Over the last few years we've seen how if you get a big record co' behind you and a big PR machine getting your face across TV and magazines you can easily score a hit. Now with the Rave project P was everywhere, TV appearance after TV appearance, interviews galore in Mags across the world and more exposure than he's had in a long time, hell he even sold out on the symbol to trade on the Prince name.
Yet as we know it was a huge flop given the exposure it had, sure they fucked up on not releasing Baby Knows as a single with a video but it imagine how bad Prince must have felt. All this global exposure and I still cant sell shit!. Despite apparently getting c$11m his pride must have been torn apart. I wonder therefore if this made him take the much safer route and go down the jazz route, there's no real expectations to release truck loads of cds like TRC, NEWS etc and if they dont sell a decent amount he can easily turnaround and argue that it is not music for mass consumption.
It must have also made him think long and hard about doing another commercial cd hence maybe the abandonment of the High cd [than God!].
I'm a great believer in fate and like where he is musically now , i bet it would've been very different if Rave was as big as Santana s commercial comeback.
There ya go, just some thoughts.

...ended up on the jazz route!!! .Hate space limits!!.

Yewah--it really hurt him..he decided to pack it all in and quit...right after the TRC project and ONA tour


that be sarcasm m'boy!

If it did it was all his own doing.

Romance1600 said:

Agreed. It would have made perfect sense to release "So Far So Pleased" as the 1st single and he could have rode the wave of No Doubt who were really hot at that time. But he decided to roll with The Greates Romance and then released the video almost 3 months later...(SUICIDE)

javed said:

No, he's much too fast.

Taurus said:

U cant even hear No Doubt i.e. Gwen

Same with Baby Knows.

Baby Knows and So Far So Pleased were big commercial rock/pop songs, I think they would have done well.

But he wanted to go the ballad route, as per.

rdhull said:

True, you can hardly hear Gwen, but her voice is on ther and the credits read (..featuring No Doubt). Throw Gwen Stefani in a video and on the strength of her name alone the song would have received airplay which would have at least made others interested in the Rave project.

Taurus said:

True

also I think these two teacks --Baby Knows, So Fatr So Pleased, are great jukebox songs if ya get my meaning.

In the Let's Go Crazy vein.

Romance1600 said:

If you're respondoinmg to me:

yeah kind of..but they have that bar with apool table and beer sound that would work great in those ele,nets

Id love to be able to put on something juke jointish like that by Prince in a bar instead of the usual Prince hits

Baby Knows sounds like it was written by the Rolling Stones song
[This message was edited Wed Jan 21 11:25:26 PST 2004 by rdhull]

The commercial failure and media derision of Lovesexy seemed to affect his confidence and artistic direction permanently.

I read somewhere the Gwen and her record company wouldn't let Prince and Arista release So Far, So Pleased because it was promoting Prince's album and not No Doubt's. If that's true, then that's the reason it was never released, and it seemed to go directly against Prince's idea of CONtracts and only working with agreements.

Can you really make this comparison if Prince really didn't play by the rules as far as his role in the promotion? It still was Prince's fault...but I think he can have a big selling album again if he sucked it up and coordinated everything correctly with the promotional machine. I don't know if he's capable of it to be honest...but hypothetically it's possible.

I really thought 'The Greatest Romance' could have been a big hit - it had that universal love quality that 'Most Beautiful Girl' and that, say, 'Dinner with Delores' didn't. Sort of song you could imagine played at a wedding reception. I don't know how it failed, it must have been something to do with the timing of the release not coinciding with the promotion.

Although 'Greatest Romance' does have a strangely negative quality to it - after all it is The Greatest Romance ever SOLD not TOLD, which puts a cynical spin on it. Can't help feeling it would have been more warmly received just by turning the lyric into TOLD!

After that single failed, Prince's impetus behind the album seemed to failed, combined with trouble at Arista.

So I think it did make Prince think twice about going down the 'commercial' route.

metalorange said:

TGRES was just too weird to be a hit. Too weird, even with the cool Eve remix. It was weird.

The lack of success for "rave" didn't hurt Prince's ego because he viewed it as a screw up by Clive Davis. Also, after surviving "Under the Cherry Moon" and "Graffiti Bridge" he had built up a tough skin:-)

ThreadBare said:

I played TGRES & The One for a former avid Prince fan to get her opinion (without giving her any background info) and she thought The One was the better song.

Success in my opinion should not be determined by album sales. Music is a success upon creation. When I picked up Rave I thought it to be "okay"... But I think the format of the album or should I say theme was a little off. Generally Prince albums have a musical time point and flow from one song to the next. Rave seemed as if he put several songs together at different times. I think an album should "flow" upon the period of creation. When I write songs I write them from a "period of time"... So the subject matter is usually in line with song 1 to let's say song 10. He goes from "the greatest romance" to "i love u but i don't trust you anymore". When I pick up an album to listen to I pick it up for the frame of mind the album puts me into. Can't say really what mood Prince was looking for in that album Rave.

namepeace said:

Huh!?!

but then he reached his commercial peak in later albums...


...and as for the original Q here, No, he does what he does, the way he wants it. - The result is trivial.

So Far So Pleased is weak. He should have released Man O War.

I am always amazed that Rave is seen as the big comeback album for Prince. Personally I hated almost every song on it, but that's just a private opinion. There are likeable things on it, but nothing I love, except maybe Greatest Romance.

What's interesting about Rave is that some people love it, some people hate it, but those who love it have different favourites on it. They disagree about which are the killer tracks and which aren't. That doesn't happen so much with the older albums, people pretty much agree on which are the standout moments.

It didn't do well in the UK because a) The video wasn't shown on TV here except as a brief snippet on TOTP after the song had been out for a while

b) It wasnt built into an event. It kinda just happened.

c) When he did come here and played live on TFI (which was excellent) and TOTP - He played Baby Knows, which wasn't even out as a single.

In terms of commercial success the way Rave was promoted was nothing short of ridiculous. Where was the promo video of the collaborators talking about working with Prince for all the music shows to repeat over and over, why didn't radio have exclusive preview and build up plays of the album, why wasn't the video airing before the single came out. Why wasn't the appearances co-ordinated with the single release. Why didn't he play live on Jools ?

It's annoying.

The flipside is of course that Prince is loaded, doesn't need the success, and was trying new paths and new ideas. WHich is what I'd do in his shoes.

But ultimately the word that best describes how Rave feels to me is "Fake". It feels like a stuck together bunch of half-baked ideas that Prince doesn't really dig anyway.

namepeace said:

Lovesexy a failure??? You know at some point an artist has to look at the material and say "I'm right, dammit!"
I think this was P's take on Lovesexy. He appeared very confident and his attitude came across to me as take it or leave it. Nude cover, all songs tracked as one.. the odds were against him.
[This message was edited Wed Jan 21 18:00:51 PST 2004 by marcdeondotcom]

Fandangouk said:

There were Rave posters all over the city of Toronto, in the weirdest spots. Posters on walls, newspapers, posts. The promo team was pretty thorough. I remember being very excited at the time, but looking back I think it was all a bit extra.

Even though 'Rave' isn't one of Prince's best albums,I still think it could have done much better if these singles had been released (in this order)...


***"So Far,So Pleased"---With a flashy video,this song would have been all over MTV.An obvious choice for first single.

***"Baby Knows"---this song could have been another "Cream".It has the same commercial appeal,and it features Sheryl Crow.Imagine a sexy,well-choreographed video.

***"Wherever U Go,Whatever U Do"---another strong track with lots of commerical appeal.Lenny Kravitz basically took this song and came up with his own track---"Again"---and had a huge hit with it.


That's three strong commercial singles right there.Each of those songs had Top 10 potential.I don't know what Clive Davis and Prince were thinking when they chose "TGRES" and "Man O War" (two bland R&B songs) for the singles.

marcdeondotcom said:

Yeah, before he released Lovesexy he was probably very confident, but Lovesexy WAS a commercial failure (compared to the albums that came before it). I agree with namepeace that the lack of Lovesexy albums and concert tickets sold in the US affected his confidence and artistic direction. After Lovesexy he more and more went down the extreme commercial route trying to please the masses with popular rap stuff and such...

pitty...

Very true...he should stand aloof to sales and produce music that he actually likes. I refuse to believe that he likes this new shit he's releasing. He wants his heyday back, but it aint coming anytime soon. he started grovelling for audience approval with Diamonds and Pearls and it's been depressing ever since. Prince will forever be synonymous with the 80's so he should just accept that and take up a new career.

0rlando said:

Eh? Which commercial peak would that be ? The one that only counts if you forget about a little album called Purple Rain ? Or have I slipped into the reverse universe again...

As for the original question, I agree, I don't think Prince would have suffered too much of an ego-bashing from Rave's lack of success, he's used to lack of success. I'd say he was more annoyed than anything else, having spent all that time and effort promoting it to no avail.

Abrazo said:

Aren't we forgetting GB?
I think this is what really did it.