LoveGalore said:

slyjackson said:

I'm with you, and overrated piece of trash.

So what you're saying here, just to be certain, is that Prince's "Lovesexy" album is an "overrated piece of trash"?

It's over the top statatemen, but to me his worst album of the 80's I don't get the appeal at all.

It's a great album but it was not going to satisfy people that were excited by the title at the time, at least not anybody I knew. Yeah, it sounds black and it sounds funky but it's not the type of funk that the people bitching about Prince at the time wanted. Prince had been on pop radio with "I Wanna Be Your Lover" and then the disco backlash occurred and they never played him again until "Little Red Corvette" and then the "Purple Rain" album. But inbetween that time, black radio continued playing him and he was very well known. They played lots of tracks from the "Dirty Mind" and "Controversy" albums. They played the 12 Inch of "Let's Work". They played lots of tracks from both of The Time albums. They played "Nasty Girl" and the 12 Inch of "Drive Me Wild". When the "1999" album came out, they had already been playing "1999", "Lady Cab Driver", "DMSR", "Automatic", and "Free" before pop radio even picked up "Little Red Corvette" and even afterwards, they were the only ones that played the 12 Inch version of it. After "Little Red Corvette" became a hit on pop radio, they had to re-release the "1999" single for pop radio but black radio had already been playing it for weeks before the album was even released. Then "Purple Rain" came out and he was huge on both black and pop radio.

.

Then "Around The World In A Day" came out with Middle Eastern sounds and people on both sides were like.... "What in THE hell?" Next comes The Family with strings and "Parade" also with strings and with a French vibe. People were still.... "What in THE hell?". Then "Sign O' The Times" with kind of a hippie vibe and even a hippie John Lennon type look with the glasses. People were still.... "What in THE hell?".

.

All this occurred after the massive crossover success of "Purple Rain" so naturally when people heard the title of his next album was going to be "The Black Album", they assumed he was going back to his sound when he used to be known on black radio only. People were expecting something like "Lady Cab Driver", "Head", "Let's Work", "Controversy", "Sexy Dancer", "Partyup", etc. They were not expecting to hear retro James Brown type funk. I liked it because I was used to him by then because I had never dropped him after "Purple Rain" but everyone I played it for said..... "S.O.S..... Same ole shit.... Prince still in La La Land after he crossed over.".

I think one of the most interesting things about The Black Album is the story and hype behind it. The album itself is nice and dark and funky, but in my opinion wouldn't have been much of a mainstream hit. I think that all the hooplah around it serves it well as a Prince hidden gem

vainandy said:

ForceofNature said:

I think one of the most interesting things about The Black Album is the story and hype behind it. The album itself is nice and dark and funky, but in my opinion wouldn't have been much of a mainstream hit. I think that all the hooplah around it serves it well as a Prince hidden gem

That's one of the things that shaped the myth about this album.

That shit needs to be remastered and released NOW.

steakfinger said:

That shit needs to be remastered and released NOW.

Yes. Maybe a Lovesexy/Black Album release? The unreleased 12" mixes from that '87-'88 are so intriguing to me.

But I guess Parade will come out first. Fingers crossed that all this continues.

After the SOTT masterpiece anything he ever did after that couldn't compare. Black Album and Lovesexy has its moments but its genius mixed with medocrity and self indulgence. I preferred Madhouse 16

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

That's not what happened though. It was literally ready to go from pressing plants to shops already and then prince had the copies destroyed. So warners were happy to put it out there

That's true..I forgot that...it's early in the morning!

I think they were lucky tbh...it would have been a commercial disaster and i'm very pleased we got alphabet st and Lovesexy instead

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

It was just going to be a low key thing I think They prob knew it want going to go platinum But it might have been controversial, which would have sold the album Not like controversy hurt sales for nwa or ice t in the late 80s

Possibly ,but a much tamer controversy than Straight outta Compton!

mrjj71 said:

There's one thing that people aren't mentioning here.... It's all very well wanting albums released...Black album,crystal ball,dream factory etc but, let's not forget there's one important thing lacking from The Black Album and that's anything resembling a hit. There's just no way a record company would risk it as a major release. It is after all a money making business and albums are sold off the back of singles...at least in the 80's and 90's. And at that time he was up against Madonna, U2,Springsteen etc etc. It would have made no sense for Warners.

Except TBA was supposed to be an uncredited side project for hipsters and harcore fans, not the next proper "Prince" album.

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

MinorG said:

I had a weird thought at the end of listening to the latest SOTT podcasts, where they trail the upcoming podcast and show a snippet of an interview with Larry Waronker and he's talking about having to tell Prince they weren't gong to release Crystal Ball, and that Prince was angry and pissed.

And the thought was - what if TBA was Prince getting revenge for the Crystal Ball over Warners? I.e. if you dictate to me what I can release, then I'm going to dictate to you what can be released. In 1986/7 they deny him a record, so later in 1987 he denies them a record.

I know the normal narrative is that Prince thought it was evil, Blue Tuesday etc, but maybe he was just being petty and trolling WB? The initial narrative for the name change was also this spiritual thing but over time it became more a business attempt to escape a contract, so maybe there was something similar to the non-release of TBA?

Interesting theory but AFAIK prince had to pay the cost for destroying all the copies at the manufacturing plant. Does anyone of any similar stories of artists pulling albums at the 11th hour? This seems quite unusual. I think it was all down to dead on it. I cant see what else on there prince could see as being 'negative'. He was THAT worried how it might make him look. Crazy. [Edited 9/20/20 9:16am]

There are various conspiracy theories about TBA, none of which bears any particular credibility. People tend to forget that the "official" narrative was corroborated in many details (including some P would most likely not have had known) by Per Nilsen's research, and various witnesses.

.

As for artists pulling records at the last minute, it's happened before. Mo Ostin, who dealt with the TBA situation, recalls similar events with neil Young and Frank Sinatra for example: https://www.billboard.com...tin-prince

databank said:

databank said:

AvocadosMax said:

Under The Cherry Moon would have been great if it had 1) different ending 2) filmed/released in color 3) a good director

and band scenes, not like Purple Rain, but like the Girls & Boys video or background performances

databank said:

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

MinorG said: Interesting theory but AFAIK prince had to pay the cost for destroying all the copies at the manufacturing plant. Does anyone of any similar stories of artists pulling albums at the 11th hour? This seems quite unusual. I think it was all down to dead on it. I cant see what else on there prince could see as being 'negative'. He was THAT worried how it might make him look. Crazy. [Edited 9/20/20 9:16am]

There are various conspiracy theories about TBA, none of which bears any particular credibility. People tend to forget that the "official" narrative was corroborated in many details (including some P would most likely not have had known) by Per Nilsen's research, and various witnesses.

.

As for artists pulling records at the last minute, it's happened before. Mo Ostin, who dealt with the TBA situation, recalls similar events with neil Young and Frank Sinatra for example: https://www.billboard.com...tin-prince

saving that to read later.

i would LOVE a book just with interviews with WB execs about working with prince.

or a good long piece on it at least.

all i can say is that prince must have taken some powerful ecstasy.

mrjj71 said:

databank said:

There are various conspiracy theories about TBA, none of which bears any particular credibility. People tend to forget that the "official" narrative was corroborated in many details (including some P would most likely not have had known) by Per Nilsen's research, and various witnesses.

.

As for artists pulling records at the last minute, it's happened before. Mo Ostin, who dealt with the TBA situation, recalls similar events with neil Young and Frank Sinatra for example: https://www.billboard.com...tin-prince

I wonder now looking back if, instead of paying to destroy all or most of the copies, he could have simply given them to people who bought tickets to the Sott tour? [Edited 9/28/20 5:20am]

It would have defeated the purpose, wouldn't it?

databank said:

mrjj71 said:

databank said:

It would have defeated the purpose, wouldn't it?

From a creative aspect possibly yes but from a monetary aspect at least he would have saved having to fork out for destroying them,especially as it was released later anyway albeit when the moment had passed [Edited 9/28/20 8:03am]

I mean obviously if money had been the issue there, then releasing the album as planned would have been even wiser Your reasoning is absurd: Prince didn't want to save money, he wanted the album not to be released

And clearly he had no clue in 1987 about the fact that he'd finally agree to release it in 1994. Hell, at this stage he didn't even know there would be a Lovesexy Tour at all, since he was just about to embark in the process of recording Lovesexy

[Edited 9/28/20 8:09am]

databank said:

databank said: