IMHO, although the Grammys and RRHOF were very important parts of the "big comeback", it was the release of TVBOP that paved the way for Prince's resurgence. Although many peeps on the org probably owned all the hits, the casual/new fan did not, nor would they pay $35-$50 for the hits/b-sides or buy his entire back catalog (at least what cat you could find in Best Buy or FYE anyway). TVBOP sold over a million copies and made his most popular music accessible to Joe Consumer, while new releases he put out still languished. So of course by the time the Grammy's come up, the excitement was already there. Throw in a vague "played for the last time" dire warning tour that made the masses buy tickets in droves and there you have the ingredients for a comeback. Playing those same "hits" on multiple talk shows sparked even more interest. (sans, Musicology on the Tonight Show). TVBOP shoots all the way to #1 on the pop catalog, years after its release.

So thanks WB, you planted the seed that become that big ole Musicolgy root all over the cd cover.

I'm not sure how responsible they are for the 'resurgence.' I see your point about TVBOP keeping his music accessible. I would give most of the cedit to Prince, Mani, The NPG and Londell.

I saw the commercial for TVBOP on tv the other night. I hadn't seen it in a long time. Are they adverstising it again because of the 'comeback?'

PurpleCharm said:

I think TVBOP is being advertised sporadically in cities where the tour is coming. Here in San Antonio, ads for TVBOP started running about a week ago...the concert is here on June 9. WB ain't dumb.

I agree. Prince owes a lot of his success to WB. Not to say that they made him. Obviously he worked damn hard to get where he is now. But I think it's inaccurate when fans bash WB. What exactly did they do wrong?

WB's change of management caused the eventual breakup of Prince & WB .

Prince had a crew of people in his corner and when they left WB the group that Prince had stepped over/on were left in charge.They then proceeded to place Prince into the "Black" music division which ment that his albums would be promoted to a "smaller" audience thus smaller sales .Remember that this was after Prince signed the imfamous last WB contract.That contract stipulated that Prince had to sell more than 3 million (?) copies to make a profit.

The whole thing was a catch 22 not only for Prince but for other WB stars and it resulted in the situation that WB and the rest of the music biz is in now.They do not want to pay for the "star" acts.The end result was rap acts which are one-hit wonders to become the dominate genre in music.

Many people blame Prince (and he deserves 50% of the blame) but WB did not try to promote his music past 92.That is the reason why Gold flopped .

WB and Prince need each other now and if WB's music division was as strong as Columbia/Sony Prince would've resigned with WB.

WB now needs to release Dirty Mind,Controversy,1999,Purple Rain,ATWIAD,Parade,SOTT,& Lovesexy in remastered versions.Then you will see a real resurgence.

meltwithu said:

Even if it did go platinum after its release 3 years ago, it's hard to call that "excitement." There was no buzz in newspapers, magazines, and on tv shows for his Best Of released by Warner Bros. even approaching that of the Grammy and RRHOF performances, respectively. I even hear sports radio hosts talking about Prince now, and that never happened when his Best Of was released in 2001.

Had TVBOP never been released, the PR 20th anniversary and subsequent Grammy appearance, his induction into the Rock Hall, and this tour would have ushered in a resurgence. It probably would have just meant that many of the casual listeners would have looked into buying a cd or two of his '80s albums. I say this because the Purple Rain album also re-entered the charts in recent years after TVBOP was released, just like it did within the last 5 months. But I agree that the Best Of release makes this resurgence easier for them than the 3 disc Hits and B sides.