1Sasha said:

What groups were popular in the 90s into the 2000s? The most popular, I would assume, would have been U2, with the rappers/hip-hop artists following them along. IMO, he was - like a legacy act - adored by his hardcore fans and he could easily have toured every year singing only "catalogue" but he didn't want to do that. If he had - while fighting Warner Brothers - he would have made a lot of money while keeping his name and brand out there. He chose not to market himself in that way. IMO that is part of the reason we now, nearly three months after his passing, aren't hearing much about him. Life has gone on for the majority of people who mourned his loss.

DIAMONDS AND PEARLS and LOVESYMBOL were too eclectic. You can find in these albums rock, pop, rnb, hip hop, jazz, funk...Some people here are the living proof that it's hard to love all those music styles.

That's why you can't expect that type of album to work on the charts. PURPLE RAIN and 1999 were genre-album. People who loves pop/ rock music would want to buy PURPLE RAIN, but people who loves hip hop doesn't care about CREAM, STROLLIN, etc. And people who loves rock doesn't care about JUGHEAD, PUSH, maybe GETT OFF...

[Edited 7/18/16 5:45am]

ksgemini63 said:

Agreed Seven was the logical choice but look back at Sign and If I was Your Girlfriend was put out before U got the look...not good

I can't really agree with this... If I was going to chop songs off of SOTT, I'd probably start with U Got the Look. At the same time, a case can be made for If I Was Your Girlfriend being the best track on the album. It's so much more interesting and thought provking.

Opinions, I know. But IIWYG is so much more memorable than UGTL.

You are right. When I saw him in concert - the only time and it was 2013 - I wondered what show I had walked into. I knew it was going to be a house party format, but I thought I would be hearing the hits from the 80s. Oh so wrong ... It was more of the musicians he had brought with him and jazz/experimental music. Not my taste at all.

Brilliant album. Should be regarded as one of his most complete works ever.....because it is. One of his most eclectic albums. I might listen to it more than any other Prince album.

TheLotus said:

IstenSzek said:

feeluupp said:

sadly so...

even the EMANCIPATION was certified 2x platinum by the RIAA, it was because they counted it as a triple disk... it actually sold no more than 700,000 copies. Gold was certified Gold in the U.S. selling just barely over 500k... Chaos & Disorder was his lowest selling album of the time selling under 400k copies in the U.S.

makes me wonder why people were no longer buying his records. did the music scene change
that much? i mean, his 93/94 music was great (personally i also like emancipation though) so
after the succes of "diamonds and pearls", the somewhat moderate succes of "love symbol",
a greatest hits release which also sold quite well, the public just all of a sudden stopped being
interested?

they did buy TMBGITW and that was sold as a song, so it's not like people didn't know
that this was prince, and they obviously liked the song a lot.

when you look at it from that perspective i guess the backlash from the falling out with WB,
and the whole name change must have put many fans off? but why? none of the mattered 1
single bit to me because his new music was GREAT.

or were people THAT aware of what was on each album when they bought it, did it matter so
much to them that TMBGITW wasn't on "Come"?

oh i don't know. it's all in the pas i guess. i just can't understand how such good music went
without at least selling 1 mil a pop back in the early to mid 90s.

I was living in Nashville,Tn at the time and was close to a lot of WB Nashville people.

Yes the "ERA" changed in 1991 which I think was the last great year in music period but Nirvana and Rap/Hip hop was in full swing and the older stars from the 1980's started losing ground.

Now Prince signed the contract to make him a VP of Warners and the richest rock star ever label but the catch was he was to sell 1.5 million or he had to pay Warners back. Another thing happened Prince was placed in the R&B division of WB which cut half his market. The songs weren't being marketed to the White/Pop radio market and that hurt his sales.

I heard this from music insiders who thought the "fix" was in on Prince. People think that he had all of this control but he really didn't.

That is interesting info from your connections from Nashville WB. Sad stuff. Prince was so great and I feel a lot of his 90's stuff just doesn't get the love it deserves.

Another thing here that long time fans might remember was that 7 was the most played song on radio but never made it past 7 on Billboard's chart. I remembered that it was # 1 on other charts but it mysteriously stayed at #7 on Billboard. U Got the Look,Diamonds and Pearls were all monster hits on radio but didn't hit #1 which I found to be interesting. Adore was a monster hit on R&B radio that wasn't released as a single????

Prince was peculiar and hard to deal with but he was no more hard to deal with than other rock divas in music history. A lot of folks on this board forget that. Look at Get On Up for a good example of James Brown's unwillingless to bend. Prince was like the Godfather.

gollygirl said:

TrivialPursuit said:

By the way, there is a Tony M. free (99%) version of Diamonds & Pearls and that someone did, and it gives new life to the set of songs.

I never liked D&P too much, until Tony M. was taken out of it, then it became a whole new album for me. The same could be true for you for .

This would be worth sourcing, I have not come across it yet in my travels.......

same

luv4u said:

omg I like the entire album

I LOVE the entire album. It's actually in my top 5!

To be very honest I always loved Prince because I thought of him as an outsider. I really don´t care about 'commercial' or 'radio material' as I have my opinions about general masses... and for me Prince was all about quality (kinda selfishly I enjoyed the fact he was not for all audiences).

My favorite songs were always the most different / strange ones ( Sorry, but I find TMBGITW boring).

I believe Symbol has very interesting songs , I actually prefer it to D&P...

Empress said:

luv4u said:

omg I like the entire album

I LOVE the entire album. It's actually in my top 5!

It's at least in my top 10, easily. It really serves as the bookend (more than The Hits/The B-Sides) to an era. While it was well into the 90s, it still rounds out his run as Prince, before the symbol-angst-rock stuff set in, which was just as brilliant, but incredibly different, to me.

RODSERLING said:

Adorecream said:

One man's opinion, I think I need a mongol to English dictionary to read the rest of your glob of text. Ever heard of lines between paragraphs and eshouting (Caps).

For some reason, when you quote my texts, jump of lines appear. But I don't know why the hell paragraphs doesn't appear on my posts otherwise...

I find that problem too, the oderators claim if you type a space between paragraphs, it will appear, but it never does with me. So I use these lines with a dot to spearate a paragraph

.

like this

.

Works every time, only forum board I have been on that does not have paragraph spacing

.

In all this org board has not changed in well over a decade and maybe the mods and Ben need to update it and make it look more 21st century looking and liess 1996 AOL looking. A good example is this forum - Stampboards.com

.

Look at how modern and well set out their forum board is. You will be a guest but clicking on anything will open a thread for you (Warning, it's about postage stamps)

And here we have the Jughead of 2016... well done and now u and pick up your award over there. Congrats!

IamBryan said:

That is very lopsided album, hard to imagine that was recorded in the D&P time, there was no way that album was going to be a successful... the singles released for it with the exception of "7" (which should of been the 1st single released instead Sexy MF) ... he should of listed to WB on that one suggestion. Every single after that was just dreadful... My name is Prince is about as enjoyable as passing a kidney stone...Morning Papers? ummm...yeah. Damn U was a perfect fit for R&B charts. Tony M contributions were heavy on this album...i wish there was away to edit him out like they did Rosie.

In the early 90s before You Tube, internet, I Tunes...you had radio and MTV... If those songs sucked...no one was running out to buy that album... was DOA...

[Edited 7/17/16 13:42pm]

Kobe said:

And here we have the Jughead of 2016... well done and now u and pick up your award over there. Congrats!

IamBryan said:

That is very lopsided album, hard to imagine that was recorded in the D&P time, there was no way that album was going to be a successful... the singles released for it with the exception of "7" (which should of been the 1st single released instead Sexy MF) ... he should of listed to WB on that one suggestion. Every single after that was just dreadful... My name is Prince is about as enjoyable as passing a kidney stone...Morning Papers? ummm...yeah. Damn U was a perfect fit for R&B charts. Tony M contributions were heavy on this album...i wish there was away to edit him out like they did Rosie.

In the early 90s before You Tube, internet, I Tunes...you had radio and MTV... If those songs sucked...no one was running out to buy that album... was DOA...

[Edited 7/17/16 13:42pm]

sorry Kobes?? not following your comment...

TrivialPursuit said:

Empress said:

I LOVE the entire album. It's actually in my top 5!

It's at least in my top 10, easily. It really serves as the bookend (more than The Hits/The B-Sides) to an era. While it was well into the 90s, it still rounds out his run as Prince, before the symbol-angst-rock stuff set in, which was just as brilliant, but incredibly different, to me.

Yeah... just to join in...this is in my top 10 Prince albums of all time as well! I had this CD on repeat back in the day! i was actually quite unimpressed with D&P as a whole (with the exception of Gett Off and Insatiable)... from start to finish...an amazing piece of work that still holds up... i could do without the vanessa barthalamu (spelling?) intros, but hey...nothing's perfect.... also didn't hurt that i will 4ever link this album with the first time i saw him perform live...April 15, 1993 in L.A....wow did he blow my mind!!!!

muleFunk said:

IstenSzek said:

makes me wonder why people were no longer buying his records. did the music scene change
that much? i mean, his 93/94 music was great (personally i also like emancipation though) so
after the succes of "diamonds and pearls", the somewhat moderate succes of "love symbol",
a greatest hits release which also sold quite well, the public just all of a sudden stopped being
interested?

they did buy TMBGITW and that was sold as a song, so it's not like people didn't know
that this was prince, and they obviously liked the song a lot.

when you look at it from that perspective i guess the backlash from the falling out with WB,
and the whole name change must have put many fans off? but why? none of the mattered 1
single bit to me because his new music was GREAT.

or were people THAT aware of what was on each album when they bought it, did it matter so
much to them that TMBGITW wasn't on "Come"?

oh i don't know. it's all in the pas i guess. i just can't understand how such good music went
without at least selling 1 mil a pop back in the early to mid 90s.

I was living in Nashville,Tn at the time and was close to a lot of WB Nashville people.

Yes the "ERA" changed in 1991 which I think was the last great year in music period but Nirvana and Rap/Hip hop was in full swing and the older stars from the 1980's started losing ground.

Now Prince signed the contract to make him a VP of Warners and the richest rock star ever label but the catch was he was to sell 1.5 million or he had to pay Warners back. Another thing happened Prince was placed in the R&B division of WB which cut half his market. The songs weren't being marketed to the White/Pop radio market and that hurt his sales.

I heard this from music insiders who thought the "fix" was in on Prince. People think that he had all of this control but he really didn't.

How could LOVESYMBOL be marketed as only a rock album ? Moreover? 7 and MORNING PAPERS were heavily played on pop/ rock stations

At the time many rnb / hip hop album outsold rock albums.

LOVESYMBOL failed to reach 5 million WW because :

- SEXY MF was a hit (outside the US) but released 3 months before the album, killing the potential effect to sell the album at the same time

- Prince is hiding his face in the MY NAME IS PRINCE music video, commercial suicide

- Prince released too much singles in a short period of time since 1991.

- the tv movie wasn't released at the time of the promotion of the album.

rogifan said:

If you search for Prince in iTunes the album that shows up dead last in the search results is Love Symbol. D&P is second to last. Though both albums have a rating of 4.5/5 stars.

It's funny, after his death when I was keeping track of sales through iTUNES, billboard, and the world chart...

the majority of his 90's albums that were available were quite ignored.

more people bought phase 1 and phase 2 after his death than graffiti bridge, diamonds & pearls, love symbol, and come.

feeluupp said:

rogifan said:

feeluupp said:

It's funny, after his death when I was keeping track of sales through iTUNES, billboard, and the world chart...

the majority of his 90's albums that were available were quite ignored.

more people bought phase 1 and phase 2 after his death than graffiti bridge, diamonds & pearls, love symbol, and come.

Batman is pretty high up though.

The biggest sellers after his death were:

THE VERY BEST OF PRINCE

PURPLE RAIN

THE HITS/THE B-SIDES

ULTIMATE PRINCE

1999

TVBOFP sold 1 million copies alone in the U.S.

[Edited 7/19/16 12:37pm]

Love Blue Light

At that time, it was not as successful as the Diamond and Pearls era. IMO, people were so moved by the New Jack Swing sound that he just sounded like he was copying. His rock stuff on it like The Morning Papers and Continental were overlooked. However the album itself is alot more enjoyable than Diamonds and pears. It was a mostly true to form album, with the exception of his foray into rap once again. Tracks like Arrogance and The Flow could have been left for Gold Nigga or Exodus because they were silly and pandering. The rest of the album is pretty good though.

I thought Prince killed his own career commercially? Is nobody quoting that world-reknowned £100,000,000 contract where the clause was "you need to achieve gold sales on each album otherwise you do not receive 20% of this amount of money we have advertised to the press"?

I know I'm badly paraphrasing from memory - isn't that where the obsession with Gold came from after Diamonds and Pearls? You can certainly see where the gangster bragadoccia and m*ther f*cking came from.

"I'm in massive debt!"

But is the best Prince album.

Warners should have pushed for the lead single to be "Sexy IMF"

Which it turns out is what happened internationally anyway

[Edited 7/19/16 15:01pm]

[Edited 7/19/16 15:02pm]

AlgeriaTouchshreek said:

I thought Prince killed his own career commercially? Is nobody quoting that world-reknowned £100,000,000 contract where the clause was "you need to achieve gold sales on each album otherwise you do not receive 20% of this amount of money we have advertised to the press"?

I know I'm badly paraphrasing from memory - isn't that where the obsession with Gold came from after Diamonds and Pearls? You can certainly see where the gangster bragadoccia and m*ther f*cking came from.

"I'm in massive debt!"

But is the best Prince album.

Warners should have pushed for the lead single to be "Sexy IMF"

Which it turns out is what happened internationally anyway

[Edited 7/19/16 15:01pm]

[Edited 7/19/16 15:02pm]

Sexy MF was a horrible choice as a single in any form... it sounded stupid on with the edits on radio and seriously, do think any parent would go and buy or have they child play that in the house? as I said... the album is good for the loyal Prince fans...

IamBryan said:

AlgeriaTouchshreek said:

I thought Prince killed his own career commercially? Is nobody quoting that world-reknowned £100,000,000 contract where the clause was "you need to achieve gold sales on each album otherwise you do not receive 20% of this amount of money we have advertised to the press"?

I know I'm badly paraphrasing from memory - isn't that where the obsession with Gold came from after Diamonds and Pearls? You can certainly see where the gangster bragadoccia and m*ther f*cking came from.

"I'm in massive debt!"

But is the best Prince album.

Warners should have pushed for the lead single to be "Sexy IMF"

Which it turns out is what happened internationally anyway

[Edited 7/19/16 15:01pm]

[Edited 7/19/16 15:02pm]

Sexy MF was a horrible choice as a single in any form... it sounded stupid on with the edits on radio and seriously, do think any parent would go and buy or have they child play that in the house? as I said... the album is good for the loyal Prince fans...

Yeah but in 1992 it was fkn awesome to hear somebody swear on the radio and the embarrassing reverse guitar edits on the BBC. It's not like it was Jimmy Saville or Bill Cosby is it? Popular though the Cosby show was on Channel 4 at the time.

Everything now just sounds like a wasp in a coke can.

IamBryan said:

AlgeriaTouchshreek said:

I thought Prince killed his own career commercially? Is nobody quoting that world-reknowned £100,000,000 contract where the clause was "you need to achieve gold sales on each album otherwise you do not receive 20% of this amount of money we have advertised to the press"?

I know I'm badly paraphrasing from memory - isn't that where the obsession with Gold came from after Diamonds and Pearls? You can certainly see where the gangster bragadoccia and m*ther f*cking came from.

"I'm in massive debt!"

But is the best Prince album.

Warners should have pushed for the lead single to be "Sexy IMF"

Which it turns out is what happened internationally anyway

Sexy MF was a horrible choice as a single in any form... it sounded stupid on with the edits on radio and seriously, do think any parent would go and buy or have they child play that in the house? as I said... the album is good for the loyal Prince fans...

I was only twelve at the time, and I preferred (and still prefer) the edit and remix called "Sexy Mutha" offered on the "My Name Is Prince" single.

Prince looked CRAZY at that time (and so did Madonna, Erotica era).