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Prince Decries Idea of Making Comeback

By NEKESA MUMBI MOODY
AP Music Writer





TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- Sitting in his purple-draped dressing room, sipping tea amid sweet-scented candles, Prince is as peaceful and serene as a superstar could be before showtime - until you utter the word comeback.

Just mention the idea that his latest album, "Musicology" - coupled with a tour, TV specials and magazine covers - has anything to do with regaining the spotlight, and a slight frown falls over Prince's chiseled, pretty face.

"I would ask people who want to call this a comeback, where they think I'm coming back from?" the 45-year-old star, neatly dressed in a taupe suit with matching heels, told The Associated Press during an interview backstage at the St. Pete Times Forum.

"They want to see me as having failed."

By "they," he means critics, who point out it's been more than a decade since the regal performer dominated the spotlight. His star burned brightest in the 1980s and early '90s as he sold tens of millions of albums behind hits like "Kiss," "Little Red Corvette," and "Purple Rain," from his blockbuster 1984 movie debut.

Back then, Prince's was part of the pop trifecta of superstars - as popular as Michael Jackson or Madonna, yet still in a class of his own. He was considered a musical genius, dazzling audiences with his guitar, piano or feverishly dancing footsteps. He always wrote and produced all of his own songs, which ranged from pop to R&B to rock, and from romance to raunch.

The reclusive musician was always something of an enigma. After his much-publicized dispute with his Warner Bros. record company, he not only became more of a puzzlement, but one big unpronounceable symbol (which is what his name became). As he abandoned major record labels and released music through the Internet and on his own, his star power and sales dwindled to a fraction of their former levels.

But Prince - who in person is chatty, warm and thoughtful, a marked contrast to the unapproachable image of his past - sees it differently. In his eyes, he has been more successful on his own. He mentions two projects that sold more than 100,000 copies. For a superstar like Prince, by industry standards, that would be deemed a failure.

"(But) I get all the money from that, so when you do the math on that, it's a big day at the races," Prince quips in his deep voice. "My bankers are very happy with me."

While Prince stresses he holds no bitterness, he clearly does not hold the music industry with much regard. He likens it to "The Matrix," and in going independent, he decided to take the little red pill.

He proudly notes that he determines where his records are sold, when he goes on tour and what kind of music he puts out.

"When you show you can be successful as an independent artist, the umbilical cord is broken," Prince says. "(Record contracts are) a parent-child relationship. An advance is an allowance. Any business situation is restrictive."

Yet for "Musicology," he went to Columbia Records - part of the Sony conglomerate - to manufacture and release it in conjunction with his own label, New Power Generation (NPG) Records.

And the typically reclusive entertainer - who gives few interviews and happily lives life out of the limelight with his wife and former employee, Manuela Testolini, in his hometown of Minneapolis - has suddenly become more visible.

In February, he kicked off the Grammys with a performance with Beyonce; he also made an appearance on Ellen DeGeneres' talk show. More media appearances followed, and it didn't hurt to be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March, where he again wowed audiences.

Seems like a guy who's looking to reclaim his throne. And it seems to be working - "Musicology" debuted on the charts at No. 3, selling about 192,000 copies. But Prince says he never stopped being a success - it's just that people weren't paying enough attention.

"Leno - this is the fourth time I've played it," he says of his recent appearance. The Grammys? "Every year they ask me to play the Grammys. I just said yes this year."

And his link with Columbia?

"They're augmenting the project - they're not the promised land," he says. He notes that he had a similar deal with Arista in 1999 and may put out an instrumental release on Blue Note Records this year.

Prince has fashioned "Musicology" as a lesson to new acts who care more about making hits than crafting musical gems.

"I really missed a lot of songwriting in music," he says. "There's not a lot of music. There's grooves, there's hooks. There just isn't any songs out there."

More disturbing to Prince, however, is the content. Rump-shaking video girls and songs that promote violence, sex and drugs - especially in rap and R&B - leave him shaking his head and chastising record executives who should know better.

"What you won't show your kids, don't show ours," he declares.

Of course, this is coming from a man who was one of the reasons parental advisories became standard on explicit records - his sexually charged material enraged many for years, and he never seemed to run out of ways to shock. (Remember the infamous "butt-out" pants he wore at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards?)

But the Prince of today is a Jehovah's Witness who refrains from cursing and won't sing those racy songs now. He frequently uses Bible verses and parables in conversation as he bemoans the lack of morality in today's culture.

"What we have today is the same situation right now that Noah faced," he says. "Some rain is going to come, and it's time to get on the ark. The best thing we can do is to keep our lives in order and our conduct clean."

He is surprisingly unrepentant, however, about his dirty past: "I didn't have any regrets about that - I was a young man."

Prince may never replicate the record sales or airplay of his heyday, but it's clear he doesn't think those were ever his glory years - he's living them now.

"There ain't nothing that I feel in lack of," he says. "It's a wonderful day."

Damn Prince thinks highly of himself.

I wish he would give an interview where he talked about interesting personal things instead of how much money he is making or how much better he is then the current crop of musicians.

lovemachine said:

He probably does talk about other things, but interviewers can spin what he says into what they want.

skywalker said:

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

Hmmm...he only gives these people 15 minutes and they all report the exact same things so it's doubtful. Plus occasionally an interviewer will report that one of the groundrules is that he is not allowed to ask personal questions of any kind.

lovemachine said:

Yes, his ego is off the charts. I think he is insecure on some level, so he always has to point out how much money he makes and how he is better than most current musical artists.

Oh well, a huge ego makes him a better live performer, most likely, so I guess it's cool.

lovemachine said:

And often the reporters are given the topics they can ask him about. It is the risky journalist who'll ask a ? off topic or try to weasel in a ? he wasn't expecting (on topic) (as in you risk losing the interview). It must suck to be restricted to questions you already know the answers to..or that other journalist have to ask. But it's his way of controling the media instead of the other way around.

NekeskaMumbiMoody said:

niiiiice!

lovemachine said:

Or he is speaking in the only terms that they seem able to understand. Most critics and journalists are the ones who had written Prince off on the basis of slumping sales, and they were the ones who equated his relative inivisibility in the mainstream as a failure. Why else would they call it a "comeback"?

He obviously does not feel that his years of freedom have been failures for him artistically--The Truth, The Rainbow Children, and NEWS represent serious artistic highpoints in his career and they all have had limited release--but the industry (including critics and media) seem unable to measure success by anything other than money. So ummm they dont want to hear about "I released what I wanted to, when I wanted to," they don't want to hear "I recorded whatever genre I wanted to," so okay, hear this: "I made lots of money" since that's all they seem to hear.
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[This message was edited Mon May 3 17:19:48 2004 by NuPwrSoul]

RupertZ said:

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His ego has always been off the charts. He is not saying anything he did 't say 10 years ago.
I don't see how he could be insecure with all the success he is having right now. You gotta have confindence to make it this long in the music industry and he's got it.

Pretty good article.


Pisses me off that while Prince is busy criticizing new acts for the amount of sex and violence in their music and videos, he conveniently forgets that he helped open the door of public acceptance to exactly that.


For good or for bad, Dirty Mind essentially opened the floodgates. He's condemning something he had a hand in creating.

NuPwrSoul said:

well said, nu.

meow85 said:

Maybe it's not represented as well in this article, but in other interviews, he has not forgotten his role in "pushing the envelope," in fact he openly admits that he did. He has frequently stated, however, that 1. he believes that things have gone too far and 2. that he feels as an older person he has a different sense of responsibility to younger audiences.

Of course, that's all subjective (how far is too far? and what responsibility?) but it's not unusual for older ppl to feel this way. Think of how many parents end up discouraging their children from doing things they themselves once did in their youth.

Excellent article. Once again I just must say that I Love Him.

nuihc said:

But Preacher you Don't Know! Ya Ever Seen The Thorn Birds? Gladly a Sinner and Thrown into the Fire to be Wrapped in your Arms. If Only Preacher you Wanted the Same...Boo-Hoo... Oh Preacher I will Always be your Wanton Strumpet. Oh, it's I cannot ..Gotta go to Confession...

IT MAY BE A COMEBACK IN THE COMMERCIAL, MTV, HEAVY ROTATION SENSE, BUT AS FAR AS MUSIC, ARTISTRY, PERFORMANCES, PLEASE, THATS A JOKE

chewymusic said:[quote]

NekeskaMumbiMoody said:

Presumably Xpectation or Xenophobia...

NuPwrSoul said:

exactly. And I don't think Prince is against "sexy" songs or even "racy" songs per se...it's like he told Tavis "sexiness was in the mind" meaning, you used your imagination...there's definately a lack of imagination in music today.

If he really wouldn't care about sales and money - as allegedly all the interviewers seem to do - he wouldn't even mention that his bankers are "happy"with him.

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[This message was edited Tue May 4 5:38:24 2004 by Abrazo]

Didn't know religious guys were so materialistic.

2freaky4church1 said:

lol ever heard of tithe?

JumpUpOnThe1 said:

I wonder what the Kingdom hall down the road is going to do with 10 million or whatever 10 percent of the huge amount of money Prince is going to take in this year?