The name change did not in itself cause me to think less of Prince or feel the need to be more defensive about being his fan. What did cause me some problems was the backstory changing as to why he made the change in the first place. First it was inspired by divine providence and then later he ends of admitting that it was a ploy to mess with undesireable relationships (WB). Had Prince just been straightfoward/honest about the reasoning, it would not have been a big deal at all in my book.

What are your thoughts?

[Edited 3/6/15 13:25pm]

The name change didn't affect my opinion of Prince. It was (and is) all about the music, to me. Between those two rationales (you listed) about why he did it, I couldn't care less; one was about his faith, the other about a contract disagreement - neither of which effects me much.

No - I already knew he was nuts, so...

pdiddy2011 said:

The name change didn't affect my opinion of Prince. It was (and is) all about the music, to me. Between those two rationales (you listed) about why he did it, I couldn't care less; one was about his faith, the other about a contract disagreement - neither of which effects me much.

Completely agree with pdiddy2011. It's always has been and will be about the music, nothing else. Yes he has his wierd ways but so what. Like he said in arrogance "people with a real mind will peep this out!" As far as his name change it didn't affect my opinion about Prince. If anything it made me respect him even more. Because this man can be BOLD! He can take a stand for himself and his perceived injustices and take on the entire music industry as it was at that time. That takes a lot of courage and conviction.

People around here on this forum always seem to look at how he conducts himself from their own position rather than from his. I don't quite get that. So my answer is no, if anything it made me admire him even more as an activist not a musician.

Why would it?

Yes. It was the clearest sign that he wasnt 100% ok in the head. Also created many unconfortable situations where I found myself trying to defend him in the face of this nonsense.

Pretty much the worst career move ever.

A little. I was trying to get my band off the ground at that time & it was kinda irritating that a multi-millionaire was comparing his situation to actual slavery.

luv4u said:

Why would it?

I think tha name change was a very polarizing event for many of his fans. I think the reaction was varied and it's interesting to gauge fan reaction to the issue especially looking back with some time having passed on the matter.

I loved him then and respected him more after the name change because it was a brilliant move that foreshadowed what we see today. .....this was a massive massive big dog move, no matter what anyone says ....

We understand the problems artists face in todays landscape because of Prince.

I loved the name change.

I liked it when he was calling himself by that crazy ass symbol and the media was trying to figure him out. lol

What changed my opinion of Prince was when he sued that original set of 8 websites, causing them to all shut down. It was just after the Cyrstal Ball shipment debacle and the nasty email was sent from l41a.com basically dismissing complaints and name-calling dissapointed customers "haters."
Pretty much after that, I stopped adoring him.

Of course, it only continued to get worse. I mean, look at the org. Its gallary is an empty shell of what it used to be, because of constant threats to the site. Those ugly, and i mean UGLY banners in each forum aren't because the site manager cares about respecting Prince's rights--it's because the Prince camp harassed the site.

The Prince community went from a robust, bustling and innovative fanbase to a fraction of what it is today, with a website (the org) that hasn't been updated in years, has a dismayingly archaic chat engine, and no hope for a mobile app (so long as Prince has lawyers). Prince lost much of his fanbase, and it was all his fault.

[Edited 3/6/15 21:57pm]

I became a fan during the period when he changed his name, so I can't say it had a negative effect on it.

In retrospect, it's kind of baffling what people took as a sign of him being insane in the 90s.

An artist with an unusual name changing his name into something more unusual? He must be crazy!

Wasn't changing your name a 90s thing anyway? I remember how even "common people" were changing their last names into something more creative. I remember wanting to change mine too.

emesem said:

Yes. It was the clearest sign that he wasnt 100% ok in the head. Also created many uncomfortable situations where I found myself trying to defend him in the face of this nonsense.

Pretty much the worst career move ever.

The name change didn't change my opinion of Prince so I can't agree with emesem's comment totally but having been a MEGA Prince fan for years, I suddenly found myself unable to defend him as easily as I had been able to in the past. Trying to explain Prince to a non-Prince fan is always hard but I remember floundering against the critics during this period. It didn't help that his music failed to live up to my(very high) expectations during that period either.

Oh, yeah, and "THIS IS THE NEW ME" thing was what the 90s were about too

People were renewing their looks, and often even their behaviour, every year. At one point you were a hiphopper, then a raver, then a 60s pop fanatic and then you ultimately declared everything else than drum'n'bass was passé, worthless and complete shit. It wasn't just young people, as I remember it was very common for, e.g. divorced women to completely change their appearance and outlook on their lives after removing their husbands from their lives and so on. It was like half of the population went through a severe identity crisis then.

novabrkr said:

Oh, yeah, and "THIS IS THE NEW ME" thing was what the 90s were about too

People were renewing their looks, and often even their behaviour, every year. At one point you were a hiphopper, then a raver, then a 60s pop fanatic and then you ultimately declared everything else than drum'n'bass was passé, worthless and complete shit. It wasn't just young people, as I remember it was very common for, e.g. divorced women to completely change their appearance and outlook on their lives after removing their husbands from their lives and so on. It was like half of the population went through a severe identity crisis then.

Michael Jackson, Madonna and Terence Trent D'Arby went through more than one look renewal in the 1990s. Madonna changed her looks at least 40s in the early-mid 1990s alone, and MJ was very different from 1990 to 1999. Terence Trent D'Arby had long hair and shaved it off and went blonde and even changed his name legally.

I have been with Prince since 1983, all along with him during the 90's:


I went to Holland (from Denmark) to see the Gold Experince live, march 1995, half a year before the album got the final release.

And to me it was cool to shout "Prince is dead, long live the New power Generation", like Prince himself suggested from the stage.

To me it was really great, in the beginning... but after the success of the Most Beautiful Girl release single... it all became impossible,

I mean to call him Tafkap, or "The Artist"... that sucked..

I thought he was crazy at first. But down the road I understood why he did it. I didn't mind calling him "The Artist" because I thought that was a title he earned. But I was glad he went back to his original name.

Averett said:

The name change did not in itself cause me to think less of Prince or feel the need to be more defensive about being his fan. What did cause me some problems was the backstory changing as to why he made the change in the first place. First it was inspired by divine providence and then later he ends of admitting that it was a ploy to mess with undesireable relationships (WB). Had Prince just been straightfoward/honest about the reasoning, it would not have been a big deal at all in my book.

What are your thoughts?

[Edited 3/6/15 13:25pm]

I was 16-17 when it happened and I thought it was cool as heaven It was absurd, daring, provocative, it made a mess of the media having to show little signs with the symbol on TV shows and the newspapêrs having to incorporate the symbol font into their articles, everyonbe thought Prince had gone was nuts, there was endless speculation about how to prononce the symbol, and it all happened alongside a drastic change in sound that suddenly made his live shows sound as wild, daring, underground, dirty and insane as his old shows circa Dirty Mind. The whole thing was fucking GENIUS if u ask me

I also was disappointed when he finally admitted that it was more a matter of contract than a spiritual thing, though, but it was pretty clear from the beginning that it also had to do with the contract. My biggest deception, however, was when he became Prince again in 2000, I really wish he'd still be

didn't bother me at all. i lived for a while in a land where folks spell their names with kanji, not unlike the prince symbol. i thought it was creative

emesem said:

Yes. It was the clearest sign that he wasnt 100% ok in the head. Also created many unconfortable situations where I found myself trying to defend him in the face of this nonsense.

Pretty much the worst career move ever.

I never thought he was nuts but I suspected that it was a ploy and was disappointed at the spiritual excuse he manufactured. Why lie to your fans? He could have renamed himself "FuckYouWB" and if he had been honest about his reasoning, I would never of thought a negative thing about it.

Eh, I don't think he was really lying at the time about the name change being "spiritual". So many of the songs from the time are about "spiritual rebirth", so I doubt it was all just media talk. So it probably had both aspects involved - the business side and the need the search for a new identity (plus, he's always just loved to make people confused).

When he wanted to start using his old / real name again it was probably just convenient for him to dismiss the name change of '93 as something that simply stemmed from the contractual reasons. The unpronounceable name had already caused so many problems for him and, indeed, changing his name back to Prince seemed to be a smart business move too.

He didn't explicitly state anywhere later on that the '93 name change was just about his contract with WB. That's just the aspect he chose to emphasize when he went back to using the name "Prince". One reason for it could be that he had already moved on from all the new age-y stuff he had been into earlier and was becoming a JW.

[Edited 3/9/15 1:24am]

emesem said:

Yes. It was the clearest sign that he wasnt 100% ok in the head. Also created many unconfortable situations where I found myself trying to defend him in the face of this nonsense.

Pretty much the worst career move ever.

This kind of comments make me wanna kill myself

Not in the slightest. Somehow, I knew what he was up to, and that it was a very wise business move. What actually surprised me was the mainstream's reaction to it.

I loved that Prince changed his name. It was a strong sign of the individuality that made me admire him.

I don't think any of us ever really believed it was a 'spiritual' thing (unless you thought the '3 Chains O' Gold' video was a documentary), but it was more about him as a persona becoming tired of the way things were, feeling like he'd reached a dead end, and desperately scrabbling around for a fresh start...

at the time Prince was in the second half of his thirties, which is also notoriously a time for transition between the first and second halves of life, when people often need to experience a 'collapse' of sorts, be it spiritual, physical, mental, emotional or professional (or any combination of those), in order to move forward into the next phase of life.

That Prince did it in a very eccentric way shouldn't really be surprising. But I actually liked that he had the balls to do that. You get to a point where you have to engage and really follow the path you're called to, consequences be damned. Most pop stars would try to hide that and keep playing the game, in order to keep the money flowing in and remain safe.... if anything, the name change actually made Prince seem all the more human. In fact, maybe all too human, full of frailty and conflict, just like the rest of us. I could easily identify with that.

[Edited 3/9/15 10:27am]

When I found out about it years after he had switched back to Prince, I found it really thrilling and badass. Whoever had the balls to do that before? I still get why the general public found it off-putting.. came across as arrogant and out-of-touch with reality ('I'm too good for a human name, I'm a symbol now')

It was just stupid. I thought it then and I think it now. The output at the beginning of that period became bastardised and it all became about the fight with WB and not the music. The contractual obligations such as TBA, The Vault: OFFS and C&D took the place of what should have been brand new Prince albums. Come and TGE became shadows of their potential had they been released on schedule and without the bitterness that surrounded them. And then we got a lot of songs about how great he is, how much money he makes now he is free, how many songs he has, how no one can touch him, how everyone is jealous of him, how he only competes with himself blah blah.

Sure, it wasnt the name change that caused all of that but it was everything behind the name change. I wonder what would have happened if Prince stuck to his contract and released an album a year of new stuff until it expired? What would Prince world be like if he followed through on the contract and had WB backing until the end? He could have simply decided not to sign a new deal afterwards and been free without the bitterness.