Back in 1995 apparently Prince thanked WB for finally releasing TGE.

Eariler in the year he's stated many times it was NEVER to be released and cited WB and the contract dispute as the reason. In other words HE was with-holding it. So my question why thank WB, what compromise was made?

As it was the following year he was able to release Emancipation on his own terms. So if he was so passionate about the contract thing why not wait, just give WB more "filler albums".

KAB said:

I've always been curious also about how the gold experience ended up between 2 filler albums, C&D and Come. Honestly, that was around the time I didn't follow P to closely

KAB said:

and just who owns TGE right now? i would think if it was Warner it would still be available..i heard Prince owns that album....anybody know for sure?

Prince had made a special deal with WB for The Gold Experience release, so it wasn't tarred with
the same 'contract filling' brush that a lot of other albums from around that time were. By the
time it was eventually released it was already almost 2 years old, so Prince was already onto
the 'next thing' by then. If he had waited until he was 'free' to release it, it would have been
too old, and he wouldn't have wanted to promote it, he would've wanted to release and promote
something 'new'.

Mazerati said:

As far as I'm aware, Prince own The Gold Experience, not WB. He cut a special deal with WB to
release it while retaining the rights to the masters himself, in exchange for a few things in
regard to his 'contract filling' (including giving WB the right to issue a single disc 'best of'
compilation at their discretion... hence the release of 'The Very Best Of Prince').

OK.

I know TGE was dear to his heart at the time [1994-early 95] and therefore wanted it released and would therefore cut a deal.

Your answer throws up the question: who owns C&D then? If WB, why was it released under the symbol name when The Vault and Best of came after and were released as Prince. Surely it would have been better to keep the symbol releases for "free" music.

In the end he didn't promote/encourage sales of TGE in any case e.g. no timely eye hate u video. In other words he'd already moved on at that time. Most tracks were a year old by then.

TGE would have been his biggest hit of the 90s and that elusive "album he was born to make". Certainly a brilliant debut by symbol and a kick in the teeth to WB.

WB own Chaos And Disorder.

What albums were released as 'Prince' and what albums were released as '' was Prince's
decision not WB. And to be honest his decisions about what songs and albums belonged to
what name around this time don't make a lot of sense. For example, almost all the songs
on 'Come' are actually by '' rather than 'Prince', and had already been credited as 'brand
new songs' when they originally appeared in the Glam Slam Ulysses production. Most of
the tracks on 'Come' and 'The Gold Experience' were recorded at the same time, and a lot
of them swapped between albums before the final tracklistings were settled on.


Another point is that Prince supplied the artwork for all his releases too, so if WB didn't like a
specific album or cover art it was tough luck, they could decide not to release it but they
couldn't alter it in any way without Prince's approval.
[This message was edited Wed Jun 9 4:27:36 2004 by BorisFishpaw]

KAB said:

Actually that's a good question - The Very Best Of is obvious, it's all "Prince" music - but The Vault... Old Friends 4 Sale was delivered to WB when he was using the stage name

And we know Prince delivered the artwork and everything as a bundle, same with C&D - So did Prince intend C&D as a release, and Old Friends as a Prince release - or did WB add the naming of the artist on Old Friends?

OK, WB may own C&D but I don't believe it is a filler album.

A large % of tracks were reocrded together in 1996 especially for a "project" which turned out to be C&D.

I think Prince was enamoured by the success of Offsprings' SMASH album, whcih was on a independant label but still sold bucket-loads! The font and artwork on both C&D and SMASH are very similar. I think Prince wanted to create something similar - a turn the volime up2 11 guitar based album.