With the second releases from Musicology looking to be Call My Name (R&B) / A Million Days (pop) which have have expressed our approval or disapproval in various other threads. Lets now take a look back at the choice for second releases from other albums. What do you think ? Which were good ? Which were bad ? What should have been released? Starting with the post purple rain era up to the New Power Soul days.


Around the World in a Day - POP LIFE
my take: dont have a problem with this. There were not many radio friendly songs to choose from

Parade- Mountains
my take: The follow-up to the #1 smash Kiss. Expected a better showing, Mountains went Top 25 Maybe a case where the the movie sucked and the album died . Anotherlover should have been the second single

SOTT- IF EYE WAS YOUR GIRLFRIEND
my take: While concidered a Prince classic , radio in 1987 was not ready for this. Killed any momentum the first title track generated. Luckily U Got the Look and ICNTTPOYM where waiting in the wings. Just image if Strange Relationship was released second instead.

Lovesexy- GLAM SLAM
my take: The followup to the top 10 Alphabet St did nothing. An edited title track would have tore it up

Batman- PARTYMAN
my take : I liked this choice. The video rocked . Went top 20 but could not match the # 1 success of Batdance. Batman burnout maybe?

Graffiti Bridge - NEW POWER GENERATION:
my take: I was always an Elephants and Flowers fan. At least Tevin Campbell got a hit out of it after Theives in the Temple went top 10.

Diamonds and Pearls: CREAM
my take : Prince was hot in '91 and could do no wrong . Walk Dont Walk would have went Top 10

"SYMBOL" - MY NAME IS PRINCE
my take : what? how could you sit on "7" til the third single. Amazing this album sold close to 2 million thanks to "7" . Blue Light!, And God Created...should have been released.

The Hits - PEACH (pop)/ Nothing Comapres to U (R&B)
my take: Follow up to the minor hit Pink Cashmere . The only other choice was The Pope. Thank God that never saw the light of day. Really thought Peach/Notning Compares would have taken off. Of course this was the begining of the name change era and radio was freaked out.

Come- SPACE
my take: name chane/ Warners feud ..no promation. Nothing would have help this album after the Top 40 hit Letitgo. Although I would have love to see what "Loose" would have done

The Gold Experience - GOLD
in an album chalk full of radio smashes . He goes with I hate U followed by Gold (the new Purple Rain). aarrrggg this was so frustrating ..319, Shy, Endorphine Machine should I go on...

Emancipation- The Holy River (pop)/ Somebodys Somebody (R&B)
This wasnt so much the problem as Betcha By Golly Wow being the lead single. Somebodys Somebody took off on R&B . The Holy River was a minor radio hit on pop. Sure the title scared radio away. Sleep Around would have been my pick.

New Power Soul: Come On
As much flack as this album takes. The One (the first single) was a classic and Come On was a great catchy pop tune with Chaka on backup . These were the independant years, no major label , no radio.

Rave Un2 : NOTHING
This whole project was a mess. TGRES first and only release?! Although cheesy So Far So Pleased or Baby Knows would have helped save this disaster.


ok I have to get some work done enough of this trip doen memory lane.

newpower99 said:

His most under-rated single EVER!

Agree that Strange Relationship would've been a great single.

Other than alphabet St., Lovesexy wasn't really full of singles. Glam Slam makes as much sense as anything else. The title track seems a bit too out there for radio to me, edited or not.

Same thing with Graffitti Bridge. Not exactly a radio friendly album. Elephants & Flowers is fun, but again a little too weird for radio.

newpower99 said:

For the record the follow up to TGRES was Man O' War and it was packaged super cool. The outside of the actual disc was clear plastic. Probably the coolest of all the promo albums this side of the orignial Gett Off release.

Universaluv said:

I first heard the song "Lovesexy" on the radio, a few days before the album hit the stores...that song sounded GREAT on radio. I remember waiting for it to come on so I could tape it, and when it finally did, a friend of mine overheard the booming bass and Prince's deep voice, and said "What is that??"... ...I said "That's Prince...nice, huh?"

Always wished it had been released as a single...

Byron said:

I remember hearing (on the radio or MTV) that "Lovesexy" was going to be a single, then they released "I Wish U Heaven" instead. Anyone else hear the same?

Jasziah said:

Too bad they didn't..I think it would have done much better than "Glam Slam"...that part where Prince says "Dig me, now..." always gets me..

Jasziah said:

An extended 12-Inch remix of Lovesexy by Femi Jiya was already in the can, but somehow it was never released.

A very short snippet of that remix can be heard in the Omnibus BBC documentary.


.

Byron said:

It was definitely the single release I was waiting for. Funky fun.

Yup, Lovesexy WAS going to be a single. There was a single edit made as well as several
remixes/extended versions. Unfortunately they've never seen the light of day.

Lovesexy radio edit....of course we'd have to fade here:

"2 nite we make love with only words..girls first...girls first"

newpower99 said:

I wanted radio stations around the country to have "You want me to sit in your luuuv seat....don't u baby.." blaring out of car radios as mom drove the kids to soccer practice...

BorisFishpaw said:

Too bad crap like the 25 different unreleased mixes of Heaven Must Be Near did actually see the light of day in bootleg form, eh Boris?

.

2nd singles.... a retrospective.

Just As Long As We're Together
Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?
Dirty Mind
Let's Work
Little Red Corvette
Let's Go Crazy
Pop Life
Mountains
If I Was Your Girfriend
Glam Slam
Partyman
New Power Generation
Cream
My Name Is Prince
Peach
Space
I Hate U
The Holy River

I know what you're saying, but "I Hate U" really wasn't a second single -- it was the first release off of TGE. Canada loved this song. Too bad the States didn't. The radio edit was beautiful.

yeah, they're gonna mess this one up with call my name. great song. better 3rd or 4th single. not a good choice for 2nd single. but, that's just me. i know lots of people disagree with that.

"New power generation" would of been great if the video was good! Newjack was at it's peak then but the vid was a cheat!

"Pandimonium" from the time could of blown up huge if released as a single! I beleive this song could of been a popular classic as opposed to a minority classic (U must love this song-particually 4 parties) The vid could of been awsome too! Prince chose HIS OWN song again as a single with the retro "Chocolate", I love the song but come on Prince, how could that be a sucsess! Particually as the title track and "Sometimes i get lonely" are so well suited to radio and video! "Donald trump" could of been big too (a prince cut i know)... damn as second singles go, Pandimoniums choice was the most wasted!

ah ..now you did it ..I'm going to have to go home tonight and dig my old Pandimonium cassette out of my basement.

Jerk Out ..now that was a song

thesexofit said:

Don't forget that "Shake!" (from Graffiti Bridge) was released as a Time single as well during this time.

Yeah, it's easy to forget that there were actually five singles taken from Graffiti Bridge!
It's just that only 2 of them were 'Prince' songs...

Thieves In The Temple - Prince
Round And Round - Tevin Campbell
Shake! - The Time
Melody Cool - Mavis Staples
New Power Generation - Prince

BorisFishpaw said:

Doesn't it suck when P tries to be generous by sharing the limelight with others?

.

giotto said:

Absolutely!
Especially live, when he turns the stage over to his proteges and peers.
(The Dawn, NPS tour, Rave)

thesexofit said:

Hmm, I'd forgotten all about this song. With Donald Trump's success with The Apprentice, I'm surprised this hasn't been talked about here more in recent times. Heck, it could have even been released as a single and got a lot of radio play over the last year!

[/quote]


Well he didn't with the Pandimonium singles did he? Sure "Jerk out" as first single was a good choice but he past up on the other peoples contributions to songs! The 2 I mentioned in my above reply could of been huge but nope, he had to release his own written songs! I'm sorry but that was mean (and in general how mean he was to the time in the early 80's too )and not giving credit to people at times! (Eg Rosie Gaines apparantly co-wrote "Money don't matter tonight" with Prince, any credit given?)

BorisFishpaw said:

The thought of more Lovesexy gets me all excited. I do not know what I would do to hear that. It breaks my heart to think that is just sitting somwhere. alone. needing to be heard.

Someday, maybe.

thesexofit said:

If anything, Pandemonium as an album fizzled because of frictions within The Time moreso than Prince not choosing good singles for them.
http://www.purplemusic.my...tory6.html


As far as Prince not giving credit to people, we all know that when it came to The Time, Prince avoided taking any credit for just about everything to do with them when he could have easily said that they were just his side project.


.
[This message was edited Thu May 6 14:27:59 2004 by Universaluv]

BinaryJustin said:

TOTALLY AGREE! The Universal Love remix is the best Prince remix ever IMO

So historically, can we conclude his choice of second single is getting worse and worse?! I've always thought that he has increasingly lost faith in his rock/funk tracks as singles and always edges towards bland and safe r'n'b ballad numbers as though he isn't aware that there is tons of competition out there in the same field.

I always thought Dance On would have been a great single from Lovesexy.

I can never understand why he released that live version of 'Nothing Compares 2 U' - there's that bit of feed back in it that always makes me wince - couldn't he have found a version without feedback on it for goodness sake!

MAN O' WAR was Rave's second single actually.

newpower99 said:

Actually, Mountains was released - and peaked - before the movie came out. It was Anotherloverholenyohead that was released to coincide with the movie and really tanked... got to #63 on POP, if I recall correctly. It,also, had a weak video. Either way, Mountains obviously killed the momentum.

I think the single release for Parade should have been:

Kiss
Anotherloverholenyohead
Girls & Boys
Mountains