ForbiddenFruit said:

Prince hasn't had a hit since 1995 because he hasn't written one.

If Prince wanted a hit, all he had to do is get DJ Khaled to say "We da best music!" or "Another one" on a track. That's automatic constant radio play and hundreds of millions of views on Youtube. Paul McCartney got a Top 10 hit a few years ago by doing a collabo with Rihanna & Kanye West. FourFiveSeconds was Paul's first Top 10 in the USA since the early 1980s. Paul was in his 70s. Tony Bennett had a popular album with Lady Gaga.

MickyDolenz said:

RODSERLING said:

renfield said:

That's not true, at least in the US. Hall & Oates reached #11 in the fall of 1990 with "So Close" (and its follow-up "Don't Hold Back Your Love" just missed the top 40 at #41 in 1991). Simple Minds made the top 40 with "See The Lights" in 1991 and Tears For Fears took the excellent "Break It Down Again" to #25 as late as 1993. They were definitely bigger in the 80s but they each had some lingering commercial power at Top 40 into the early 90s.

[Edited 3/11/21 15:02pm]

Big hits, like top ten or certified gold single.

Okay, Hall & Oates didn't make the top ten in the 90s. They peaked one spot outside of it at #11. Not exactly "gone forever after 1989". Also, "Shhh" didn't peak at #45 on the Hot 100. It peaked at #45 on the airplay chart. It was never released as a commercial single so it never charted on the Hot 100.

RODSERLING said:

He wouldn't let another big name, such as Jay Z, Daft Punk... Produce a shitty track. He would rather produce a shitty track himself 😃 He could have had easily hits and radio play, if he put a rap of Jay Z or Eminem on Chocolate Box or Black Sweat, or replace Tamar with Rihanna or Beyonce On Loved and Blessed.

Prince probably didn't want to pay the big money for a Jay-Z. Morris Day said that Prince didn't want to pay him, and Prince was the one who requested The Time to perform at one of his concerts. Tamar was cheaper than Rihanna or Eminem. Tamar was in the early version of Destiny's Child called Girls Tyme, so she was in a group with Beyoncé. They even appeared on Star Search. Prince chose to work with Doug E. Fresh who hadn't been relevant since 1985. Doug E. Fresh never really crossed over either like Run-DMC, Fat Boys, Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, or Tone Loc.

In my opinion, he could still write hits, but he could no longer produce them.

renfield said:

ForbiddenFruit said:

renfield said:

RODSERLING said:

Prince succeeded in what most popular 80's artists failed to : have hits in the 90's. I listened to Simple Minds, Hall and Oatesand Tears For Fears lately,When you think about it, they had big hits until 1989. Then came the year 1990, and like magic they were all gonegone forever. [Edited 3/10/21 23:15pm]

That's not true, at least in the US. Hall & Oates reached #11 in the fall of 1990 with "So Close" (and its follow-up "Don't Hold Back Your Love" just missed the top 40 at #41 in 1991). Simple Minds made the top 40 with "See The Lights" in 1991 and Tears For Fears took the excellent "Break It Down Again" to #25 as late as 1993. They were definitely bigger in the 80s but they each had some lingering commercial power at Top 40 into the early 90s.

[Edited 3/11/21 15:02pm]

You're fooling yourself if you think that people think of So Close or Don't Hold Back Your Love when they think of Hall & Oates.

Prince had a number 1 hit with 3121 and no one but Prince fans noticed. These things are about zeitgeist not chart action.

Most critics blame the symbol and how he would call himself a Slave.

renfield said:

That's not true, at least in the US. Hall & Oates reached #11 in the fall of 1990 with "So Close" (and its follow-up "Don't Hold Back Your Love" just missed the top 40 at #41 in 1991).

Those songs came out after they signed to Arista. Daryl said in an interview once that they had conflicts with Clive Davis. Hall & Oates did have a big Adult Contemporary hit with A Promise Is Not Enough in the late 1990s. They had left Arista by then.

jaawwnn said:

renfield said:

That's not true, at least in the US. Hall & Oates reached #11 in the fall of 1990 with "So Close" (and its follow-up "Don't Hold Back Your Love" just missed the top 40 at #41 in 1991). Simple Minds made the top 40 with "See The Lights" in 1991 and Tears For Fears took the excellent "Break It Down Again" to #25 as late as 1993. They were definitely bigger in the 80s but they each had some lingering commercial power at Top 40 into the early 90s.

[Edited 3/11/21 15:02pm]

You're fooling yourself if you think that people think of So Close or Don't Hold Back Your Love when they think of Hall & Oates.

Prince had a number 1 hit with 3121 and no one but Prince fans noticed. These things are about zeitgeist not chart action.

I never said those are the songs people think of? Rod said those acts were "gone forever" after 1989. I was just pointing out they still had some chart traction into the early 90s. Obviously they were bigger in the 80s.

RODSERLING said:

MickyDolenz said:

If Prince wanted a hit, all he had to do is get DJ Khaled to say "We da best music!" or "Another one" on a track. That's automatic constant radio play and hundreds of millions of views on Youtube. Paul McCartney got a Top 10 hit a few years ago by doing a collabo with Rihanna & Kanye West. FourFiveSeconds was Paul's first Top 10 in the USA since the early 1980s. Paul was in his 70s. Tony Bennett had a popular album with Lady Gaga.

Prince always craved for charts and sales, no matter what fams could say here. His whole carreer prove it. His limit was that he wouldn't collaborate on a disc with a big name, unless he was a great musician. He wouldn't let another big name, such as Jay Z, Daft Punk... Produce a shitty track. He would rather produce a shitty track himself 😃 He could have had easily hits and radio play, if he put a rap of Jay Z or Eminem on Chocolate Box or Black Sweat, or replace Tamar with Rihanna or Beyonce On Loved and Blessed.

I think this description is a winner as an explanation for why Prince was unable to have a hit after 1995!

All of this right here--

What say everybody?

[Edited 3/13/21 11:55am]

Germanegro said:

I think this discription is a winner as an explanation for why Prince was unable to have a hit after 1995!

All of this right here--

What say everybody?

Well banning his music from Youtube, Spotify, & other streaming sites did not help. That's how most people listen to music now. They don't even put CD players in cars anymore as a default. Notice I said that doing a song with DJ Khaled would get him hundreds of millions of views on Youtube. Not being on Youtube hurt his chances of getting a hit in the modern era. Prince was acting like it's still the days of people buying singles on 45s. The charts today are partly based on streaming. All the singles from an album can chart at 1 time from people streaming a new release, which is how Drake got so many hits. In the 45 days, only a song released as a physical single & its B-side could chart on the Hot 100. Not an album track, even if it got radio airplay (ig. Isn't She Lovely by Stevie Wonder). Psy's Gangnam Style & Old Town Road by Lil Nas X & Billy Ray Cyrus has Youtube to thank for helping their popularity, so does BTS. Recently Dreams by Fleetwood Mac & their album Rumours re-entered the charts in the USA because a video on TikTok went viral

Germanegro said:

RODSERLING said:

MickyDolenz said: Prince always craved for charts and sales, no matter what fams could say here. His whole carreer prove it. His limit was that he wouldn't collaborate on a disc with a big name, unless he was a great musician. He wouldn't let another big name, such as Jay Z, Daft Punk... Produce a shitty track. He would rather produce a shitty track himself 😃 He could have had easily hits and radio play, if he put a rap of Jay Z or Eminem on Chocolate Box or Black Sweat, or replace Tamar with Rihanna or Beyonce On Loved and Blessed.

I think this discription is a winner as an explanation for why Prince was unable to have a hit after 1995!

All of this right here--

What say everybody?

I say no and disagree.

MickyDolenz said:

2freaky4church1 said:

SantanaMaitreya said:

He tried that with Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic: it had Chuck D, Sheryl Crow and other special guests in an obvious attempt to recreate Santana's success with Supernatural. It failed miserably. Maybe it was the first single, The Greatest Romance that didn't have any of those special guests, or maybe the general public just had had enough of Prince by that time.

How many young people were listening to Chuck D in 1999? Somebody more popular at the time would have been Beastie Boys, Bone Thugs, Method Man, ODB, Lil Kim, Foxy Brown, or even Fred Durst. Mariah Carey did songs with the right rappers who were current and she got hits doing it. Also, Carlos Santana was not singing on the songs (unless you count the chant on Maria Maria), the guests were singing the entire songs. Kinda like a Quincy Jones album. Stevie Wonder had been using guest acts on his albums since the 1970s, but not in a way that was really noticeable. Such as The O'Jays, Michael Jackson, & Betty Wright singing backgrounds on All I Do. Which is pretty close to what Prince's album is like.

MickyDolenz said:

SantanaMaitreya said:

RODSERLING said:

SantanaMaitreya said:

He tried that with Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic: it had Chuck D, Sheryl Crow and other special guests in an obvious attempt to recreate Santana's success with Supernatural. It failed miserably. Maybe it was the first single, The Greatest Romance that didn't have any of those special guests, or maybe the general public just had had enough of Prince by that time.

Miserably ? With almost no airplay and music video, and even without his name (!) the album went Gold in the US. Who bought that shit ? He hadn't 500.000 fans at the time. Imagine if he had real good songs or hit in it at the time.

I would say that it "failed miserably" when compared to Santana's mega-hit "Supernatuiral" that was the inspiration for him to collaborate with Clive Davis.

The difference - in my opinion - between the two albums is that Santana let Clive work his magic and just rocked that amazing guitar - whereas Prince dictated the terms and created a "Prince album with Clive influences". The songs on Rave tend to fall flat. I can't place my finger on why. I mean, as much as I love "The Greatest Romance..." it's not on any of my personal playlists. The title track I really, really want to like... but something about it is 'off' to me. Tangerine, So Far So Pleased, Every Day...Road & Wherever U Go" just don't cut it. They feel flat and unconvincing.

3121 was IMO his return to true form. Musicology set the stage but 3121 could have been his "comeback" (hits-wise). Every song on that album could have achieved radio airplay. HOWEVER, his independence probably kept the players from putting any of the tracks on the air.

The last song (as a new release) that I personally heard on the radio was "1,000 X's & O's" which I heard on WBLS (black radio) here in NY. I sat in my car and listened to it in it's entirety, savoring the feeling of "new Prince song on the radio" the way one would savor a fancy steak of expensive cigar.

Burning bridges falling down...

Falling down...

Falling down...

SantanaMaitreya said:

You've got a point about Chuck D! But I can't really see Prince working with the people you mentioned, except Foxy Brown maybe. But that shows that this idea of working with artists just because they were popular just wasn't for Prince. Maybe that's why the album flopped. He was better off doing his own thing. [Edited 3/15/21 11:38am]

Other than the guy on Michael Jackson's Black Or White, singers who had rappers on their songs generally used ones that were already releasing records and were popular at the time of the recording. All the way back to Melle Mel on Chaka Khan's I Feel For You. Heavy D was on songs by Janet & Michael Jackson and Naughty By Nature was on one of the remixes for Scream. Madonna did a song with Tupac, but the version that was released didn't have him on it. Madonna also had Big Daddy Kane & Vanilla Ice in her book. Sting did a song with Pras & Puff Daddy. Earth Wind & Fire had a song with MC Hammer & The Boys. Jody Watley had Rakim. Billy Ocean had The Fresh Prince. Nobody knew who Tony M, Carmen Electra, or TC Ellis were and Doug E. Fresh was long out of style by the time Prince worked with him. There were others who rapped themselves like New Edition, Force MDs, Bell Biv DeVoe, Bobby Brown, TLC, Shanice Wilson, etc. But most of them were rapping since the beginning of their careers and came up when hip hop was starting to gain popularity. They didn't just pick it up one day. On New Edition's 1983 debut album Candy Girl, there's one song that is all rap and they did breakdancing/locking moves during their performances. There were a few veteran acts who did rap songs like Johnny Guitar Watson & Millie Jackson. Teena Marie & Stevie Wonder did a few lines on Sqyuare Biz & Do I Do. Stevie also produced the rap song The Crown by Gary Byrd, which came out in 1983. James Brown did a collabo with Afrika Bambaataa around the same time. But James had already been doing a kind of proto-rap on songs like The Payback & King Heroin.

I also think Prince did not want to work with acts that had equal or more popularity than him. Probably because he could not have control of the situation and tell people what to do. He did one time with Madonna. I think that's why he turned down We Are The World and gave them another song to put on the album. Tevin Campbell & Angie Stone were mostly popular with the R&B audience. Sheena Easton was popular but not really that huge. I think she was more popular for singles than albums.

PurpleJedi said:

RODSERLING said:

SantanaMaitreya said: Miserably ? With almost no airplay and music video, and even without his name (!) the album went Gold in the US. Who bought that shit ? He hadn't 500.000 fans at the time. Imagine if he had real good songs or hit in it at the time.

I would say that it "failed miserably" when compared to Santana's mega-hit "Supernatuiral" that was the inspiration for him to collaborate with Clive Davis.

The difference - in my opinion - between the two albums is that Santana let Clive work his magic and just rocked that amazing guitar - whereas Prince dictated the terms and created a "Prince album with Clive influences". The songs on Rave tend to fall flat. I can't place my finger on why. I mean, as much as I love "The Greatest Romance..." it's not on any of my personal playlists. The title track I really, really want to like... but something about it is 'off' to me. Tangerine, So Far So Pleased, Every Day...Road & Wherever U Go" just don't cut it. They feel flat and unconvincing.

3121 was IMO his return to true form. Musicology set the stage but 3121 could have been his "comeback" (hits-wise). Every song on that album could have achieved radio airplay. HOWEVER, his independence probably kept the players from putting any of the tracks on the air.

The last song (as a new release) that I personally heard on the radio was "1,000 X's & O's" which I heard on WBLS (black radio) here in NY. I sat in my car and listened to it in it's entirety, savoring the feeling of "new Prince song on the radio" the way one would savor a fancy steak of expensive cigar.

I always viewed 3121 was his clean (JW) version of a new Diamonds and Pearls album. Designed to be a pop hit album in the Prince style of course.

RODSERLING said:

3121 was great. I heard from Dr Funkenberry that Prince was really upset that Universal didn't promote 3121 with tv ads during the pop idol performance. Prince wanted it to be a huge hit, but come on : there was a promotionnal agenda in France, published at the time that was really appealing : Performing at awards, talk show... He didn't do anything of that and the album bombed at 30.000 copies sold.

It was Prince last number one album in the top 200 in the USA.

[Edited 3/17/21 21:34pm]

kewlschool said:

kewlschool said:

RODSERLING said:

kewlschool said:

It was Prince last number one album in the top 200 in the USA.

[Edited 3/17/21 21:34pm]

And its last #1 was the Very Best Of !

That's a compilation not a stand alone album!

kewlschool said: