jazzz said:

The SOTT double album is regarded by many as Prince's best release. But what if... he had decided to release Around The World in a Day as double album, including the long versions of Paisley Park, Raspberry Beret, America (maybe edited down to 8 min. or so) and Pop Life. Plus the non-album tracks Always in my Hair, Hello, Girl and 4 the Tears in your Eyes... Would this expanded version have become as impressive and a fan-favorite as SOTT? I remember that for a long time, many fans didn't have such a high opinion about the "strange" 1985 LP, it was always a bit overlooked. Would this have been different if that album would have been a double album? In such expanded configuration all favorable ingredients might have been there to have made it a neo-hippie classic: the cover, the extra trippy extended versions, the added value of the great extra tracks, and a true sonic trip and even stronger album-concept due to the psychedelic theme explored over a doubled length. Please share your thoughts... [Edited 7/4/25 20:34pm]

For one thing, SOTT wasn't the critical success it was because of longer tracks, so IDK that putting the extended cuts would have helped. + most two the 12'' extended mixes, as well as Girl and Hello, are known to have been recorded/overdubbed after the album's release, so they were afterthoughts.

+ IDK, the context of 1985 and 1987 was very different for Prince. In 85, the focus was still on North American audiences, when by 1987, Europe had become an important target audience. In 85, Prince had to defy expectations by releasing an anti-Purple Rain of sorts, which was always gonna generate some backlash from parts of the fans and critics alike, while in 1987 he was elaborating on a more sophisticated sound that was by then accepted as his new norm. + IMHO one reason why SOTT was so well received is that it was somewhat very relevant in terms of zeitgeist and what critics expected, and very much aimed at pleasing both rockists and poptimists, when the retro rock vibe of ATWIAD was at odds with most of what 1985 was about hypewise.

Now don't get me wrong, ATWIAD was one of my favorite 80s albums when I got into Prince, I still think it's utterly brilliant from beginning to end and I find it sad that for some reason, it literally became the somewhat forgotten child, the one record that no one really talks about anymore, of the "genius streak" that kinda went on from 1982 to 1988 (1980 to 1987 according to some, but everyone agrees 1982-1987 at least was a damn perfect streak), but I don't think a double album would have been a better strategy. Sadly, it probably would have been labeled as self-indulgent.

jazzz said:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I bought the album in 1985 the day it came out (in Holland) and as a 16-year old, was directly blown away by what I heard. Luckely, being born in '68, my parents raised me on a diet of psychedelic Beatles albums, so while hearing the new Prince record I was able to place the music in a certain context. The album and it's later remixes and b-sides became immediate favorites, how different from 1984's PR (which made me a fan in the first place) they appeared to be. With the rise of Lenny Kravitz and his retro sound, and even old school revival rock from bands like GnR, just a few years later, I always felt that ATWIAD played a catalytic role in that movement, especially by bringing back that more band-driven 60's sound, away from the "cold" synths and drum machines that dominated the early/mid 80's. So, although considered a sleeper by many, this seminal and visionary record may have had quite some impact from its early days onwards. It did not connect to a Zeitgeist, it created one! Even more so, SOTT would not have been possible without ATWIAD.

IDK really. If anything, ATWIAD echoed the pre-existing Paisley Underground movement from California, of which The Bangles and Three O'Clock were part of, but that never really made noise. Then there was the occasional return to psychedelia in the following years (Tears For Fears, Boy George or Dave Stewart come to mind), but it usually was like one song and it made sense that 20 years later, there would be a bit of a 60s nostalgia in the air (though it never really took off, the 80s seemed more preoccupied with 50s nostalgia, at least in Hollywood).

When it comes to Kravitz in 89, I think it was more a visionary glimpse of things to come: the 70s, or more specifically the 1965-1975 hippie era, came back with a bang in the the 90s, there was a massive nostalgia for the 70s for that whole decade, but for some funny reason it never really addressed The Beatles, it was more the very American Summer of Love/Woodstock side of the movement that resonated with my generation (I'm from 1976). That and, in the UK and Japan, a reabsorbtion of those years' easy listening with trip-hop and Shibuya kei respectively. Others rediscovered glam rock and prog rock. 70s funk (and p-funk in particular, thanks to hip-hop) also were rediscovered by a whole generation.

But the Beatles and the early, softer side of psychedelic music? No one from my generation gave a fuck about the Beatles or any early psychedelic act in the 90s: very much like Elvis, they sounded like antics to my generation, dead icons that came before things became cool and interesting. IDK why, but it's the way it was. So in that sense, I don't think the Beatles-inspired psychedelia of ATWIAD had much impact. But IDK, I may be overlooking something and you may be right. It's jjust my general impression.

[Edited 7/5/25 1:47am]

At the time I had no clue who was George Clinton, but many years after ATWIAD, when I really got into Funkadelic and discovered their early albums ("Free Your Mind...", "Maggot Brain"...), that took the whole psychedelic Beatles-influenced-cliché out of ATWIAD forever for me.

The Paisely Underground movement in L.A. in the early 1980s most definitely contributed to ATWIAD as much as the Beatles. Probably more. Prince was recording there and always looking for ideas. Taking something underground that not many people know about and giving it a Top 40 glow-up is exactly what he would do. Madonna did the same with Vogue.

I would still say ATWIAD is the weakest album in Prince's great run of albums. It has some remarkable songs, but doesn't do it for me as a whole. I doubt that making it a double would have helped.

leecaldon said:

I would still say ATWIAD is the weakest album in Prince's great run of albums. It has some remarkable songs, but doesn't do it for me as a whole. I doubt that making it a double would have helped.

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He hurried it to market to self-sabotage his career, cut short the Purple Rain Tour, announced he wasn't gonna tour anymore and wasn't gonna release singles and videos... and we were all supposed to feel sorry for the multi-millionaire rockstar and praise him for his daring exploits.

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And then of course the album started to tank and he realised he'd made a huge mistake because he looooved having all that money.

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It was such an asshole move, including having Susan Rogers come in to finalize it on frikking Christmas day. He spent days on a single song for Purple Rain, he spent tons of time coming up with track listings and you could see an album evolve. Yet with ATWIAD all that was rushed and it just shows.