funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

Considering princes peak period was up to the late 80s (in the eyes of most) and that all his work in this period as either at other studios or at home, could we say that while this fantasy studio was a dream, it didbt actually contribute anything to his music, and that in fact,having his own playpen open 24//7 could lead to a drop in standards? Chances are ofc that his music would have changed anyway, but after reading interviews with Susan Roger's, you do wonder... maybe having limitations and limited time at other studios was better for an artist like prince.

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No.

It contributed plenty to his music.

The alternate history here is so alternate it's impossible to guess what would have happened. Come up with a plausible reality where someone with that level of musical output and that level of income decided not to build their own studio.

Allowing that the "quality" of art is subjective, I think the question is - did being cloistered in his own personal playground contribute to a drop in the quality of the music? Probably. And the wider question is, would there have been a drop in quality regardless? Almost certainly. Can we think of any musician or performer with a long career that didn't go through peaks and valleys in their output?

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I don't remember who said it, but the paraphrased quote that has alway stuck in my mind is about how some people in the industry regarded spending millions on building Paisley Park as an outlandish cash sink, the vanity project of a self-absorbed musician - but shoving the same amount of money up your nose or in your arm is perfectly expected in the music world.

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Regardless of ones opinion on the quality of the work done there, Prince invested that time and money in his craft. He didn't just build a decaying private theme park or whatever.

NouveauDance said:

Allowing that the "quality" of art is subjective, I think the question is - did being cloistered in his own personal playground contribute to a drop in the quality of the music? Probably. And the wider question is, would there have been a drop in quality regardless? Almost certainly. Can we think of any musician or performer with a long career that didn't go through peaks and valleys in their output?

.

I don't remember who said it, but the paraphrased quote that has alway stuck in my mind is about how some people in the industry regarded spending millions on building Paisley Park as an outlandish cash sink, the vanity project of a self-absorbed musician - but shoving the same amount of money up your nose or in your arm is perfectly expected in the music world.

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Regardless of ones opinion on the quality of the work done there, Prince invested that time and money in his craft. He didn't just build a decaying private theme park or whatever.

of course not.... thats a ridiculous premise

Most of Prince's greatest recording were done in places like his Galpin House, the Warehouse, and various LA studios...

RJOrion said:

of course not.... thats a ridiculous premise

All the more ridiculous that before he had PP, there were no limitations anyway. Prince always had a home studio AND a permanent rehearsal space where he could also record AND and would often book a studio such as Sunset Sound 24/7 for lengthy periods AND when on tour he'd either record in a mobile truck or book whichever studio was available on site. I am not aware of a single occurence before PP opened where it would be said "Prince wanted to record but had no place to".

databank said:

RJOrion said:

of course not.... thats a ridiculous premise

This.

to a creative force known worldwide (music, writing, acting, producing, and collaborating with other artists), and an international businessman, logistics is EVERYTHING... to be able to fully create (and control) so many different aspects of his career in-house, and to be able to live there or around the corner, saved P millions of dollars, countless hours, and unnecessary stress and travel...yes it cost alot to maintain, but those are investments in his self and his brand, and not just money spent making some other studio owners rich

RJOrion said:

to a creative force known worldwide (music, writing, acting, producing, and collaborating with other artists), and an international businessman, logistics is EVERYTHING... to be able to fully create (and control) so many different aspects of his career in-house, and to be able to live there or around the corner, saved P millions of dollars, countless hours, and unnecessary stress and travel...yes it cost alot to maintain, but those are investments in his self and his brand, and not just money spent making some other studio owners rich

Absolutely. Imagine what it would have cost to record his music as he'd done in the past, especially after he added more band members. HE got the tax deductions for expenses rather than paying others double to cover theirs.
PP was his baby and he was proud of it. It was paid for in cash (no mortgage) so the operating costs were utilities and property taxes.
In the end,, spending $10 million of his Purple Rain money to biuld his dream that served him well for the next 30 years was a good investment.

Kares said:

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

Considering princes peak period was up to the late 80s (in the eyes of most) and that all his work in this period as either at other studios or at home, could we say that while this fantasy studio was a dream, it didbt actually contribute anything to his music, and that in fact,having his own playpen open 24//7 could lead to a drop in standards? Chances are ofc that his music would have changed anyway, but after reading interviews with Susan Roger's, you do wonder... maybe having limitations and limited time at other studios was better for an artist like prince.

.

No.

Kares, Great Answer!

laytonian said:

RJOrion said:

to a creative force known worldwide (music, writing, acting, producing, and collaborating with other artists), and an international businessman, logistics is EVERYTHING... to be able to fully create (and control) so many different aspects of his career in-house, and to be able to live there or around the corner, saved P millions of dollars, countless hours, and unnecessary stress and travel...yes it cost alot to maintain, but those are investments in his self and his brand, and not just money spent making some other studio owners rich

Absolutely. Imagine what it would have cost to record his music as he'd done in the past, especially after he added more band members. HE got the tax deductions for expenses rather than paying others double to cover theirs.
PP was his baby and he was proud of it. It was paid for in cash (no mortgage) so the operating costs were utilities and property taxes.
In the end,, spending $10 million of his Purple Rain money to biuld his dream that served him well for the next 30 years was a good investment.

Seems the majority here are in disagreement to Thread starter. haha

[Edited 8/21/20 11:00am]

nextedition said:

databank said:

All the more ridiculous that before he had PP, there were no limitations anyway. Prince always had a home studio AND a permanent rehearsal space where he could also record AND and would often book a studio such as Sunset Sound 24/7 for lengthy periods AND when on tour he'd either record in a mobile truck or book whichever studio was available on site. I am not aware of a single occurence before PP opened where it would be said "Prince wanted to record but had no place to".

If that was the case, he wouldnt have build PP. I think op means with PP he had everything perfect 24)7 availeble for him, but perfect can damage creativity.

I think the point was just to have an all-in-one space (apartment, top notch studio, rehearsal space, video shoots, costumes, concert venue, etc.). It considerably simplified the logistics to be able to live and do everything at a single spot.

Astasheiks said:

laytonian said:

Absolutely. Imagine what it would have cost to record his music as he'd done in the past, especially after he added more band members. HE got the tax deductions for expenses rather than paying others double to cover theirs.
PP was his baby and he was proud of it. It was paid for in cash (no mortgage) so the operating costs were utilities and property taxes.
In the end,, spending $10 million of his Purple Rain money to biuld his dream that served him well for the next 30 years was a good investment.

Seems the majority here are in disagreement to Thread starter. haha

[Edited 8/21/20 11:00am]

LOL for sure.

We have to remember that a male's brain is most adventous and risk-taking between the ages of 14 and 24 or so. You can hear his music change from 18 through 24. Then at 26, he starts thinking strategically with a film and album.
By the time he was 30 (after Lovesexy), he was more into an adult groove. Soon, we heard a James Brown-ish horns-back era.
I don't think there's lesser quality. It's just different music. What WE heard at a particular time in our lives is most often our favorite.

Consider that he still made music and shot videos at other studios. But I get what the post is saying. sometimes a private location/sutdio/safespace that is completely controlled and not penetrable to random outside inluences can lead to inbred creative loops. I feel like some protoge albums felt like inbred mutations. With a gem or two stuck in.

Building a facility where he could creatively do what he wanted when he wanted, and house his operations was far from a mistake....

But yeah maybe Paisley Park itself had some mistakes. Putting a film studio, and nightclub and trying to host big meaningful events...I don't think he ever realized what he'd envisioned with it.

Absolutely. Looking back he would have been much better off leaving things as they were in early-mid 80's. Rent a local warehouse to work out the band. Use First Avenue or other nearby clubs to try stuff out. Record at home and in a rented studio.

Keep costs low is a key to long term success. As others have said, and they are right on, PP turned into a major albatross around his neck. It basically set the stage for him to work forever to pay for it. When you go there, you see right off the bat that the place had not been kept up. Old phone systems, old computers, we learned that some of the HVAC systems were held together with bubble gum (not working properly). These things cost money to maintain.

It was a neat concept but you got to know that Prince regretted it early and often.

The very problem here is that correlation does not imply causality. Even if one agrees with the premise "Prince's creative peak ended when began recording at PP", it's very unscientific to assume one fact is the consequence of the other without further evidence.

RJOrion said:

to a creative force known worldwide (music, writing, acting, producing, and collaborating with other artists), and an international businessman, logistics is EVERYTHING... to be able to fully create (and control) so many different aspects of his career in-house, and to be able to live there or around the corner, saved P millions of dollars, countless hours, and unnecessary stress and travel...yes it cost alot to maintain, but those are investments in his self and his brand, and not just money spent making some other studio owners rich

You say he saved money but there's no reason he couldn't have built a nice home studio like Trent Reznor did and been a-ok with a normal warehouse nearby for live rehearsals. The overhead for a vanity complex like Paisley was way higher than normal and even then he was still spending a ton of money putting people up at the local (Holiday Inn?)

I can't remember which book said that Prince could have bought the local hotel multiple times over with the amount of rooms he rented over the years.

Same with him renting out the local movie theater for private viewings.

It was his money so he did what he wanted with it but it's an interesting "what if" to think of what Prince's career would have been like if he didn't have to worry about touring to pay the bills.

Strive said:

RJOrion said:

to a creative force known worldwide (music, writing, acting, producing, and collaborating with other artists), and an international businessman, logistics is EVERYTHING... to be able to fully create (and control) so many different aspects of his career in-house, and to be able to live there or around the corner, saved P millions of dollars, countless hours, and unnecessary stress and travel...yes it cost alot to maintain, but those are investments in his self and his brand, and not just money spent making some other studio owners rich

You say he saved money but there's no reason he couldn't have built a nice home studio like Trent Reznor did and been a-ok with a normal warehouse nearby for live rehearsals. The overhead for a vanity complex like Paisley was way higher than normal and even then he was still spending a ton of money putting people up at the local (Holiday Inn?)

I can't remember which book said that Prince could have bought the local hotel multiple times over with the amount of rooms he rented over the years.

Same with him renting out the local movie theater for private viewings.

It was his money so he did what he wanted with it but it's an interesting "what if" to think of what Prince's career would have been like if he didn't have to worry about touring to pay the bills.

I think what you address here is a question that goes way beyond the mere question of PP.

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Regarding the complex, more that a vanity project, it was first and foremost a worktool that Prince used every day. And we must not forget that at the time Prince saw himself as a brand, there was "Prince" the musician but there was also Paisley Park Records then NPG Records, the Paisley Park production team, Paisley Park Studios, the films and long form videos production team, and then next thing you know it's the 1-800 New-Funk retail service, the 10.000 magazine, the Glam Slam clubs, the NPG Stores, the L4OA charity, clothes, jewelry, perfume, candles and every conceivable thing. I'm actually surprised we didn't get a vegan food company called Butter For Your Muffin as well.

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But as I said your point is spot on and goes way beyond the matter of Paisley Park. The true question is was Prince a slave not to his contract but to his own success and the extravagant lifestyle and expenses that went along with it? I've often wondered out loud here, what if Prince had had the more moderate success of a Bill Laswell or a Ryuichi Sakamoto: more than enough to have your home studio, keep recording and releasing material all the time, with a solid fanbase and solid reviews, but without the hassle of needing to remain in the charts, filling arenas, paying for private jets, imperial suites in hotels, luxury houses and all that jazz? I've always wondered: maybe Prince's music would have remained more daring and more experimental throughout, maybe he'd have been a happier man for all we know. Of course RODSERLING's life would have been ruined in the process, but it would have been a fascinating parallel world scenario to observe for the lot of us.

To have recording, editing and film studios open and available at a musical artist's fingertips at any time of the day/week/month? Did it effect Prince's musical output? Sure it did- he was able to experiment with whatever musical sounds he wanted to play around with at any moment he chose. PP was his toy box, full of whatever toys he wanted to play with. Did Michaelangelo/Renior/Picasso paint masterpieces every time they put brush to a canvas? No. I'm sure there were more than a few paintings that went into the trash heap or were burned. They were surrounded by the tools that they needed to do their work, just as Prince was at PP. Not every song Prince recorded was brilliant either but he used PP to hone his craft just like other artists used the tools available to them.

[Edited 8/21/20 15:34pm]

people may be able to name their own pracctical reasons to say Paisley Park was a mistake, and they may even make sense on the surface...but you cant measure the value of having as much control and space as possible at his immediate access, by having Paisley Park in his home town (basically), EXACTLY where he wanted it to be.. Control was super important to him...but to always be no more than a bike ride away, and to be able to have hands-on eyes-on control of every aspect of his creative endeavors down to the clothing and employees housing, is priceless.. he had everything he needed at his local access... the stories of bandmembers, employees and journalists spending days living cooped up at Country Inn & Suites is hilarious, but so convenient for him... everyone and everything came to him...just like he wanted it...for a black man from Minneapolis, that kind of control is priceless... Paisley Park is and was in no way a mistake...still making money...stil famous...still revered...the expenses and the estate struggles cant dim the light...

RJOrion said:

people may be able to name their own pracctical reasons to say Paisley Park was a mistake, and they may even make sense on the surface...but you cant measure the value of having as much control and space as possible at his immediate access, by having Paisley Park in his home town (basically), EXACTLY where he wanted it to be.. Control was super important to him...but to always be no more than a bike ride away, and to be able to have hands-on eyes-on control of every aspect of his creative endeavors down to the clothing and employees housing, is priceless.. he had everything he needed at his local access... the stories of bandmembers, employees and journalists spending days living cooped up at Country Inn & Suites is hilarious, but so convenient for him... everyone and everything came to him...just like he wanted it...for a black man from Minneapolis, that kind of control is priceless... Paisley Park is and was in no way a mistake...still making money...stil famous...still revered...the expenses and the estate struggles cant dim the light...

YES!!!!! For Prince to have that level of control over his life and his artistry was a wonderful thing to see!

At the end of the day, if it made Prince happy, then I don't think it was a mistake.

However, I do think the upkeep effected career moves that had negative consquences.

It was supposed to be self sustainable, giving Prince financial and artistic freedom. It started well, with the likes of REM, A-ha and Fine Young Cannibals recording there, but conflict over studio availability, studio equipment that didn't move with the digital trend and location (when, as A-list artists, you could record more cheaply in LA, New York, the Bahamas or the Alps, the Chanhassen Inn doesn't cut it).

Ultimately, Prince signed the WB contract he regretted on the back of needing funds at a time when the Studio was becoming dated and not attracting the industry attention he wanted.

So to some degree, it did become an albatross around his neck, as his pride would never let it sink. It's clear when you see the photos 'behind the scene' from 2016 that is was really suffering behind the facade. Some of it was falling apart. I also felt it was very sad when he moved in permanently. It was as if he had nothing else left in his life than music.

The flip side is he left us with legacy site that is unequalled in music, with the exception of Graceland.

I just hope it is adopted by MPLS in the future, because I don't think it can remain self sustainable in its current form.

NouveauDance said:

Allowing that the "quality" of art is subjective, I think the question is - did being cloistered in his own personal playground contribute to a drop in the quality of the music? Probably. And the wider question is, would there have been a drop in quality regardless? Almost certainly. Can we think of any musician or performer with a long career that didn't go through peaks and valleys in their output?

.

I don't remember who said it, but the paraphrased quote that has alway stuck in my mind is about how some people in the industry regarded spending millions on building Paisley Park as an outlandish cash sink, the vanity project of a self-absorbed musician - but shoving the same amount of money up your nose or in your arm is perfectly expected in the music world.

.

Regardless of ones opinion on the quality of the work done there, Prince invested that time and money in his craft. He didn't just build a decaying private theme park or whatever.

It was Neal Karlen.

nextedition said:

databank said:

All the more ridiculous that before he had PP, there were no limitations anyway. Prince always had a home studio AND a permanent rehearsal space where he could also record AND and would often book a studio such as Sunset Sound 24/7 for lengthy periods AND when on tour he'd either record in a mobile truck or book whichever studio was available on site. I am not aware of a single occurence before PP opened where it would be said "Prince wanted to record but had no place to".

If that was the case, he wouldnt have build PP. I think op means with PP he had everything perfect 24)7 availeble for him, but perfect can damage creativity.

There were occasions, when Prince couldn't record or perform at Paisley Park, because the place was booked out.

By the fall of 1988 Prince had used the soundstage for concerts a few times already — in the summer of 1987 he performed a private show for the crew of his concert film, Sign O' The Times, and on New Year's Eve, 1987, he held a ticketed benefit concert for the Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless — but the afterparty event he held on September 15, 1988, was one for the history books.

For starters, it wasn't held in the soundstage or the smaller NPG Music Club Room, as other concerts at Paisley were through the years. This one was actually staged out in the Paisley Park parking lot, because the soundstage was being rented out for rehearsals by Muppet Babies Live! (As you may recall from earlier this week, the Muppet Babies were also the first act to perform at Paisley Park on opening night, when they appeared on stage for a black-tie gala.) "Prince yields to Miss Piggy," Jon Bream proclaimed in a Star Tribune recap of the show, which didn't start until 2:20 a.m. and went until nearly 4:00 in the morning.

[Edited 8/21/20 17:44pm]

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

Considering princes peak period was up to the late 80s (in the eyes of most) and that all his work in this period as either at other studios or at home, could we say that while this fantasy studio was a dream, it didbt actually contribute anything to his music, and that in fact,having his own playpen open 24//7 could lead to a drop in standards? Chances are ofc that his music would have changed anyway, but after reading interviews with Susan Roger's, you do wonder... maybe having limitations and limited time at other studios was better for an artist like prince.

NO