The "Is Prince's Empire Crumbling" article is just reflecting what people were saying back then. Despite people around here thinking "Sign O The Times" was a "masterpiece", lots of people were fed up with Prince back then and there was only about 9 or 10 people in the movie theater in my area when the concert film was released.

Prince had pissed them off beginning with "Around The World In A Day". It was a complete style change from anything else he had ever released. His protegee groups The Time, Vanity 6, and Apollonia 6 had all broken up and his new protegee group, The Family, wasn't the classic Minneapolis Sound either that people were used to and wanted. Then "Parade" came out and pissed people off even more because instead of Prince snapping out of his artsy/fartsy mood, he continued it and got even deeper into it. Not to mention the misleading lead single "Kiss" which made people think the "old Prince" was back only to be disappointed when they bought the album.

Then right before "Sign O The Times" was released, Prince announced that he fired The Revolution and was going back to recording all by himself like he had in the past. This excited a lot of people because many people blamed Lisa and Wendy "those white girls" for Prince's artsy/fartsy style change and without them around, maybe Prince would snap out of the 60s and 70s mood he was in and bring his ass back to the current era of the 80s.. Then, "Sign O The Times" comes out and Prince is still stuck in the 60s and 70s, this time even looking like John Lennon with those glasses.

"Right On" wasn't lying, people were pissed. Remember, "Right On" was a magazine that catered to the black R&B crowd and this is the crowd that had been with him since the beginning. This wasn't a white crowd that had just stepped aboard with "Purple Rain" and then got the style change thrown in their face. The "Right On" crowd had lived through album after album of the Minneapolis Sound and were not happy at all with the style change.

vainandy said:

A recent issue of Black Beat:


Sad,isn't it?

vainandy said:

A recent issue of Black Beat:


Sad,isn't it?