drum machines based bare bone sound. He then moved forward in late 1992 when, while finishing Gold Nigga, he started recording songs for what would become Glam Slam Ulysses/Come/TGE.

By the way, you may already know Carmen has released some dance tracks since then for whatever it's worth. The one I heard sounded like Kesha to me.

Thanks to Prince's war with WBR this album wasn't re-released and promoted back when Carmen became a celeb and posed in Playboy etc. Sure, it's a shite album, but it's not like they'd be selling it to music lovers, right?

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I had a GeoCities site at the time, which in part was about protege artists like Carmen, and I got offers from people to take my URL because when you searched for Carmen my site was one of the first results.

databank said:

Levi was involved in a SHITLOAD of Prince songs between 1989 and 1992, he'd either finish stuff for Prince based on demos Prince gave him, or they'd toy with ideas together in the studio. He also received a lot of co-writing credits during those years. For some reason Prince had a lot of faith in his talents and obviously felt comfortable working with him.

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Which makes what happened aftwards so tragic (I'm talking about his 1998 lawsuit.)

treehouse said:

By the way, you may already know Carmen has released some dance tracks since then for whatever it's worth. The one I heard sounded like Kesha to me.

I knew about one from about 2 years ago but I thought it was an experiment, I had no idea she recorded several (2 or 3 it seems, not exactly a discography but still). Interestingly I've just checked and ASCAP lists her as co-composer (most likely lyricist?) for 2 of those new songs.

This, at least, invalidates one of my arguments above

Thanks for pointing it out

I have a soft spot for Everybody Get On Up but probably only because I love the live interpolation Prince did on the Act I show (I think it's the Madison Square Garden show from March(?) 1993).

From memory it's during the Continental/Tighten Up after he does all the "Ooooh-Oooh" (ladies) and "Get On Up" (fellas) audience participation. He goes into the Everybody Get On up rap before the Tighten Up bassline cuts back in.

Joyous

Yeah, on second thoughts forget the Carmen album version

[Edited 1/14/15 3:51am]

I'd thoroughly repressed this album from my memory, thanks for bringing it back up.

I agree with you though that the songs lost from the final configuration may have made the album a overall better product.

The singles chosen to promote this album were atrocious. It could have sold at least 100 more copies if they had chosen one of the few decent tracks from the album and had a professional video for them.

all aboard,all aboard,cause I'm gettin' funky.....as you know,as you know,I'm a party junkie

the album is filled with whack rhymes like that

but I have to admit,"Fantasia Erotica" is a good dance track.