McD said:

He made loads of commercial missteps, but the one I’m really sure about THIS WEEK was putting the non Prince material on Graffiti Bridge. I’ve only just taken the other tracks out on my iPod and, wow, suddenly we have a classic Prince album. As good as Lovesexy. Even the weakest track - Tick Tick Bang - bests all the non-Prince stuff. It just makes me glad he didn’t make the same mistake oh Purple Rain. I know that was the plan for a while.

the 40 minutes of Prince tracks r just as good as his 80's....some were written then

Music: 1992-1999 some of the choice of music Prince; my opinion was not that great. Marriage: 1996 Mayte Garcia was most not the right the right fit.

McD said:

He made loads of commercial missteps, but the one I’m really sure about THIS WEEK was putting the non Prince material on Graffiti Bridge. I’ve only just taken the other tracks out on my iPod and, wow, suddenly we have a classic Prince album. As good as Lovesexy. Even the weakest track - Tick Tick Bang - bests all the non-Prince stuff. It just makes me glad he didn’t make the same mistake oh Purple Rain. I know that was the plan for a while.

RnB teen idol/superstar Tevin Campbell had a hit single on both the pop & rnb charts with his first single 'Round & Round' that was included on the 'Graffiti Bridge'soundtrack. It was one of the BEST tracks on there.

I love the non prince vocal tracks on there, round & round is a good song for sure, the weakest imo is Shake. I wonder how many people wouldn't like these songs if Prince were on vocals.

leadline said:

Vannormal said:

What do you all think were mistakes/wrong choices that Prince made in his carreer, be it musically or otherwise.

And what effect it might have had on his music, career, life ?

-

I think self-directing both 'Under The Cherry Moon' and 'Grafitti Bridge' to wstart with.

(Maybe better results...)

Not participating with We Are The World band on the song.

(just a stupid mistake really imho... he should've done it)

Not touring Sign 'O' The Times Tour in the USA.

(would've don the album sales a bigger help...)

The choice of JW.

(nearly a decade of his career was conteminated by it...)

-

What do you think ?

-

Self directing UTCM and Grafitti Bridge was the ONLY way to go on this. If you are talking from a commercial appeal, perhaps so, but from a creative aspect, self directing was smart. Produced arranged composed and performed by Prince.......we have come to love that line right? It means everything we are hearing came from the man himself, why should that appeal not translate to film, regardless of commercial success? For me, I would rather watch something that came 100% from Prince, without anyone tainting his creative process, than to have something commercially successful where his artistic vision is comrpomised, edited or truncated in some way.

He wrote a song for we are the world instead, a much more personal and heartfelt way of participating than showing up to sing.

SOTT tour, yeah I agree, but I don't think it had an impact on his career.

Who are we to judge what someone should choose as their religion, or how they should love God? Contaminated is a VERY strong and intolerant word to use. While it would be interesting to see what all those years would have looked like if he never met Larry, if one truly loves Prince, then that choice would have to be respected I think.

-

Self directing is a smart move... only,

making films is not like recording music. Ask anyone in either businesses.

But I follow you in the fact that doing everything yourself is... creative. Smart ? It depends.

If you create something, you do it because you can, and to have some sort of impact, result, recognition, succes, etc...

''Produced arranged composed and performed by Prince" also counts for the lesser compositions he did. ANd of course, you need ot have lesser quality to see the greatnes next to it.

He made loads of (short) movies and videos all by himself, which he kept for himself (in the vault), as we all know.

Somehow he made choices of what to share with the world etc. Not everyone has to agree on everything Prince has done. Same goes for his choice of religion. I absolutly don't agree on that level of his artistic choices, and that is for sure my humble opinion.

He did what he wanted, he was free to do so. But I'm free to not go with that.

You don't have to respect all choices made by him to love him.

-

But I have to agree that I Like UTCM. It was a movie with GREAT music and GREAT funny moments. But the script, the plot, honestly the gigolo idea, It just wasn't very convincing to me.

And another thing, If one wants to believe, I don't care really, as long as it discreet and private, just the way he understood during the last years of his life.

-

As much as I hated rap in most of Prince's music. There were some brilliant moments:

"The Latest Fashion." Prince raps about coming harder than a heart attack. Such a wonderous rhyme, made me stop in my tracks, such amazing flow, and I ignored lesser tracks like "The Question Of U," "Joy In Repetition," just to get to the rapping.

_____________________________________________________________________________

"Jughead" Tony M shouts and yells that make LL Cool J seem like the Beastie Boys whining. And the famous Mr Money Minder speech which had to be one of the most intellectual moments in hip hop history where Tony sounds so exquisite, that it makes a Harvard Lecture I attended once pale in comparison. (Sure, Tony was not really rapping this part, but it sounded so great, I still maintain this is hip hop's greatest moment in history.)

_____________________________________________________________________________

"My Name Is Prince" Tony M becomes the first master rapper to actually rap about Manure. Sure other rappers have said the good ol S word, but never Manure. This proved Prince made the right move when hiring Tony.

_____________________________________________________________________________

"Da Da Da" Scrappy Doo, or whatever his name was becomes the first rapper ever to make a reference to smoking Weed. Yes 1996 had to be at least 30 years before anyone else thought to approach the subject. Amazing, introspective, and instead of following a shallow minded trend, Prince and Scrappy Doo created a trend rapping about weed. Nobody else could have come up with such a tremendous idea.

_____________________________________________________________________________

"Return Of The Bump Squad" Here, it is probably Sonny T, pretending to smoke weed while rapping or perhaps just speaking Bible verses. Nothing in the history of music has eveer been so poignant, or should I just say Godly, as reading Bible Verses while pretending to be high. I'm sure God blessed Prince and Sonny for such a God like action.

_____________________________________________________________________________

And on a more serious note, "P Control" was actually pretty good for the most part, but some of the music sounded like circus music and sounds pretty dated now. Not quite as circus as that little part in "New Power Generation," but close.

_____________________________________________________________________________

"Days Of Wild" remains my favorite of his rap songs. Of course he's making fun of the same Weed that is being praised on "Bump Squad."

[Edited 5/3/19 8:49am]

[Edited 5/3/19 8:57am]

[Edited 5/3/19 8:58am]

poppys said:

EmmaMcG said:

...."raising" twisted fans...?

unlike many "artists", Prince always did what he wanted to and not be a sheep to the rest of the industry.

too many artists these days sound just like another one.

there isn't much about Prince and his direction that makes me think "he shouldn't have done that", because like Bowie, Prince evolved and moved mainly before the times lol.

I think his websites largely failed to reach their potential, in some part due to his adversarial relationship with his fans and his portective nature when it came to his music.

An ala carte download approach that allowed his fans to purchase live shows in particular, direct from the soundboard, and various vault tracks might have cut the legs out from under the bootleggers and created a more shared experience with the fans - similar to what the Grateful Dead and other act have done.

I know he dabbled in what I'm talking about but never really brought it to fruition and things like the war on Youtube were misguided I believe.

jfenster said:

McD said:

He made loads of commercial missteps, but the one I’m really sure about THIS WEEK was putting the non Prince material on Graffiti Bridge. I’ve only just taken the other tracks out on my iPod and, wow, suddenly we have a classic Prince album. As good as Lovesexy. Even the weakest track - Tick Tick Bang - bests all the non-Prince stuff. It just makes me glad he didn’t make the same mistake oh Purple Rain. I know that was the plan for a while.

the 40 minutes of Prince tracks r just as good as his 80's....some were written then

I understand where you are going with this, but can't agree. When I rank albums, I think I tend to give the strongest songs points, and take points away for the weak tracks. The song "Graffiti Bridge" takes away a bunch of points. To me, Positivity is the weak sister on Lovesexy, but still a pretty decent song. Not many would consider Tick Tick Bang weaker than GB. New Power Generation is a good song, but gets a beat down from most Lovesexy tracks. The only part of saying they are equal is with the top level songs. Thieves In The Temple, Joy In Repetition, and The Question Of U are as stunning as Anna Stesia, Lovesexy, and When 2 R In Love...in fact, a better album would have been:

________________________________________________________________________________

Eye No

Alphabet St

Thieves In The Temple

Girl O My Dreams

Can't Stop This Feeling I Got

We Can Funk

Data Bank

Rock Hard In A Funky Place

Lovesexy

When 2 R In Love

I Love U In Me

Elephants & Flowers

Anna Stesia

I Wish U Heaven

Still Would Stand All Time

[Edited 5/5/19 8:04am]

The joy of modern dubbing and digital editing possibilities is that everybody has a chance to create their own mix of songs. Initially I wouldn't imagine such a blend between the 2 albums, maybe because I learned about them separately.

>

Both of them have a spoken intro and and waterflow-effect ending and overlapping themes though, so what the heck, why not mix 'em, and throw some Batman Soundtrack songs in, to boot!

>

I wouldn't be able to say what are "strong" vs "weak" recordings among the 2. All of those songs seem to stand out in their own way, IMO. I dunno. Instead of getting with the messages relayed within, some audiences are into music only and want to make their ratings along those lines in one regard or another.

>

stillwaiting said:

jfenster said:

the 40 minutes of Prince tracks r just as good as his 80's....some were written then

I understand where you are going with this, but can't agree. When I rank albums, I think I tend to give the strongest songs points, and take points away for the weak tracks. The song "Graffiti Bridge" takes away a bunch of points. To me, Positivity is the weak sister on Lovesexy, but still a pretty decent song. Not many would consider Tick Tick Bang weaker than GB. New Power Generation is a good song, but gets a beat down from most Lovesexy tracks. The only part of saying they are equal is with the top level songs. Thieves In The Temple, Joy In Repetition, and The Question Of U are as stunning as Anna Stesia, Lovesexy, and When 2 R In Love...in fact, a better album would have been:

________________________________________________________________________________

Eye No

Alphabet St

Thieves In The Temple

Girl O My Dreams

Can't Stop This Feeling I Got

We Can Funk

Data Bank

Rock Hard In A Funky Place

Lovesexy

When 2 R In Love

I Love U In Me

Elephants & Flowers

Anna Stesia

I Wish U Heaven

Still Would Stand All Time

[Edited 5/5/19 8:04am]

Well I gotta be a maverick from probably most of the people writing on here and disagree. I felt that the NPG Music Club was an excellent idea and ended much too soon. I wish he would have kept and nurtured that model. The busniess linkeages required with the record labels might have been too complex or undesireable for Prince to maintain though, because most of us know how he liked to keep his transactions simple and the industry labels aren't trying to go that route! The Lotusflow3r site was a mistake for real though, I think, as it barely delivered any product, didn't guarantee much for its subscription cost, and its abrupt shuttering.

>

With regard to Prince protecting the rights to his likeness and music, I'm one of the rare ones who were in steplock with him. If you like these things that much--music and photos--then make your own to present online. Fansites, don't use so much of his procured stuff to project your appreciation. Look at it this way--you have a better outlet for creativity as such, being original while being adoring, without offending copyrights and licenses. I totally realize that there are those who vehemently disagree with those points and project the situation as Prince being an ass. I just don't think the same way. Youtube--well, conversation has gone on plenty about that subject, I've had earlier say on that situation; Prince is gone now, so his grip is slipped; and labels and the estate are doing their management of the situation to a more limited degree as they are right to do.

>

herb4 said:

I think his websites largely failed to reach their potential, in some part due to his adversarial relationship with his fans and his portective nature when it came to his music.

An ala carte download approach that allowed his fans to purchase live shows in particular, direct from the soundboard, and various vault tracks might have cut the legs out from under the bootleggers and created a more shared experience with the fans - similar to what the Grateful Dead and other act have done.

I know he dabbled in what I'm talking about but never really brought it to fruition and things like the war on Youtube were misguided I believe.

I had no problem with Cat rapping. But Tony M's raps were so repulsive. I can't explain but it felt that way. The elegance of Prince's music was completely lost on those songs.

---------------------------------------------

Prince's fight with Warner Bros was a mistake. You don't fight behemoths, you work with them. Releasing music on subscription services or giving it away with newspapers are not effective ways.

---------------------------------------------

The name change to a symbol was another mistake. How to mention and recommend an artist who has no name, to your friend? Not easy.

---------------------------------------------

He made his music inaccessible on Youtube and lost touch with the last few generations. Teenagers have no idea who he was. The number of his Twitter followers were less than 180k right before he departed. Trolls have more.

---------------------------------------------

He was an outstanding artist, a marvel, but not a business manager. Yet he wanted to act like one. His business decisions were far from being the best. Look how the Estate is churning out money now. He should have had pros doing the job. (Michael Jackson's Estate made humongous amounts of money, after he died. MJ was in debt when he died.)

---------------------------------------------

The way he hid his illness was a mistake, too. He probably thought he could handle it all by himself and ended up as opioid addict.

---------------------------------------------

The inclusion of the The Time's music on Graffiti Bridge was so wrong. Back in the day, I was listening to the album on my Discman and had to skip those songs on a regular basis.

pyramidseye said:

I had no problem with Cat rapping. But Tony M's raps were so repulsive. I can't explain but it felt that way. The elegance of Prince's music was completely lost on those songs.

---------------------------------------------

Prince's fight with Warner Bros was a mistake. You don't fight behemoths, you work with them. Releasing music on subscription services or giving it away with newspapers are not effective ways.

---------------------------------------------

The name change to a symbol was another mistake. How to mention and recommend an artist who has no name, to your friend? Not easy.

---------------------------------------------

He made his music inaccessible on Youtube and lost touch with the last few generations. Teenagers have no idea who he was. The number of his Twitter followers were less than 180k right before he departed. Trolls have more.

---------------------------------------------

He was an outstanding artist, a marvel, but not a business manager. Yet he wanted to act like one. His business decisions were far from being the best. Look how the Estate is churning out money now. He should have had pros doing the job. (Michael Jackson's Estate made humongous amounts of money, after he died. MJ was in debt when he died.)

---------------------------------------------

The way he hid his illness was a mistake, too. He probably thought he could handle it all by himself and ended up as opioid addict.

---------------------------------------------

The inclusion of the The Time's music on Graffiti Bridge was so wrong. Back in the day, I was listening to the album on my Discman and had to skip those songs on a regular basis.

What illness?

stillwaiting said:

jfenster said:

the 40 minutes of Prince tracks r just as good as his 80's....some were written then

I understand where you are going with this, but can't agree. When I rank albums, I think I tend to give the strongest songs points, and take points away for the weak tracks. The song "Graffiti Bridge" takes away a bunch of points. To me, Positivity is the weak sister on Lovesexy, but still a pretty decent song. Not many would consider Tick Tick Bang weaker than GB. New Power Generation is a good song, but gets a beat down from most Lovesexy tracks. The only part of saying they are equal is with the top level songs. Thieves In The Temple, Joy In Repetition, and The Question Of U are as stunning as Anna Stesia, Lovesexy, and When 2 R In Love...in fact, a better album would have been:

________________________________________________________________________________

Eye No

Alphabet St

Thieves In The Temple

Girl O My Dreams

Can't Stop This Feeling I Got

We Can Funk

Data Bank

Rock Hard In A Funky Place

Lovesexy

When 2 R In Love

I Love U In Me

Elephants & Flowers

Anna Stesia

I Wish U Heaven

Still Would Stand All Time

[Edited 5/5/19 8:04am]

-

gonna try that play list.

sorry,

album (idea)

sounds good!

-

thx

-

ChocolateBox3121 said:

pyramidseye said:

I had no problem with Cat rapping. But Tony M's raps were so repulsive. I can't explain but it felt that way. The elegance of Prince's music was completely lost on those songs.

---------------------------------------------

Prince's fight with Warner Bros was a mistake. You don't fight behemoths, you work with them. Releasing music on subscription services or giving it away with newspapers are not effective ways.

---------------------------------------------

The name change to a symbol was another mistake. How to mention and recommend an artist who has no name, to your friend? Not easy.

---------------------------------------------

He made his music inaccessible on Youtube and lost touch with the last few generations. Teenagers have no idea who he was. The number of his Twitter followers were less than 180k right before he departed. Trolls have more.

---------------------------------------------

He was an outstanding artist, a marvel, but not a business manager. Yet he wanted to act like one. His business decisions were far from being the best. Look how the Estate is churning out money now. He should have had pros doing the job. (Michael Jackson's Estate made humongous amounts of money, after he died. MJ was in debt when he died.)

---------------------------------------------

The way he hid his illness was a mistake, too. He probably thought he could handle it all by himself and ended up as opioid addict.

---------------------------------------------

The inclusion of the The Time's music on Graffiti Bridge was so wrong. Back in the day, I was listening to the album on my Discman and had to skip those songs on a regular basis.

What illness?

Drug addiction.

I'm also on board with thinking he had liver problems the last year or so.

rusty1 said:

releasing " IIWYG" as the second single off of "Sign o' the times" that killed the album's momentum for sure. "ICNTTPOYM" should've been the second single.. As well as not touring the states with that tour. HUGE mistake

SOTT stlll had MORE Billboard hot 100 top 10 singles than ANY album Prince(r.i.p.) put out at that point since Purple Rain.

rusty1 said:

releasing " IIWYG" as the second single off of "Sign o' the times" that killed the album's momentum for sure. "ICNTTPOYM" should've been the second single.. As well as not touring the states with that tour. HUGE mistake

U Got the Look got to number 2, pretty good for an album with no momentum.


TBH, I see the commercial argument for touring the hell out of that album but a bigger mistake would have been a bored Prince playing boring shows just to make people money when he wanted to move on musically and artistically.

Vannormal said:

stillwaiting said:

I understand where you are going with this, but can't agree. When I rank albums, I think I tend to give the strongest songs points, and take points away for the weak tracks. The song "Graffiti Bridge" takes away a bunch of points. To me, Positivity is the weak sister on Lovesexy, but still a pretty decent song. Not many would consider Tick Tick Bang weaker than GB. New Power Generation is a good song, but gets a beat down from most Lovesexy tracks. The only part of saying they are equal is with the top level songs. Thieves In The Temple, Joy In Repetition, and The Question Of U are as stunning as Anna Stesia, Lovesexy, and When 2 R In Love...in fact, a better album would have been:

________________________________________________________________________________

Eye No

Alphabet St

Thieves In The Temple

Girl O My Dreams

Can't Stop This Feeling I Got

We Can Funk

Data Bank

Rock Hard In A Funky Place

Lovesexy

When 2 R In Love

I Love U In Me

Elephants & Flowers

Anna Stesia

I Wish U Heaven

Still Would Stand All Time

[Edited 5/5/19 8:04am]

-

gonna try that play list.

sorry,

album (idea)

sounds good!

-

thx

-

It sounds awesome when the sound levels are the same on all tracks. Rock Hard sounds really

good when the volume is tweaked. Adding Witness 4 The Prosecution after Data Bank is pretty nice too.

gabrielmp said:

-I think he should've made PR Tour and Musicology Tour as global tours -I think he subestimated the value of south america/latin america countries. He was getting big in the mid 80s untill the early 90s in some countries here (I'm from Brazil). Less than 5 concerts in the whole career in latin America is a sad thing -His overprotective attitude with his work in the internet on the 00s. His abscence really afected his comunication with young people (Sorry for my bad english) [Edited 5/9/19 19:42pm] [Edited 5/9/19 19:45pm]

Prince(r.i.p.) was COMPLETELY burnt out & felt stifled performing the same songs for an extended european tour over & over again. So south america/latin america was out of the equation. Plus he was ready to move on & felt the "so called fans" that attended The PR Tour were just jump on the bandwagon fans. He wanted his "real fans" back.

ChocolateBox3121 said:

gabrielmp said:

ChocolateBox3121 said:

Prince(r.i.p.) was COMPLETELY burnt out & felt stifled performing the same songs for an extended european tour over & over again. So south america/latin america was out of the equation. Plus he was ready to move on & felt the "so called fans" that attended The PR Tour were just jump on the bandwagon fans. He wanted his "real fans" back.

Yeah, I know, but, look, he made almost 100 concerts on PR Tour. Only in North America. He should've visited more continents on this 100 concerts. He visited 3 continents with less concerts on Lovesexy tour and Nude Tour, for example. Michael Jackson visited 5 continents with 82 concerts on History tour... So PR tour definitely should've been a global thing... [Edited 5/9/19 21:11pm] [Edited 5/9/19 21:12pm]

Maybe his booking agent focused on North America since he was already HUGE there during his first PR tour as a MEGA star. The LoveSexy & Nude tours Prince(r.i.p) was already an established GLOBAL star with a reputation of giving THE BEST live performances of any artist of his generation. Therefore he can sell out globally and had earned the right to tour other continents. Some artist even though they're huge stars in North America sometimes can't sell out in other continents so they avoid them like the beautiful,talented, Janet Jackson(whom I worked with).

gabrielmp said:

ChocolateBox3121 said:

Prince(r.i.p.) was COMPLETELY burnt out & felt stifled performing the same songs for an extended european tour over & over again. So south america/latin america was out of the equation. Plus he was ready to move on & felt the "so called fans" that attended The PR Tour were just jump on the bandwagon fans. He wanted his "real fans" back.

Yeah, I know, but, look, he made almost 100 concerts on PR Tour. Only in North America. He should've visited more continents on this 100 concerts. He visited 3 continents with less concerts on Lovesexy tour and Nude Tour, for example. Michael Jackson visited 5 continents with 82 concerts on History tour... So PR tour definitely should've been a global thing... [Edited 5/9/19 21:11pm] [Edited 5/9/19 21:12pm]

Prince was just not big enough in Europe yet. In hindsight, I wish he would've toured the USA for Parade and Sign O The Times, but save for a few shows, it was Europe only for SOTT and Europe and Asia only for Parade. A shame.

thedoorkeeper said:

I'm shocked people think Prince should have performed on We Are The World instead of releasing 4The Tears In Your Eyes. Just completely shocked.

Agreed. Screw that dumb horrible song and all the bs that went with it.

Probably wouldn't have been an issue except for the dust up with the bodyguard and the media going "look at this guy who's too cool to sing a song for charity". The whole thing was a fiasco and that song is awful

rusty1 said: