I always liked the sound of the records Prince made in his home studios and at Sunset Sound in the early-mid '80's as opposed to the records he made at Paisely '88 onwards. They are still amazing but perhaps those earlier desks and necessity being the mother of invention made those records for me sound better. Still Paisely was his "home" and part of his identity so it was a great progression but one that, even though it made recording more convenient and efficient, never quite sounded as good imo.

I don't think there's a yes/no answer. Paisley Park could have been build in a more sustainable/low maintenance way, so that it cost less to be operational. But at the time it was imagined/build they could only see what was at that time. With just the SOTT and Lovesexy tours, I think the building paid for itself, with the facilities. Never mind the studio costs (although the room and equipment aren't the highest cost there)

.

So... was it a bit of an albatros later? Yeah, but offset to what it allowed him to do and the cost of doing it somewhere else, I think it was a net positive, just looking at cost alone. That it didn't become the independent studio/media center that was part of the original vision... it's a shame, but in line with Prince's management decisions. The balance between running it as a commercial complex and a personal space to create art moved more and more into the personal, to the point where it was his home, in the end.

.

And I think that's not a bad way for things to have gone, per se. I just hope that storing the vault there didn't damage the tapes too much so that we can adequately document the remarkable life and art of this man.

Yes, I've always said Paisley Park skewed his output. He got comfortable at Paisley Park. He still had drive, but he lost focus. Every LP after Sign o the Times came with diminishing returns.

rap said:

It was Neal Karlen.

Thanks. Your grey matter is aging better than mine!

Strive said:

Paisley Park was an obvious expression of an individualistic artistic aesthete that was Prince.

SquirrelMeat said:

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.

Prince *could* afford to keep it going with all of those Million Dollar Shows.

Minneapolis won't take it because it's 22 miles out of town, in another county. But the state could.
Paisley Park Museum, an official State of Minnesota historical site and landmark is its best usage. It is NOW self-sustaining as long as people want to pay the bucks to tour BUT it's also taxable.

At least turn it into a 501(c)3 charitable foundation to allow upkeep and avoid taxation.

rap said:

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.

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

(snippage)

When was the NPG Music Club Room created? In 1988, it was loading dock space.
IIRC, "Griff" (an employee at the time) and others were charged with taking the space and turning it into the private club -- and this was around 2000?.

Hard to say but I can't really picture it happening any other way for the Willy Wonka of Music having his own private Purple Music Chocolate Factory.

It seems to me it almost had to be this way, regardless of how it played out. Prince wanted to stay in Minnesota, be able to record, perform, film, sleep, eat, write, collaborate at any time of day and on a moment's notice so what he did made perfect sense. He was an ambitous dreamer and an iconoclast who needed things his own way so I have a hard time picturing his career and artistic growth without it.

How are we defining "mistake" here though? Simply in terms of the artistic quality? It was built in 86 so we got SoTT and Lovesexy (plus GOLD, Exodus, AoA and Love Symbol after it was built). I was never one to view his work in terms of decline or dimishing returns. He always brought it live and, if you dig around, the quality of many of his songs is right there with anything he did during his more popular days. Some of it was even better than the hits that made him a household name. There was just MORE of it so his batting average went down.

A better argument for "mistake" might be made for the financial investment he made in it and, utimately, an even better one could be proffered that, much later, it contributed to his lonliness and self isolation in ways that were obviously proven to be less than healthy given how it all ended. Seeing the state of the place from those photos after he died speaks to a very lonely man meandering around 75 more rooms than he'll ever need and losing interest in 80% or 90% of them. Everything either looked neglected or as a work in progress that was long forgotten. Too big for one man, too few people to share it with and just screaming "I'll get around to it one day".

I found it odd how many old pictures he had hung up of himself from old albums. He said he didn't like to look back but the place was inundated with images of prior achievments and, also, plastering your home with pictures of yourself seems...odd to me...but also speaks to his singular way of livig I suppose. Except most people decorate their homes with art made by others and, more to the point, the photos are USUALLY of family members, friends, children etc. so...The awards and gold albums I get.

But yeah. We can see the picture that Paisley Park ultimately rendered and it's a little depressing but also inspiring. LOOK what this ONE MAN built and created that was unique to HIM. He left us a fucking living museum to his legacy and a view into who he was and what he did.

I can't view it as a mistake and I think is was pretty fucking cool tbh.

herb4 said:

laytonian said:

rap said:

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.

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

(snippage)

When was the NPG Music Club Room created? In 1988, it was loading dock space.
IIRC, "Griff" (an employee at the time) and others were charged with taking the space and turning it into the private club -- and this was around 2000?.

I don't know when it was carpeted, but the room was first used on October 26, 1996 for Love4OneAnother parties/concerts. The stage was set up on the NE corner of the room. The soundstage was still being used intermittently also.

Just talking about the sound changes once he started recording there. Lovesexy and Batman were the last really focused albums he did. And they came after paisley park was built. They also have slightly cleaner sounding production than pre-paisley. Yes the albums that came from Paisley Park 1990 onward weren't absolute masterpieces. Who cares when probably half of them are 9/10's. His best year for recorded music was 1986. Does this have to do with recording his stuff at Sunset Sound. Probably by the by. If Paisley Park had been built in 1985 I'm sure the music would have sounded essentially the same. If a little cleaner produced, done well, or overproduced like a few of his later releases.

Lol.....100% nonsense.

laytonian said:

SquirrelMeat said:

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.

Prince *could* afford to keep it going with all of those Million Dollar Shows.

Minneapolis won't take it because it's 22 miles out of town, in another county. But the state could.
Paisley Park Museum, an official State of Minnesota historical site and landmark is its best usage. It is NOW self-sustaining as long as people want to pay the bucks to tour BUT it's also taxable.

At least turn it into a 501(c)3 charitable foundation to allow upkeep and avoid taxation.

Pressumably they would have looked into that by now and weren't able to?? On a side note, is The Black Album room up and going?

Graycap23 said:

Lol.....100% nonsense.

Nope. In fact to anyone with a clean pair of ears it's obvious the sound CHANGED completely for Lovesexy, the first album recorded at Paisley Park. As full a sound as its precedessor Sign o' the Times was thin.
And although I like the sound of the early 80s albums, occasionally they sound tinny and harsh. Also, if you pay attention to the vault, um 1986 was an amazing year. Even by Prince's standards. I rest my case

databank said:

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.

Yep. People just project themselves onto Prince and don't consider that maybe he had no interest, or even capability, of doing what they wanted him to do. He followed his own path, you're either along for the ride or you're not. Paisley Park wasn't an outside influence, it came from him, just like the music.

Was building Paisley a mistake? I guess only Prince (or his accountants) could answer that. It just seems like a business decision - set up your own premises to run the empire from whilst keep things local to Minnesota etc, or rent commercial property / studios / sound stages / etc on demand like everyone else. My guess is that in the long run, it probably was a net loss in terms of running costs.

What was a mistake in my view, was making a home there. That conflates personal life with business decisions in a way that must made things very difficult at times, especially when it was losing money.

Thinking of how he died as well and how heart-breaking the circumstances were... maybe he should have just built a nice home, found someone to share it with, and installed a decent home studio. At least then he'd have been free to shut down PP if it made the most financial sense.

It was definitely ambitious . . . recording studios, a Vault, hair/makeup/wardrobe, instrument storage, offices and sleeping quarters, etc. all under one massive roof.

The amount of music pouring out of him during the era leading up to PP and afterward, it's insane. I think he needed that instant outlet as closeby as possible!

I think they should have never closed to outside musicians though. In the beginning, you had Duran Duran, REM, etc. booking time there to record. It was the new hot thing and was state of the art. The Prince demanded more and more time and decided to keep it all to himself. People were also recording commercials and movie(s) there, so there was an influx of cash.

I don't know how I'd change PP honestly aside from room layout. It seems like people would be tripping over themselves and getting bottlenecked in hallways during its heyday.

ian said:

Was building Paisley a mistake? I guess only Prince (or his accountants) could answer that. It just seems like a business decision - set up your own premises to run the empire from whilst keep things local to Minnesota etc, or rent commercial property / studios / sound stages / etc on demand like everyone else. My guess is that in the long run, it probably was a net loss in terms of running costs.

What was a mistake in my view, was making a home there. That conflates personal life with business decisions in a way that must made things very difficult at times, especially when it was losing money.

Thinking of how he died as well and how heart-breaking the circumstances were... maybe he should have just built a nice home, found someone to share it with, and installed a decent home studio. At least then he'd have been free to shut down PP if it made the most financial sense.

This is a good post. I wrote some similar sentiments.

TBH, I can't picture Prince without PP though. It seems so central to his life and his character; his style. It was one of the first things he built when he got crazy rich and seemed central to his singular vision of what he wanted out of his life. Hard to call achieving that "a mistake".

I can't be sure if it was a financial loss or not though. Who knows? I mean, he built his very own PrinceLand that presumably had everything in it he ever needed or wanted - Or thought he did anyways. He didn't seem interested in living in superficial and phony hot spots like NY or LA with paparazzi chasing him and flashbulbs popping any time he so much as walked outside, so imagining him owning a penthouse in Manhattan or a mansion in Beverly Hills seems...off. Everything he aspired to was self contained and right there at The Park (living in Minnesota, having his own recording studios and soundstages, decorating it how he wanted, maintaining his privacy <<< a BIG one for him)

It may have cost him more money had he been more of a jet setter type. I think he had it how he wanted it and, first and foremost, had CONTROL of everything, which was always his main deal. That would have been much harder to pull off in a big city. Whether or not it ultimately made him happy is something I think about from time to time. He rented and bought property elsewhere when the mood struck him or it seemed convenient or beneficial.

He reminds me a little of writer Hunter S. Thompson (see my avatar), who travelled all over the place when he was writing and riding pretty big fame (for a writer anyways) but always had a "base" and a refuge in Woody Creek/Aspen, Colorado that he treated as his Home Headquarters and where he lived for 30 or 40 years. Like Prince, he valued his privacy, his freedom and in needing a sense of control regarding his environment. Also, like Prince, he died tragically only in his case it was suicide.

Interesting thread.

rap said:

laytonian said:

Prince *could* afford to keep it going with all of those Million Dollar Shows.

Minneapolis won't take it because it's 22 miles out of town, in another county. But the state could.
Paisley Park Museum, an official State of Minnesota historical site and landmark is its best usage. It is NOW self-sustaining as long as people want to pay the bucks to tour BUT it's also taxable.

At least turn it into a 501(c)3 charitable foundation to allow upkeep and avoid taxation.

Pressumably they would have looked into that by now and weren't able to?? On a side note, is The Black Album room up and going?

There isn't a Black Album room. They just have the door painted, but it was never intended to be a room for the album.

mediumdry said:

And I think that's not a bad way for things to have gone, per se. I just hope that storing the vault there didn't damage the tapes too much so that we can adequately document the remarkable life and art of this man.

Ruth his assistant that 2% of the entire vault were damaged.

That keeps me at night knowing what that 2% could have been....

[Edited 8/24/20 16:03pm]

this is an interesting discussion - thanks for all the considered responses.

ultimately, ofc, there is no way of knowing what might have happened if PP wasnt built. its a lot of what ifs.

but there is something to be said when you no longer have to clock in and out as your work environment is more or less there for you all the time.

im sure PP was great in many ways, it allowed prince to build his own fantasy world almost, but for someone like him, who was naturally quite reclusive, it also likely lent to further retreating, from the looks of it. when you dont really have to go out much, and everything is right there on your doorstep, i dont know if thats always that healthy. whether that would have changed the direction his career took, ive no idea, but i do wonder if PP wasnt there, if maybe it might have meant he had to go out more, do more live shows in clubs like he used to and play in front of people who werent 'fams', rather than at PP where he could control everything and everyone present would hang on his every word, and no one on the payroll is going to say no to you.

having everything built to your spec can be like a dream, but it can also be an albatross. limitations are good engines of creativity. eric leeds said in the dmsr book that prince was someone who prob worked better before he had state of the art soundboards with more than 24 tracks, and as the 80s ended and he got more maximal, more polished, and flabbier, theres prob some truth to that.

motherfunka said:

rap said:

Pressumably they would have looked into that by now and weren't able to?? On a side note, is The Black Album room up and going?

There isn't a Black Album room. They just have the door painted, but it was never intended to be a room for the album.

Okay. Thanks.

rap said:

motherfunka said:

There isn't a Black Album room. They just have the door painted, but it was never intended to be a room for the album.

Okay. Thanks.

I replied too soon: https://extratv.com/videos/0-dztemhqj/

herb4 said:

ian said:

Was building Paisley a mistake? I guess only Prince (or his accountants) could answer that. It just seems like a business decision - set up your own premises to run the empire from whilst keep things local to Minnesota etc, or rent commercial property / studios / sound stages / etc on demand like everyone else. My guess is that in the long run, it probably was a net loss in terms of running costs.

What was a mistake in my view, was making a home there. That conflates personal life with business decisions in a way that must made things very difficult at times, especially when it was losing money.

Thinking of how he died as well and how heart-breaking the circumstances were... maybe he should have just built a nice home, found someone to share it with, and installed a decent home studio. At least then he'd have been free to shut down PP if it made the most financial sense.

This is a good post. I wrote some similar sentiments.

TBH, I can't picture Prince without PP though. It seems so central to his life and his character; his style. It was one of the first things he built when he got crazy rich and seemed central to his singular vision of what he wanted out of his life. Hard to call achieving that "a mistake".

I can't be sure if it was a financial loss or not though. Who knows? I mean, he built his very own PrinceLand that presumably had everything in it he ever needed or wanted - Or thought he did anyways. He didn't seem interested in living in superficial and phony hot spots like NY or LA with paparazzi chasing him and flashbulbs popping any time he so much as walked outside, so imagining him owning a penthouse in Manhattan or a mansion in Beverly Hills seems...off. Everything he aspired to was self contained and right there at The Park (living in Minnesota, having his own recording studios and soundstages, decorating it how he wanted, maintaining his privacy <<< a BIG one for him)

It may have cost him more money had he been more of a jet setter type. I think he had it how he wanted it and, first and foremost, had CONTROL of everything, which was always his main deal. That would have been much harder to pull off in a big city. Whether or not it ultimately made him happy is something I think about from time to time. He rented and bought property elsewhere when the mood struck him or it seemed convenient or beneficial.

He reminds me a little of writer Hunter S. Thompson (see my avatar), who travelled all over the place when he was writing and riding pretty big fame (for a writer anyways) but always had a "base" and a refuge in Woody Creek/Aspen, Colorado that he treated as his Home Headquarters and where he lived for 30 or 40 years. Like Prince, he valued his privacy, his freedom and in needing a sense of control regarding his environment. Also, like Prince, he died tragically only in his case it was suicide.

Interesting thread.

Yeah it feels impossible to separate Paisley from Prince now, it's just too rooted in the purple mythology. I can totally see how he reached the decision to build it, having spent years renting out large rehearsal spaces, and jetting back and forth to record in Sunset etc. I suspect it became a bit of an anchor around his neck eventually in terms of running costs, as his business shrank during his later career, but he was probably too personally invested in it for shutting it down to ever be a possibility.

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.

Yes. Definitely. There would have been more focus on quality

[Edited 8/25/20 14:33pm]

rap said:

rap said:

Okay. Thanks.

I replied too soon: https://extratv.com/videos/0-dztemhqj/

The door is still painted like that, but they're not making it a Black Album room.

motherfunka said:

rap said:

I replied too soon: https://extratv.com/videos/0-dztemhqj/

The door is still painted like that, but they're not making it a Black Album room.

Pressumably, they have plans to.

ian said:

herb4 said:

This is a good post. I wrote some similar sentiments.

TBH, I can't picture Prince without PP though. It seems so central to his life and his character; his style. It was one of the first things he built when he got crazy rich and seemed central to his singular vision of what he wanted out of his life. Hard to call achieving that "a mistake".

I can't be sure if it was a financial loss or not though. Who knows? I mean, he built his very own PrinceLand that presumably had everything in it he ever needed or wanted - Or thought he did anyways. He didn't seem interested in living in superficial and phony hot spots like NY or LA with paparazzi chasing him and flashbulbs popping any time he so much as walked outside, so imagining him owning a penthouse in Manhattan or a mansion in Beverly Hills seems...off. Everything he aspired to was self contained and right there at The Park (living in Minnesota, having his own recording studios and soundstages, decorating it how he wanted, maintaining his privacy <<< a BIG one for him)

It may have cost him more money had he been more of a jet setter type. I think he had it how he wanted it and, first and foremost, had CONTROL of everything, which was always his main deal. That would have been much harder to pull off in a big city. Whether or not it ultimately made him happy is something I think about from time to time. He rented and bought property elsewhere when the mood struck him or it seemed convenient or beneficial.

He reminds me a little of writer Hunter S. Thompson (see my avatar), who travelled all over the place when he was writing and riding pretty big fame (for a writer anyways) but always had a "base" and a refuge in Woody Creek/Aspen, Colorado that he treated as his Home Headquarters and where he lived for 30 or 40 years. Like Prince, he valued his privacy, his freedom and in needing a sense of control regarding his environment. Also, like Prince, he died tragically only in his case it was suicide.

Interesting thread.

I suspect it became a bit of an anchor around his neck eventually in terms of running costs, as his business shrank during his later career, but he was probably too personally invested in it for shutting it down to ever be a possibility.

People say this a lot but I never got the sense that Prince was on the cusp of going bankrupt or being homeless. I haven't seen the books on PP and know fuck all about running a business but it's also hard to put a price on creating a singular Palace or Music factory of sorts that, from all angles, seemed to fufill his deepest wishes. Seems to me also that money was never a huge issue for him sometime after around Batman or D&P. Then later, he seemed to have figured out a way to make more money while selling fewer records and, later on, when he needed a real cash influx he'd just go on tour.

He managed to figure out earlier than most that the real money making wasn't there to be made by pressing CD's or hawking tracks on a website and he left behind millions of dollars so I'd assert that he won that game overall and did it his own way the whole time, of which PP was a HUGE cornerstone. Especially given the way he went about it and the independence he carved out for himself that he really seemed to cherish more than anything.

Really hard to look at it as anything less than a net positive unless we want to get into the mental toll and the ways his self isolation worked on his head, is addiction and his relationships but... I dunno.

I'd take it. All things being equal, I'll never leave behind a legacy and a palace like that, filled to the brim with art that one can flip a switch and turn into a fucking museum, so I have a hard time arguing against it as a general idea or even as an accomplishment.

Good on him is how I look at it regardless of how it turned out.