Sorry if this has been discussed before (I searched but couldn't narrow down a thread).

I found this clip of Quincy Jones discussing the rivalry between Prince and MJ. According to Quincy, Prince would refer to MJ as "Camille".

With that in mind, does anyone think there was any significance to Prince naming his own ambiguously-gendered alter ego "Camille"? Was he commenting on or reacting to MJ?

Here's the clip (I have it queued up to the relevant part):

https://youtu.be/ePAGL2Vb8Uw?t=278

This is actually very interesting. Michael >< Camille. The names sound very similar. Almost as if one is the other spoken backwards.

The Camille album was compiled near the end of 1986. We Are the World was released in 1985 and Bad was recorded between 1985 - 1987. There's a chance that the Camille album may have been in part a response to Michael or the Bad project?

This was the period when Prince was trying to break back into the R&B chart. I think I remember reading that part of the reason he didn't want to work with Michael was because he was trying to step away from pop music and get airplay on soul stations again (which was ironic since he then went on to make 'U got the Look' with Sheena Easton).

Pair that with the fact that the Camille LP is very similar to the Black album. A funky side project not meant for the mainstream. Maybe he viewed the Camille album as an antithetical release to Michael's Bad LP.

It's just speculation on my part, but it's interesting. Nice find.

lurker316 said:

I doubt it. Camille was always presented as a “devilishly cool” character, so it doesn’t really fit. The concept became a vessel for what Prince regarded as negative qualities in his character, but he never completely renounced or exorcised him, saying in later years merely that “Camille hasn’t been around for a while” etc. Camille was cynical, dark, provocative, a little shallow, but funky – essentially dionysian in character, which was Prince's true character if you ask me. None of this evokes MJ to my mind (perhaps the dark part... ).

He was just an artistic construct created by Prince to grapple with certain themes in his own mind.

Personally, I wish that Camille had slapped Prince across the side of the head the moment that he picked up any JW literature, but that’s just me.

[Edited 6/27/19 15:01pm]

Wolfie87 said:

lurker316 said:

Sorry if this has been discussed before (I searched but couldn't narrow down a thread).

I found this clip of Quincy Jones discussing the rivalry between Prince and MJ. According to Quincy, Prince would refer to MJ as "Camille".

With that in mind, does anyone think there was any significance to Prince naming his own ambiguously-gendered alter ego "Camille"? Was he commenting on or reacting to MJ?

Here's the clip (I have it queued up to the relevant part):

https://youtu.be/ePAGL2Vb8Uw?t=278

Does this clip include comments by Quincy on how shitty Prince is on guitar, how shitty he is as a bandleader. How shitty he is on Piano, how shitty he is as a Bass Player, how shitty his voice is how shitty he is compared to MJ?

He's probably just sour :

fen said:

Wolfie87 said:

lurker316 said: Does this clip include comments by Quincy on how shitty Prince is on guitar, how shitty he is as a bandleader. How shitty he is on Piano, how shitty he is as a Bass Player, how shitty his voice is how shitty he is compared to MJ?

He's probably just sour :

VaultCurator said:

This is actually very interesting. Michael >< Camille. The names sound very similar. Almost as if one is the other spoken backwards.

The Camille album was compiled near the end of 1986. We Are the World was released in 1985 and Bad was recorded between 1985 - 1987. There's a chance that the Camille album may have been in part a response to Michael or the Bad project?

This was the period when Prince was trying to break back into the R&B chart. I think I remember reading that part of the reason he didn't want to work with Michael was because he was trying to step away from pop music and get airplay on soul stations again (which was ironic since he then went on to make 'U got the Look' with Sheena Easton).

Pair that with the fact that the Camille LP is very similar to the Black album. A funky side project not meant for the mainstream. Maybe he viewed the Camille album as an antithetical release to Michael's Bad LP.

It's just speculation on my part, but it's interesting. Nice find.

See : Mark Brown becoming Brown Mark, Terry Casey becoming Casey Terry, etc.

Actually I take that as a big compliment toward MJ.

He probably just referred to Michael with the name in order to make fun of him before it became the name of a character Prince himself started using for his projects.

fen said:

I doubt it. Camille was always presented as a “devilishly cool” character, so it doesn’t really fit. The concept became a vessel for what Prince regarded as negative qualities in his character, but he never completely renounced or exorcised him, saying in later years merely that “Camille hasn’t been around for a while” etc. Camille was cynical, dark, provocative, a little shallow, but funky – essentially dionysian in character, which was Prince's true character if you ask me. None of this evokes MJ to my mind (perhaps the dark part... ).

He was just an artistic construct created by Prince to grapple with certain themes in his own mind.

Personally, I wish that Camille had slapped Prince across the side of the head the moment that he picked up any JW literature, but that’s just me.

[Edited 6/27/19 15:01pm]

I once read somewhere, either here or Housequake that Camille was a character he created for a movie script he had (with the Camille album being a soundtrack to it) about some washed up singer being upstaged by this Camille character who made amazing music and did amazing shows only to find out in the end that they were the same person. Like Fight Club.

novabrkr said:

He probably just referred to Michael with the name in order to make fun of him before it became the name of a character Prince himself started using for his projects.

Was this around the time Michael started looking like a woman? I can see that, it sort of seems like an anagram aside from the missing/extra letters. At least it wasn't Liz or Diana.