1. If Eye Was the Man in Ur Life

Great video with a lot of cameos would've done it. It's a head bobber. Imagine a video full of celebrity cameos, mouthing some of the words and bobbing their heads.: Usher, Adam Levine, Jamie Foxx, MJB, and Christina A. They're in a crowded club with the camera moving at head height through the crowd. Song has a bit of a Prince late 80s sound, which could work with a nostalgia factor.

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2. Love

Strong chorus, interesting sound

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3. The One U Wanna C

Just a fun tune. Bootleg video with the teenagers messing around in their house was cool (see my comment in prior post).

bonatoc said:

"Love"

"Days of Wild"

"Crucial"

"Good Love"

"Underneath The Cream"

"$"

"Future Soul Song"

"Xtraloveable"

"Until Ure in My Arms Again"

"Man O' War"

"The Gold Standard"

"U Know"

"Black Muse"

"One U Wanna See"

.......Too many to name really, probably about half a dozen tracks off "Emancipation", surprised that "Somebody's Somebody" didn't become a bigger hit too, as i think it's a brilliant R&B song, love "The Holy River" as well, almost sounds like a lost Bee Gees song. There's songs off every album that could've been big hits imo. That's what i kind of like about his later day work, it's all so undiscovered, he almost turned into more of an indie artist.

[Edited 11/22/18 0:03am]

I agree! This song was classic Prince......catchy,"nasty" and fun

Dazza said:

319 - should have been a single

RODSERLING said:

bonatoc said:

Concernant THE CROSS, I m proud to teach you thé existence of édit singles.
You Can magically make One minute cut in 20 seconds.
One example IS thé radio édit of IIWYG. .
And thé One minute low tempo accapella Didn t prevent I will Always Love You by Whitney to bé #1 all over thé World. [Edited 11/21/18 21:34pm]

Nice try, Dumbledore, but I worked for a major wrecka company, I know what I'm talking about.
You can go back to Wonderland now, Alice. Great songs don't have to become singles to be great.
And no one would have cared for The Cross in 1987 sandwiched in between this and this.
The catholic-roman concept was entirely stolen by U2 that year. Besides you're out of topic. The eighties ain't what it's about.
As for Whitney, the first minute is compressed to the bone.
And she's not doing whiny Dylan over a sad acoustic riff.
She's doing operatic Parton. Instant ear-catcher.

PS : Could you please set your keyboard language properly?

RODSERLING said:

if some of those songs were released in the 80's they wouldve been hits

Prince wasn't doing bad dance music or Indie Rock in the 90's so his best chance of a hit would have been a ballad (as he had the TMBGITW).

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So, The Love We Make could have worked or Silly Game... or Dark (There was a remix, so it was thought about!) ???.. although, even The Greatest Romance didn't work for him! So who knows!!!

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[Edited 11/27/18 6:24am]

[Edited 11/27/18 6:26am]

I had wished for Beginning Endlessly to be a single back in 20ten days, idk why something special about that tune.

he wanted songs rleeased as singles for their message ,not neccessarily for their chart expectation

StrangeButTrue said:

thebiscuit said:

controversy99 said:

AlexNevermind28 said:

There were several over the years that would have hit the mark, in particular…

2 songs from 3121:

* Incense and Candles - Very radio-friendly. Some stations were playing it on their own at the time. Would have been a big hit. A slam dunk if released!

* Love - Large, grandiose pop feel. Always thought it would have worked well as the follow-up single.

The varying choices and opinions on this thread seem to demonstrate that this is all very subjective and mainly based on what each of our ears would project as a potential radio "hit" during the 90's....20 yrs later.

*

Admittedly, I am an "80's" Prince girl, and had stepped away from his music for most of the 90's. 20-somethings (myself included) were into Indie rock/progressive rock,Techno, and/or Rap/Hiphop styles. Prince was still releasing more ballad/funk style songs - at least on Emancipation. The masses he had attracted during the 80's had drifted away, and most did not understand his issues with WB.

*

That being said, I have become a huge fan of many of his songs from the 90's, however, I don't know that they would have been radio or chart topping hits - probably some would have charted. I disagree with all of the OP's choices, especially FLSMW, which to me is just a syrupy and uninspired ballad that lacked his artistic and creative lyrics found in songs like Condition of the Heart or Empty Room.

*

Here are my favorites from that time whether they would have been hits or not:

*

3 Chains O' Gold (love the lyrics - guess we'll never know what those chains represent)

319

I Hate U - Remix

Dinner w/ Delores

Zannalee

Had U

Right Back Here In My Arms

Soul Sanctuary

The Love We Make

5 Women

Strange But True

Don't Play Me

Tangerine

One Of Your Tears

*

I'm attracted to his creative lyrical content along with the instrumental - I like the combination of both - 319 being the exception, because it is just a rocking song - creative lyric or not.

I think Prince could've had as many hits as he wanted.

I don't think he cared about the charts. If he did, he would get behind the promotion of it. If he cared about the charts, he'd remake "Purple Rain" every few years.

I think once he was free of WB, it was just "I'll release it, my fans will buy it, anyone else can buy it or not." Then he'd do the promotion that *he* was comfortable with.

I think during the WB years, there were people "gently pushing" him for a hit, or at least a single, then back that up with its promotion machine.

Of course, this is just my opinion, judging from his output, etc. over the last 3 decades.

Chas said:

Chas said:

I think Prince could've had as many hits as he wanted.

I don't think he cared about the charts. If he did, he would get behind the promotion of it. If he cared about the charts, he'd remake "Purple Rain" every few years.

I think once he was free of WB, it was just "I'll release it, my fans will buy it, anyone else can buy it or not." Then he'd do the promotion that *he* was comfortable with.

I think during the WB years, there were people "gently pushing" him for a hit, or at least a single, then back that up with its promotion machine.

Of course, this is just my opinion, judging from his output, etc. over the last 3 decades.

I agree with this but, IMO, he never really handled that right.

He had a really strong, loyal and dedicated fanbase that would have bought just about anything he made avaliable had he chosen to try it. Problem was, usually what he made available were remixes, old songs and videos; along with snippets and very frustrating/not user friendly website interfaces. The NPG Music Club and the audio shows were a step in the right direction but a true, dedicated download based fan site that included concerts, aftershows, outtakes, vault songs and ala carte song selections - if handled properly - I think would have worked out best for both himself and his fans. A "build your own CD" from selected vault tracks a la Crystal Ball would have worked I think.

I know it would have worked for me and he could have cut the legs out from under the bootleggers and maintained control in one fell swoop but he never seemed to see it.

He was so obsessed with material being shared and traded (or stolen for that matter), along with curse words on older tracks and shit like that, that he never really quite got it right in a way that could have benefited everyone as a win/win.

violetcrush said:

Chas said:

I think Prince could've had as many hits as he wanted.

I don't think he cared about the charts. If he did, he would get behind the promotion of it. If he cared about the charts, he'd remake "Purple Rain" every few years.

I think once he was free of WB, it was just "I'll release it, my fans will buy it, anyone else can buy it or not." Then he'd do the promotion that *he* was comfortable with.

I think during the WB years, there were people "gently pushing" him for a hit, or at least a single, then back that up with its promotion machine.

Of course, this is just my opinion, judging from his output, etc. over the last 3 decades.

I tend to disagree. I think Prince really did care about his songs being "hits", however,publicly he always denied that. Of course, the artistic expression came first, but sales pay the bills and keep an artist relevant. I think he thought he could handle the marketing/promotion side in the 90's, but he couldn't - especially with the name change happening at the same time. Then by the late 90's and early 2000's he was heavily promoting the releases and also went back to a label for the marketing. He heavily promoted the Rave album by doing many TV and print interviews.

The truth is, neither answer is right or wrong... It's a complete paradox when it comes to Prince and commercial success... Did he care about hits or being commerciall, yes and no.

He obtained commercial success with 1999, that was his first REAL commercial success... It sold over 6 million copies worldwide, based on the new chart numbers it has hit 7 million world wide now. Purple Rain was a global smash, selling over 21 million copies, yet what was his instructions on his next album ATWIAD? No singles, no promotion... Clearly he wasn't aiming at commercial success on that album was he?

Some of his most brilliant albums were never commercial smashes when they could've been, his promotion was always the problem, when you look at an album like SOTT, it was probably the most brilliant release of 1987, yet look at all the other "average" albums released that year, in example, Michael Jackson's BAD, great album but nowhere near the musical caliber of SOTT, George Michael, etc... Even TTD album sold more, they all sold over 10 million, where SOTT barely went Platinum in USA, selling a very modest 4 million world wide...

When Prince wanted to be commercial he could, I mean look at all those songs he never released as singles, they would all be #1's, The Dance Electric, Erotic City, 17 Days, She's Always In My Hair, etc...

There are clearly times and certain eras with albums he strived to be commercial more than others, and it paid off. The Diamonds & Pearls era is the best example... I remember people here would argue about how he would promote other albums in example Love Symbol just as much as D&P... No no and no. It's not how much you promote it's how you promote, it's about strategy and relevance... He was doing all these video specials for the Love Symbol album, but it had no mainstream impact as the stuff he was doing for the D&P promo, it was all strategized by MJ's manager Frank Dileo. In the end it paid off, Diamonds & Pearls is his second biggest selling album ever. His second biggest selling Prince album in the whole Prince discography. Yes it sold more and Parade, Sign O' The Times, Lovesexy, Dirty Mind, etc... Why because he promoted the way all his other peers that obtain those large numbers do. Stratgical relevant mainstream promotion. Not his paisley park video specials that have no mainstream relevance.

Albums like Emancipation and Rave he really tried a mainstream promotion campagin but it didn't pay off, he simply was not "hip" with the times with that generation, instead of chasing mainstream, he got lost in the shuffle... Emancipation sold just over 700,000 copies in the U.S. but was certified double platinum as being a 3 disk set. Rave as we have a thread on it, flopped commercially, selling terrible world wide, and just selling a little over 500,000 copies in the U.S. going GOLD...

When you talk about commercial albums of Prince his commercial streak was simple, from 1982-1993 he was commercial, he was mainstream. Every album from that period sold over a million copies world wide, Lovesexy over 2 million, Batman over 4 million, both Parade and SOTT over 4 million, D&P over 6 million, Graffiti Bride over 2 million, Love Symbol over 2 million, The Hits 1,2/ The B-Sides over a million... Then it stopped when Come was released and everything after that, it never hit over a million...

His last commercial album was Musicology which sold over 2.7 million (yes over a million due to included concert cd sales)...

Also The Very Best Of Prince was a very commercial album selling almost over 3 million copies in the U.S. alone, and that with Purple Rain is his biggest selling albums currently, Purple Rain and The Very Best of Prince.

^^^Genuinely surprised to learn that D&P outsold Batman.^^^

Interesting points you raise about "the way" that it was promoted compared to other releases. I never really thought about it. Then again, I don't recall that he did all that much differently with D&P compared to Love Symbol. I suppose you could argue for the MTV awards appearance but that almost seemed to hurt as much as it helped with the assless pants stunt overshadowing everything else and he did MTV a couple of other times as well.

I think the D&P release had smarter, more mainstream, catchy and user friendly single choices. Starting with the raw and head turning "Gett Off" club banger and then followed by the "safe" and pop minded "Cream" and the contemporary R&B sound of the title track. Who knows why D&P found a wider audience than other much better albums but my instincts tell me it was mainly the choice of singles over anything else and that nothing on the album was what you'd call "challenging" by his standards.

Shit, "Batman" didn't NEED any promotion. The logo alone sold 2 million copies but, again, the selection of singles was odd after "Batdance", which was a no-brainer. Similarly, SoTT had fairly unusual selections for single releases. The title track was ahead of its time - sparse, other worldly, different sounding, stripped down, raw - and in a different time set could have sparked ears the way "When Doves Cry" managed to do with a similar bent. But it didn't and from there we got weirdly timed and oddly selected songs moving forward. He promoted that one too with a movie, several videos and another MTV Music Awards appearance but I think the material overall was too clever by far to sit comformtably in the top 40.

Lovesexy never had a chance and arguably doesn't even HAVE a single on it, as the "one track" sequencing of the CD suggests and backs up. The deeply personal and (for the time) overtly homoerotic undertones of the thing just didn't scream "mainstream success" at all. I don't even remember him even TRYING to promote Grafitti Bridge, the film or or the album

He promoted "Love Symbol" well enough, or tried, but "My Name is Prince", even though I like it, is not the kind of song that spends 3 weeks at #1 or finds a mass audience. Even fans are mixed on it. "The Morning Papers" is too safe, fairly bland and doesn't catch your ear, let alone stick in your head. "Seven" was a wise choice but "And God Created Woman" might have been his "Most Beautiful Girl in the World" before the fact had he released that one.

Somewhere after Rave and the NPGMC, I don't think he gave a shit at all about selling CD's since he saw the handwriting on the wall and knew the money was in direct distribution and thru performing live. I'd be interested to learn if he PERSONALLY made more money off of, say, Musicology or even Crystal Ball overall than he did from PR or Batman. There's no question though that from Musicology on he knew well enough that there was no real revenue to be made from selling albums or hitting the charts and he adjusted his approach accordingly (O2 Arena, Vegas residency, Musicology, Super Bowl, R&R Hall of Fame, American Idol) where every promotion was designed to fill seats in arenas.

Too bad he largely mucked up what could have been a really strong revenue source by not entirely understanding what he could have truly done with a more synergistic and forward thinking approach towards the internet, his cult following, his vault and his live material. There was a huge, untapped vein of demand sitting there for him that he never really cultivated.

herb4 said:

^^^Genuinely surprised to learn that D&P outsold Batman.^^^

Interesting points you raise about "the way" that it was promoted compared to other releases. I never really thought about it. Then again, I don't recall that he did all that much differently with D&P compared to Love Symbol. I suppose you could argue for the MTV awards appearance but that almost seemed to hurt as much as it helped with the assless pants stunt overshadowing everything else and he did MTV a couple of other times as well.

I think the D&P release had smarter, more mainstream, catchy and user friendly single choices. Starting with the raw and head turning "Gett Off" club banger and then followed by the "safe" and pop minded "Cream" and the contemporary R&B sound of the title track. Who knows why D&P found a wider audience than other much better albums but my instincts tell me it was mainly the choice of singles over anything else and that nothing on the album was what you'd call "challenging" by his standards.

Shit, "Batman" didn't NEED any promotion. The logo alone sold 2 million copies but, again, the selection of singles was odd after "Batdance", which was a no-brainer. Similarly, SoTT had fairly unusual selections for single releases. The title track was ahead of its time - sparse, other worldly, different sounding, stripped down, raw - and in a different time set could have sparked ears the way "When Doves Cry" managed to do with a similar bent. But it didn't and from there we got weirdly timed and oddly selected songs moving forward. He promoted that one too with a movie, several videos and another MTV Music Awards appearance but I think the material overall was too clever by far to sit comformtably in the top 40.

Lovesexy never had a chance and arguably doesn't even HAVE a single on it, as the "one track" sequencing of the CD suggests and backs up. The deeply personal and (for the time) overtly homoerotic undertones of the thing just didn't scream "mainstream success" at all. I don't even remember him even TRYING to promote Grafitti Bridge, the film or or the album

He promoted "Love Symbol" well enough, or tried, but "My Name is Prince", even though I like it, is not the kind of song that spends 3 weeks at #1 or finds a mass audience. Even fans are mixed on it. "The Morning Papers" is too safe, fairly bland and doesn't catch your ear, let alone stick in your head. "Seven" was a wise choice but "And God Created Woman" might have been his "Most Beautiful Girl in the World" before the fact had he released that one.

Somewhere after Rave and the NPGMC, I don't think he gave a shit at all about selling CD's since he saw the handwriting on the wall and knew the money was in direct distribution and thru performing live. I'd be interested to learn if he PERSONALLY made more money off of, say, Musicology or even Crystal Ball overall than he did from PR or Batman. There's no question though that from Musicology on he knew well enough that there was no real revenue to be made from selling albums or hitting the charts and he adjusted his approach accordingly (O2 Arena, Vegas residency, Musicology, Super Bowl, R&R Hall of Fame, American Idol) where every promotion was designed to fill seats in arenas.

Too bad he largely mucked up what could have been a really strong revenue source by not entirely understanding what he could have truly done with a more synergistic and forward thinking approach towards the internet, his cult following, his vault and his live material. There was a huge, untapped vein of demand sitting there for him that he never really cultivated.

He fired Frank Dileo within the first week of trying to promote Love Symbol, as Prince argued that My Name Is Prince should be the lead single but Frank wanted 7... Love Symbol was promoted, but it was all over the pace, it was not consitant, and it failed to follow up to commercial expectations as D&P did. D&P was calculated, don't forget the superbowl promo for D&P that was all Frank Dileo...

I guess you're right. Like I said, I hadn't really thought about it much.

However, I still think most people would agree that, regardlessof the approach , Love Symbol and its material was WAY HARDER to promote than D&P was. Starting with an unprounanceable title and continuing with the actual songs. D&P is far more "safe" and radio friendly for the most part .

Also to add, he was in emense pressure under the record company to fufill the obiligation of his infmaous "100 million dollar" deal, that each of his records had to sell at least 5 million copies... So he did indeed promote the Love Symbol album, but he didn't promote it in the strategical aspect that Frank Dileo planned for D&P... He promoted it the "Prince" way, a lot of video specials that really had little impact... The only mainstream promotion were those epic performances on Aresnio Hall, but other than that with grundge, gangster rap and house music starting to take over in mid 1992... Love Symbol quickly fell off the charts, and barely sold 2 million...

I think the main issue with Prince wasn't the fact that he wanted to commercial, cause he could IF he wanted to, it was simply his promotion.

When you look at his 4 biggest selling albums, PURPLE RAIN, DIAMONDS & PEARLS, 1999 & BATMAN... You can say ok Purple Rain had the film to promote the album, hence why it sold over 21 million copies, 1999 6 million copies sold was largely due to the Purple Rain hype, as Controversy and 1999 were the two albums that started shooting up the charts in USA after the Purple Rain movie was released... BATMAN was it's own promo on its own due to the movie, and for DIAMONDS & PEARLS, it was due to the calculated promotion by Frank Dileo... D&P a good album for the time, but was far from groundbreaking, especially when you compare other albums like Nirvana and the albums that were released at that time... Even Prince was a forfront in the birth of new jack swing, yet the Dangerous album by MJ sounded light years ahead of the D&P album during it's release...

I'd say the main "promotion" for 1999 was almost entirely MTV.

That's how I and everyone else I knew learned about it anyway. Granted, I grew up in a mostly white and "mainstream" radio oriented environment so the popular R&B stuff like "Controversy" or "I Wanna Be Your Lover" and the somewhat punk esthetic of "Dirty Mind" largely escaped my limited cultural sphere but of shit they'd have never run across otherwise. Most kids/teens listened entirely to the radio and it was VERY sharply divided and categorized along stylistic and especially racial lines.

Still is actually but not as much since most people don't get their music from the radio anymore but back then stations and their listeners were rigidly slotted, almost entirely along "Black", "White" and the catch all "Top 40" audiences. "Top 40" was still predominantly "white" but did have SOME some cross over elements like MJ, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross and shit like that). There were outliers; kids who were turning on to punk, deeply into prog rock like Rush, Yes and Floyd or some of the harder metal like Judas Priest, Ozzy/Sabbath or AC/DC along with the very early audience for hip hop and rap that punk ultimately became. But before MTV, me and most of white friends knew jack shit about Prince, Rick James, Run-DMC or even really Lionel Richie and certainly Herbie Hancock ("Rockit").

New Wave, which Prince was also representing at least in part, was almost entirely born from MTV and, frankly, I seriously doubt that Prince would have reached the heights he did without that cable channel. "Little Red Corvette" and "1999" were the real sparks and the things caught my attention; the butter and the bacon grease in the skillet that generated the heat for the perfectly timed cuts of meat that "When Doves Cry" as a single and the absolute MONSTER of an album - not even an album - the PHENOMENON of Purple Rain ultimately sizzled into.

"1999" was the appetizer and, outside of MTV, I can't think of any real "promotion" Prince did for it all besides arguably the tour. He was still giving evasive interviews and spreading untruths about himself to build and cement a mystique so it was almost the exact opposite of "promotion", at least as I remember it. I'd bet that for most people my age (51) "LRC" and "1999" were the first Prince songs we ever heard and the first time we'd ever seen him or even heard his name.

Finding out anything anything else about him besides seeking out the previous albums was next to impossible.

Thank God you were never in charge of picking out the singles for Prince

Insatiable one of his worst songs... This is coming from the one who wanted Prince to start off the Superbowl performance with a 3121 chant... Really?? That's probably one of his TOP 10 BEST Ballads ever...

But hey everyone has their own opinions.

RODSERLING said:

7 millions for D&P is really poor when you consider all the promotion and hit singles that were put into it, it should have sold 15 millions. The reasons why the album was tough to sell : . 1) Releasing the 1st single, Get Off, 3 or 4 months between the actual release of the album was beyond stupid and commercial suicide. That s for 3 months of lost sales for the album, let s say 1.5 millions copies! . 2) The 2nd single Cream, was a huge success, but it attracted people who love Pop/rock format. Most People who love this format never gave a shit about hip hop/ rnb such as Get Off. Cream should have triggered 5 millions albums sold on his own, just like Nothing Compares 2 U triggered 7 millions album on his own. . 3) Why it didn't? Because there was too many singles with complete opposite format ( rnb/ hip hop Vs Pop/rock format) and I learned and understood that most people wants to buy an album of one musical style, they hate when it s eclectic. . Even here, most of the fans hated, and still hate, that musical change of Prince with more oriented rnb hits. So while there were 4 huge hits on D&P, it didn't t really benefited to the album sales, like it should have. . Because people who loved Cream, hated Get Off, and people who loved Get Off hated the soul turn on the eponym track or on Money don t matter, the jazzy style of Strolling... . Prince is too eclectic, that's why I love him, that s why the general audience had tough times to connect with him and his music. . To succeed, there should have been just Cream, and just another catchy Pop song such as Walk Don t Walk. And that s all. . Or just hip hop songs such as Get Off and Daddy Pop. . Not both styles! . 4) The horrid Insatiable ( one of my 10 all time worst Prince song list) was promoted concurrently on rnb radios. It probably killed the interest for people who loves this formatto buy the album, hence it wasn't 't #1. . Very bad choice of single. Walk, Don t walk, Daddy Pop or Live 4 Love were far better choices . 5) Lovesymbol was released too close to D&P, thAt was a bad marketing decision, as usual, and it cannibalized the sales of both albums. . 6) They repeated the same exact mistake with Sexy MF than with Get Off : 3 months of sales lost ! . 7) MNIP was a coherent 2nd single choice, but it should have been the lead single. It was a worldwide top 10, except in the US. Not because it was too bad to be a hit, but because Prince wasn't showing up his face neither in the ludicrous video, not in TV performances, which was, again, commercial suicide. . 8) 7 wasn't the best choice for a lead single. Not only it flopped outside the US, but even in the US, it didn't t help the album in the charts ! Because people people who loved Sexy MF and MNIP didn't give a shot about 7, which was a flop on rnb stations, peaking only at #61 (!). . And people who loved 7 bought only the single, not the album, because they didn't give a shit about hip hop songs. . Try to imagine Bryan Adams or Nirvana in 1991 having one or two hip hop hit among their usual "white" stuff : their album sales would have suffered from it, that's for sure! . [Edited 12/16/18 2:53am]