Personally I really like Pandemonium and it sure got some hit material. Skillet, It's Your World, Jerk Out (big love for that track), Chocolate, Pandemonium, Blondie, Data Bank. Did Prince have any involvement with the album? And if he released it under his name and skipped the whole Grafitti Bridge album and movie, do you think it would have been a major success or a flop?

[Edited 3/8/16 10:55am]

Plenty of information regarding Prince's involvement on the album here:

.

http://www.princevault.co...andemonium

.

As for releasing it as a Prince album, personally I think it sounds much less like a Prince album than the other 3 albums by The Time (understandable considering Pandemonium was much more of a band effort by The Time than their previous 3 albums).

.

A better scenario for a successful Prince album in 1990 would have been the original configuration of Rave that was shelved for the Batman soundtrack, or the Prince-only tracks from the GB album and no movie.

.

I'll definitely agree that any scenario in 1990 involving NOT releasing the Graffiti Bridge film would have been preferable.

PANDEMONIUM outsold Graffiti Bridge in the U.S.

I would have prefered a continuation of the darker themes expressed progressively with SOOT/TBA/LoveSexy/Batman. Maybe something like this?

Joy In Repetition (Kick-drum intro)

Thieves In The Temple

Witness 4 The Prosecution (3rd Version)

The Question of U (/12 Keys)

Dance With The Devil

Still Would Stand All TIme

-

Rebirth Of The Flesh

We Can Funk (Before-Clinton Version)

God Is Alive

We Got The Power

Pink Cashmere (One of the guitar-heavy versions)

God Is Alive (Reprise)

[Edited 3/8/16 11:56am]

bluegangsta said:

bluegangsta said:

I would have prefered a continuation of the darker themes expressed progressively with SOOT/TBA/LoveSexy/Batman. Maybe something like this?

Joy In Repetition (Kick-drum intro)

Thieves In The Temple

Witness 4 The Prosecution (3rd Version)

The Question of U (/12 Keys)

Dance With The Devil

Still Would Stand All TIme

-

Rebirth Of The Flesh

We Can Funk (Before-Clinton Version)

God Is Alive

We Got The Power

Pink Cashmere (One of the guitar-heavy versions)

God Is Alive (Reprise)

i'd replace 'dance with the devil' for something else though. something a bit more upbeat

perhaps, i don't know, like 'elephants & flowers' perhaps. but yes, cool concept.

feeluupp said:

PANDEMONIUM outsold Graffiti Bridge in the U.S.

Rightly so, it's the better album.

funkomatic said:

feeluupp said:

PANDEMONIUM outsold Graffiti Bridge in the U.S.

Rightly so, it's the better album.

did i say that anywhere in the post?

Wolfie87 said:

Personally I really like Pandemonium and it sure got some hit material. Skillet, It's Your World, Jerk Out (big love for that track), Chocolate, Pandemonium, Blondie, Data Bank. Did Prince have any involvement with the album? And if he released it under his name and skipped the whole Grafitti Bridge album and movie, do you think it would have been a major success or a flop?

Considering the way the album was assembled the question makes little sense because it suggests an impossibility.

As explained on Princevault, the project started with Morris and Prince recording a whole album (Corporate World), that was due November 1989 but scrapped when WB, given the commercial success Jam & Lewis and Jesse Johnson had achieved on their own, asked Prince to reunite the original band instead. They agreed with Prince to take over the project and Prince (quite surprisingly) allowed them to record the album they wanted without him being involved at all anymore, as well as to use whatever they wanted from Corporate World, as well as any previous outtake from the band's three first albums. It is however possible that Prince decided to keep the 4 Corporate World songs that were used on GB and told the band that those were off-limits, but this is purely speculative.

Donald Trump, My Summertime Thang and Data Bank were the only 3 tracks from Corporate World that the band chose to use, and they slightly reworked the last 2 without Prince being involved.

Jerk Out and Chocolate were reclaimed by the band, who knew them as they'd both been considered for earlier albums, and they reworked Jerk Out quite a lot.

Pandemonium only has Prince credited as a co-composer because a short part was re-used from Murph Drag, a Corporate World song, but he wasn't involved in the song's composing or recording process.

The 4 other songs he had nothing to do with.

Therefore, there is no way Prince could have released Pandemonium under his own name.

databank said:

As explained on Princevault, the project started with Morris and Prince recording a whole album (Corporate World), that was due November 1989 but scrapped when WB, given the commercial success Jam & Lewis and Jesse Johnson had achieved on their own, asked Prince to reunite the original band instead. They agreed with Prince to take over the project and Prince (quite surprisingly) allowed them to record the album they wanted without him being involved at all anymore, as well as to use whatever they wanted from Corporate World, as well as any previous outtake from the band's three first albums.

.

Note that the guys from The Time told a different story in every bloody interview. This account of events seems to make sense, but reading and watching interviews from 1990 woudl contradict plenty of that.

BartVanHemelen said:

databank said:

As explained on Princevault, the project started with Morris and Prince recording a whole album (Corporate World), that was due November 1989 but scrapped when WB, given the commercial success Jam & Lewis and Jesse Johnson had achieved on their own, asked Prince to reunite the original band instead. They agreed with Prince to take over the project and Prince (quite surprisingly) allowed them to record the album they wanted without him being involved at all anymore, as well as to use whatever they wanted from Corporate World, as well as any previous outtake from the band's three first albums.

.

Note that the guys from The Time told a different story in every bloody interview. This account of events seems to make sense, but reading and watching interviews from 1990 woudl contradict plenty of that.

Absolutely true, however The Time's PR had always been a bag of lies (to hide P's involvement at first) and they were sorta teasing Prince a lot in those interviews, so I'd tend to believe what research has unveiled, + Jellybean's interview from a few years back seems to corroborate it (at least the bit where Prince just passed on the project to them and didn't get involved anymore from that point on).

BartVanHemelen said:

databank said:

As explained on Princevault, the project started with Morris and Prince recording a whole album (Corporate World), that was due November 1989 but scrapped when WB, given the commercial success Jam & Lewis and Jesse Johnson had achieved on their own, asked Prince to reunite the original band instead. They agreed with Prince to take over the project and Prince (quite surprisingly) allowed them to record the album they wanted without him being involved at all anymore, as well as to use whatever they wanted from Corporate World, as well as any previous outtake from the band's three first albums.

.

Note that the guys from The Time told a different story in every bloody interview. This account of events seems to make sense, but reading and watching interviews from 1990 woudl contradict plenty of that.

Especially that Donnie Simpson interview...

I've never been totally thrilled with Pandemonium.I think it would have been a better album if....

***weak tracks like "Data Bank" and "My Summertime Thang" were removed and replaced with stronger tracks like "Shake" and "Love Machine".

SoulAlive said:

I've never been totally thrilled with Pandemonium.I think it would have been a better album if....

***weak tracks like "Data Bank" and "My Summertime Thang" were removed and replaced with stronger tracks like "Shake" and "Love Machine".

I could never quite figure out why The Time would discard Release It, Love Machine and Shake in favor of Donald Trump, Data Bank and My Summertime Thang (the remaining CW outtakes were indeed less impressive but those 3 are da jam!), which is why I wonder if there's any way P could have told them he wanted to save them for GB. The late 1989 config of GB already contains all 3 songs so that could make sense.

databank said:

SoulAlive said:

I've never been totally thrilled with Pandemonium.I think it would have been a better album if....

***weak tracks like "Data Bank" and "My Summertime Thang" were removed and replaced with stronger tracks like "Shake" and "Love Machine".

I could never quite figure out why The Time would discard Release It, Love Machine and Shake in favor of Donald Trump, Data Bank and My Summertime Thang (the remaining CW outtakes were indeed less impressive but those 3 are da jam!), which is why I wonder if there's any way P could have told them he wanted to save them for GB. The late 1989 config of GB already contains all 3 songs so that could make sense.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Prince had already decided to put those songs on Graffiti Bridge. I've always thought those tracks would have been better on Pandemonium than the three you mention. I understand P keeping "The Latest Fashion" on GB (even though the scene was cut from the film), but the others would have been better suited to be on a Time album.

databank said:

JediMaster said:

databank said:

I could never quite figure out why The Time would discard Release It, Love Machine and Shake in favor of Donald Trump, Data Bank and My Summertime Thang (the remaining CW outtakes were indeed less impressive but those 3 are da jam!), which is why I wonder if there's any way P could have told them he wanted to save them for GB. The late 1989 config of GB already contains all 3 songs so that could make sense.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Prince had already decided to put those songs on Graffiti Bridge. I've always thought those tracks would have been better on Pandemonium than the three you mention. I understand P keeping "The Latest Fashion" on GB (even though the scene was cut from the film), but the others would have been better suited to be on a Time album.

There remain two huge mysteries about CW/

- How was the project related to GB if at all? Pandemonium was, though very undirectly, a sister album to GB and a second OST to the movie. But CW was to be released a year before the film and good 8 months before the GB album.

- Who were supposed to be the members "The Time" had CW been released in November 1989? As far as we know only Morris and Jerome were associated with the project, but they would have needed a backing band for music videos, TV appearances and possibly even touring.