BillieBalloon said:

Just an add on to Nina's post:

NinaB said:

BillieBalloon said:

Just an add on to Nina's post: [img:$uid]http://www.princevault.com/images/thumb/5/56/1998-08-28-LONDONBRIX.jpg/250px-1998-08-28-LONDONBRIX.jpg[/img:$uid]

What a lovely summers day/night that was!

BillieBalloon said:

Just an add on to Nina's post:

I have pondered the same Q as the OP so really appreciate your insights Thanks Dibblekins

Dibblekins said:

I think there are a number of plausible reasons:
.

1) Western Europe (particularly the UK) tends to be more secular than the USA; we're not especially right-wing / conservative / religious as a whole - and so our artistic preferences are possibly a bit more 'liberal' - in that sense, the pre-JW Prince could be embraced without too much of a raised eyebrow;
.

2) We're a very small country - with a very eclectic population - London in particular can be seen as a cultural melting pot, with people from all over the world widely represented. It was inevitable that Prince's 'chameleon-esque' self would appeal to various factions of the country;
.

3) The UK loves its freaks and weirdos (my ex-boyf is an American and he used to comment on how the Brits have this facade of a stiff-upper-lip but are actually the most freakish and naughty behind closed doors, lol). When the USA dismissed Prince (in the 90s) as being too bizarre with which to bother, a lot of people in the UK just accepted his behaviour as par for the course for someone of an artistic temperament!
.

4) Prince was just part of a continuing movement in the UK which comprised all manner of androgynous / gender-fluid / ethnically, and musically, diverse artistes;
.

5) Our tabloid newspapers - I do recall them LOVING to report on P's shenanigans with the name change, the symbol 'thing', his fight with WB - it was all juicy fodder to sell more papers. And the more papers he sold, the more fascinated a lot of people became - hence his retaining popularity here when it might have been dissipating elsewhere.
.

6) The Brits love an underdog - I think, in America, the culture is much more success-orientated (by all means, please do correct me if I'm wrong). In America, everyone loves a winner (and after his fall-out with WB and decision to basically shun the commercially successful formula used by the record industry, P 'stopped' being a winner and was seen as a nutcase / failure instead).

In the UK, our national tendency is to support the 'outsider', the sorry loser...Perversely, had Prince started being a 'big star' again, his popularity might have declined somewhat - because we (and our tabloids) love to disparage those we perceive as getting too big for their boots!
.

Just a few thoughts on the topic - I know they're a bit long-winded but it IS a fascinating subject (to me, anyway)!

.

[Edited 10/27/16 3:58am]

CherryMoon57 said:

Guitarhero said:

God don't remind me And thanks for bringing up those 5 number one albums

Are you guys trying to ruin my campaign lol? As far as I am concerned, I had already heard some less unheard Prince tracks before but it was actually a (stronger) Prince song heard on the radio - SOTT - that helped the balance tilt and made me become a true and more committed Prince fan. A few weeks later, I was buying all his albums...

This is exactly how it happened for me, though, in D&P era. I snagged D&P and by the end of the week I was ALL IN There began the hunt to collect whatever albums I could get my pre-teen hands on Not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing my mom wasn't monitoring what I was listening my 11 year old ears ...

ForeverPaisley said:

CherryMoon57 said:

Are you guys trying to ruin my campaign lol? As far as I am concerned, I had already heard some less unheard Prince tracks before but it was actually a (stronger) Prince song heard on the radio - SOTT - that helped the balance tilt and made me become a true and more committed Prince fan. A few weeks later, I was buying all his albums...

This is exactly how it happened for me, though, in D&P era. I snagged D&P and by the end of the week I was ALL IN There began the hunt to collect whatever albums I could get my pre-teen hands on Not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing my mom wasn't monitoring what I was listening my 11 year old ears ...

Raajput said:

I don't think this point has been covered: the state of UK music scene at the time of Prince's commercial UK peak. Around the time of Live Aid in 1985 a lot of the canon of UK music - Beatles, Rolling Stone, Led Zeppelin, Elton John was being firmly entrenched. It made it very difficult for a lot of new artists to come through and have that sort of impact when they were having to compete against the brilliance of what came before then. But also, there was a lot of manufactured pop happening that appealed to teens and youth music was increasingly drawn to the clubs and drug culture but that didn't lend itself to crossover appeal. Michael Jackson and Madonna were popular but didn't have the eccentricities (musically, at least) that British music fans came to expect. Prince, on the other hand, made interesting eccentric music that still had cross over appeal - and British people have always appreciated brilliant American musicians right from Louis Armstrong to Kurt Cobain and beyond. A similar thing happened with jazz in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s - British musicians couldn't compete so people were drawn to American music because their own fare was so tame in comparison.

Lovesexy was number 1 in Britain in 1988 (only made 11 in USA, I think) when he didn't really have the competition that one would expect from British music and TMBGITW hit number 1 in 1994. This state of British music being in the doldrums artistically and commercially didn't really end until the mid 90s when the Britpop of Oasis and Blur etc. really pushed American music to the margins again. After that Prince's commercial appeal in UK really declined. I don't think the name change/Warner dispute made much difference at the time, but if it did then it helped as British people are turned off by excessive wealth - due to the build em up and knock em down mentality. The fact that he wanted to be just about the music and not the money appealed greatly.

If British music had been of a higher quality during the mid 80s to mid 90s then Prince may well not have been as popular.

But I am not denigrating Prince's music from this period - it is just commercial issues over which he had no control.

A pertinenet anecdote - I was talking to a native New Yorker in NY recently about Prince, and he said, "The thing about Prince, is that he just wasn't cool." I was surprised and said that in the UK, 'cool' was a word that most defintiely would be used to describe him, certainly in the last decade.

Later that day, we met up with an English guy and the subject of Prince came up again. Immediately, the English guy said, "The thing about Prince is, he was just so cool".

An interesting dichotomy of opinions which I think may represent how the two countries viewed him.

I can't even begin to get inside the mindset of someone who thought Prince wasn't cool.

I had little interest in music of any kind until I heard 1999 on the radio in the early 80s, didnt matter to me if he was from the states, uk or timbuktoo. was hooked there and then ,nobody else has come even close to his talent to this day, so thankful got to see him several times in the uk at his so called "peak" in the mid to late 80s. Not everything he released during his career was fantastic, but the vast majority was. The best , end of.

BillieBalloon said:

bluegangsta said:

This.

I also think that 99.9% of Americans lack an intullectual apreciation of music.

I knew somebody was going to come out with this.

I would like to say that although people of all nations are this way - I think the problem lies more in the United States' issue over change than anything. The fact that the pop culture phenomena of Purple Rain was seared into peoples minds - and they loved it - and that is what they wanted. I see this type of issue all the time. We're getting over it now I think tho. Hopefully.

Dibblekins said:

I think there are a number of plausible reasons:
.

1) Western Europe (particularly the UK) tends to be more secular than the USA; we're not especially right-wing / conservative / religious as a whole - and so our artistic preferences are possibly a bit more 'liberal' - in that sense, the pre-JW Prince could be embraced without too much of a raised eyebrow;
.

2) We're a very small country - with a very eclectic population - London in particular can be seen as a cultural melting pot, with people from all over the world widely represented. It was inevitable that Prince's 'chameleon-esque' self would appeal to various factions of the country;
.

3) The UK loves its freaks and weirdos (my ex-boyf is an American and he used to comment on how the Brits have this facade of a stiff-upper-lip but are actually the most freakish and naughty behind closed doors, lol). When the USA dismissed Prince (in the 90s) as being too bizarre with which to bother, a lot of people in the UK just accepted his behaviour as par for the course for someone of an artistic temperament!
.

4) Prince was just part of a continuing movement in the UK which comprised all manner of androgynous / gender-fluid / ethnically, and musically, diverse artistes;
.

5) Our tabloid newspapers - I do recall them LOVING to report on P's shenanigans with the name change, the symbol 'thing', his fight with WB - it was all juicy fodder to sell more papers. And the more papers he sold, the more fascinated a lot of people became - hence his retaining popularity here when it might have been dissipating elsewhere.
.

6) The Brits love an underdog - I think, in America, the culture is much more success-orientated (by all means, please do correct me if I'm wrong). In America, everyone loves a winner (and after his fall-out with WB and decision to basically shun the commercially successful formula used by the record industry, P 'stopped' being a winner and was seen as a nutcase / failure instead).

In the UK, our national tendency is to support the 'outsider', the sorry loser...Perversely, had Prince started being a 'big star' again, his popularity might have declined somewhat - because we (and our tabloids) love to disparage those we perceive as getting too big for their boots!
.

Just a few thoughts on the topic - I know they're a bit long-winded but it IS a fascinating subject (to me, anyway)!

.

[Edited 10/27/16 3:58am]

I'm so happy that while Prince was being judged by America and sort of written off, he stayed busy doing shows and making millions in those European countries where he was admired, loved, and adored. Had he done things the WB way, he would've ended up like Ike Turner and Little Richard-broke, busted, and disgusted. I respect him so much for standing up for what was rightfully his own.

Some great points made here already. I also think public is exposed through the history of the region to men in frilly clothes, thus not attacking the general public's view of what is masculine. Making it easier to embrace Prince's style.

Dibblekins said:

CherryMoon57 said:

Interesting points Dibbleskin, ultimately, I think Prince didn't really care whether he was a winner or not, he seemed focused on spending time on stage and delivering good live music to the fans, and enjoyed playing for them, which he did extensively in the UK, and the UK public was very grateful for it. Also it is possible that one of his first experiences of a big audience might have left a bad taste in his mouth (I'm thinking with the Rolling Stones in 1981) and perhaps made him apprehensive, if only a little, about US audiences for the rest of his career. He did say in a very early interview in Holland that everything felt different in Europe, and that he was more at ease there... Interview on here

.

I agree with you in many ways - I think he cared more about owning his material, having integrity, and being successful on his own terms than towing the party (record company) line and being more 'popular' (a commercial 'winner') as a result.
.

However, I think he cared very much about winning his personal battle for freedom / ownership of his masters. So, in that sense - he was determined, ferocious, and unbending in his desire to 'win' - it's just that he chose a different battle to many other musicians - and I guess not everybody appreciated that, preferring to think of him as a weirdo, a nutcase, a loser, a has-been instead.
.

I also think that the UK tends to have a fondness for weirdos, nutcases, losers, and has-beens! There have been so many that we've supported and celebrated over the years, if you think about it (in sports as much as anything else)!
.

Edit: I've never been called DibbleSKIN before, lmao!!! That's a new one - I rather like it!!

[Edited 10/27/16 5:15am]

Imagine being Prince in his youth and having to sit in meetings with cigar smoking wizards who weren't musically inclined but their job was to sign, market, and sell his works while generating millions of dollars to line their own pockets. Imagine the feeling Prince got upon realizing signing a contract meant that he was to make those wizards rich from his work and creativity, and imagine the hurt he felt upon being told the company would trademark and then take permanent ownership of his born name Prince. If that's not slavery, then what is?

Dibblekins said:

CherryMoon57 said:

Interesting points Dibbleskin, ultimately, I think Prince didn't really care whether he was a winner or not, he seemed focused on spending time on stage and delivering good live music to the fans, and enjoyed playing for them, which he did extensively in the UK, and the UK public was very grateful for it. Also it is possible that one of his first experiences of a big audience might have left a bad taste in his mouth (I'm thinking with the Rolling Stones in 1981) and perhaps made him apprehensive, if only a little, about US audiences for the rest of his career. He did say in a very early interview in Holland that everything felt different in Europe, and that he was more at ease there... Interview on here

.

I agree with you in many ways - I think he cared more about owning his material, having integrity, and being successful on his own terms than towing the party (record company) line and being more 'popular' (a commercial 'winner') as a result.
.

However, I think he cared very much about winning his personal battle for freedom / ownership of his masters. So, in that sense - he was determined, ferocious, and unbending in his desire to 'win' - it's just that he chose a different battle to many other musicians - and I guess not everybody appreciated that, preferring to think of him as a weirdo, a nutcase, a loser, a has-been instead.
.

I also think that the UK tends to have a fondness for weirdos, nutcases, losers, and has-beens! There have been so many that we've supported and celebrated over the years, if you think about it (in sports as much as anything else)!
.

Edit: I've never been called DibbleSKIN before, lmao!!! That's a new one - I rather like it!!

[Edited 10/27/16 5:15am]

Imagine being Prince in his youth and having to sit in meetings with cigar smoking wizards who weren't musically inclined but their job was to sign, market, and sell his works while generating millions of dollars to line their own pockets. Imagine the feeling Prince got upon realizing signing a contract meant that he was to make those wizards rich from his work and creativity, and imagine the hurt he felt upon being told the company would trademark and then take permanent ownership of his born name Prince. If that's not slavery, then what is?

jjam said: