Wow watching this video on Youtube, these guys pratically stole the whole Prince act complete with Morris Day style dancing. In fact they copied Prince so well its a good song.
Do y'all agree and can you think of a more blatant rip off.

PS who were ready for the world and whatever happened to them. Were they a secret Prince protege group/ side act

No,Ready For The World had nothing to do with Prince.

They were a 6-member band from Flint,Michigan.They had a very Prince-inspired sound and style.The music on their first two albums sound alot like Prince's 1982/83 era.If you think "Oh Sheila" sounds like a Prince song,you should hear "Mary Goes Round" and "I'm The One Who Loves You".Those songs could almost be considered homages

Tonight

AKA; "Ready For The Kerl"

actually when they started off they were a ripoff of a Detroit based group called "Dreamboy".

then LATER, they ended up being Minneapolis wannabe's.

Yes, I think so. Its one of my all time favorite 80s songs but everytime I hear it, I think this sooooo sounds like a Prince song! They definitely were going for the Prince sound and vibe on this one.

ButterscotchPimp said:

What cha know about Dreamboy//

I want to Know Your Name
Don't Go
Contact
I promise
Friends

daytonohioplayer said:

i'm from Motown, baby!!!!!
"Walk The Streets"
"Get Off"

what YOU know .bout Dreamboy?????

ButterscotchPimp said:

Has anyone seen my activator?
I need it if I want my goose to look good for the gander.

MsLegs said:

I was in the Navy stationed in San Deigo back in the early eighties. I was cool with this dude from Detroit named Harold Jerome Dilliard. Any way Don't Go was so big in San Diego. I bought the tape, the 6 song EP. He knew some dude in Dreamboy named Dewey Twyman I believe.He said his daddy was a city councilman at the time And the lead singer, I want to say his name was Jeffrey Stanton. I love them to death! Especially the Contact album! They were on the Qwest label. Aroungd that time Qwest had a nother group named RADIANCE! Ever heard of them???


I walk the streets at night,,thinking are you worth the fight, yeah I walk the streets at night!! I might got the words wrong, but you are right, whattajam!!!!

daytonohioplayer said:

awwww, yeah!!!!!
actually, Jeff Bass from Dreamboy went on to produce Eminem and made a shitload of money doing it. Him and his brother Mark. I still have the Dreamboy EP on vinyl.

I don't know if i remember Radiance?

daytonohioplayer said:

Don't Go was my shit!!!

Wow, smallworld. I often wondered what happened to them. Radiance was slick as hell. Nice. Quincy jones had some nice groups back then.

TheMightyCelestial said:

LLLLAWWWWDD

Dayton and butterscotch; it's good to see some grown folk up in here who actually knows some thangs. Anyway, and I know SoulAlive and Vain remembers this, this song was HUGE! The timing of it could not have been better. It came out when the radio was "all things Prince". And even the title of the song was timing perfect. Sheila E. was hittin' with The Glam Life and being on Erotic City so she was popular on her own. Many folks thought at the very least, this song was about Sheila E. The cosmos was so thick around P during this period that even shit he had NOTHING to do with were becoming hits just from evoking him.

Uh...no

Ready for the world 's sound had nothing to with with the early 80's Minneapolis sound, I mean, back in the early 80's EVERYBODY used synths, keys and heavy drum machines, so...
[Edited 5/16/08 14:22pm]

I remember Dreamboy! I have their first album (a 6-song EP) on vinyl.My favorite song is "Walk The Streets"....an uptempo,Minneapolis-influenced jam.

blackguitaristz said:

I heard that even Sheila E. was fooled.She heard "Oh Sheila" on the radio and thought it was Prince singing about her

ButterscotchPimp said:

Who were Dreamboy, its ounds like the name of a Thai paedophile boy bar in Pattaya.

I never understood why this song was so popular back in the day. I still don't understand why it still gets love. I HATED it then and I HATE it now. It bugs me for some reason. I think it might be the vocal delivery, the singer's voice is annoying.

BlaqueKnight said:

So true. Ready were definitely like carbon copies of Dreamboys. It was a shame. Especially, when they released the following cuts on their albums: Tonight, Some People Don't Care, I'm The One Who Loves You, Here I Am, & Marry Goes Around.

didn't this group have fake ass british accents too?

BlaqueKnight said:

BK, I feel what you're saying. In reality, Melvin and the fellas committed no harm or foul. They were competent musicians, just like the The Deele, who happen to have a similar Minnie Funk vibe going. However, they wrote, played, and produced their own music.

Now, I think why the masses called Ready a Rip off group is because of the obvious Shelia reference in the song Oh Shelia. In addition, the group in the beginning had adapted some of the riffs , beat, and bass patterns of the Minnie Funk grooves at the time.

BlaqueKnight said:

Lady Cab Driver.
[Edited 5/16/08 20:19pm]

SoulAlive said:

coolcat said:

I was thinking more like, "The Glamorus Life". The synths in "Oh Sheila" and "The Glamorous Life" sound eerily similar. I've often thought that Ready for the World kinda took the song "The Glamorus Life" and rewrote it, making it their own song. But that's just my own speculation on it, I can't prove or disprove it. My cousin thought this was a Prince song too when it first came out.

can't type very well in the dark edit
[Edited 5/16/08 21:50pm]

For most of my life I thought Prince wrote this song about Sheila E and gave it to Ready For The World. It wasn't until I started using the internet that I found out otherwise.