by Ronin Ro
That same month, there were changes at Warner. A corporate realignment plan now had Prince’s longtime supporter Mo Ostin reporting to Warner Music Group chairman Robert Morgado instead of the company’s top man, as Ostin had for years. Fearing a loss of autonomy, Ostin resigned. His departure inspired more resignations and realignment plans, leaving the world’s largest record company nearly paralyzed. Still more acts and executives learned Ostin was leaving, and planned their own departures as soon as contractually possible.
Prince, or , was a lousy talent scout, other Warner executives in Burbank decided. Paisley Park Records had costly penthouse offices in Century City, California, and a staff of nearly twenty, but had changed top executives three times in one year. Prince reportedly never stepped foot in the place. They saw Prince authorize overgenerous projects like sending a film crew to Egypt to shoot footage of Carmen Electra he allegedly never even released. Then Carmen’s album flopped. By the time Paisley released new albums by Mavis Staples and George Clinton in late 1993, Warner’s interest had faded. They faced the facts: The label wasn’t profitable.
Warner decided to salvage what it could, working on the three-CD greatest hits set. They claimed the album sold 3.45 million copies, Bream said. Believing he had little interest in the collection—especially now that he was —the label kept working on a package that would include digitally mastered versions of his hits, and a Herb Ritts portrait on the cover (Prince in sleek outfit, with pomaded hair and singing into a mic). But after his tour, Prince kept trying to get involved, submitting six new songs and offering his choice for liner notes. Warner, already behind schedule, agreed at Prince’s urging to hire his former employee Alan Leeds. Prince, in fact, personally called Leeds on the telephone. But to ensure no further delay, Uptown explained, the label actually paid Prince to stay uninvolved.
Despite the name change, Warner felt people were most interested in his activities as Prince. Instead of the usual price—$16.98 or $17.98—Warner priced the collection at $49.99. They filled the first two discs, The Hits 1 and The Hits 2 with hit singles, B-sides, unreleased tracks and, thanks to him, two new singles, “Pink Cashmere” and “Peach.” They also accepted liner notes in which Alan Leeds claimed the new symbol might actually start a new phase that, in fifteen years, would result in enough new hits for another collection. Warner arranged to sell The Hits volumes as separate discs, then got the singles “Pink Cashmere” and “Peach” into stores by September.
The label also promoted everything with a Billboard ad. But it infuriated Prince. Along with smiley faces, dollar signs, and other icons (including his ), a sentence read, “Just don’t call him Prince, OK?”
Critics praised it as almost four hours of phenomenal music.
Jon Bream wrote it should get Prince elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as soon as he was eligible. But Prince’s die-hard audience complained about the absence of Parade’s “Girls and Boys,” Sign’s “Housequake,” and “Batdance.”
Prince himself complained about Warner’s ad in Billboard. A week after it appeared, his own Billboard ad also presented an array of symbols, and it implied that the company restricted his output. Fans saw how even a promotional campaign could devolve into a public battle. The Hits single “Pink Cashmere” quickly left the Pop Chart. “Peach” didn’t even appear. The set peaked at No. 19, sold about 3 million copies in the U.S., and struck many as another failure.
Prince spent October 1993 working on an aggressive album called The Gold Experience. His new songs included “Now,” “319,” “Shy,” “Billy Jack Bitch,” “Gold,” “Acknowledge Me,” and “Ripopgodazippa.” He wasn’t breaking any new ground with it, but Gold was fun, playful, and teeming with potential hits. Some, in fact, judged it as his most marketable work since Diamonds and Pearls. Since he’d be crediting this to , he revisited the Prince album Come—the songs from January—and made a few changes. He moved his rock-flavored songs “Interactive,” “Endorphinmachine,” and “Strays of the World” to the album. He divided “Poem” into skits and presented what was left of it as “Orgasm.” He also added a new work called “Letitgo,” and an eleven-minute title track.
Some of Come’s best moments were on Gold, credited to . He wanted to change Come even more, but he submitted Come and Gold to Warner at the same time and said release both the same day. This way, ’s Gold (which held his more commercial works) could compete with his Prince album. Warner didn’t like his first Come. It now had few commercial songs. Its tracks were also dark, dreary, and dull. Sensing he was eager for a battle, executives accepted both albums. But they rejected his plan for two albums in one day.
But the problems weren’t over yet. They disagreed when Guitar Player planned to include his new song “Undertaker” in an issue, free, “to remind people that, hey, I’m actually a guitar player, too.” He created a thousand copies of this “picture CD” The Undertaker, and sent its cover to a printing company. Somehow, Warner learned of it and, according to Uptown, asked him to destroy every copy. He laughed. He simply wanted everyone to hear his long solos. “But Warners wouldn’t let me.”
By now, he even blamed Warner for his rock opera’s poor showing. But what really started the problem was when he introduced the topic of owning his masters, the actual reels that held his performances. He agreed to the contract, and earlier ones, but felt he recorded the albums in his own studio, and should own the tapes.
No dice.
Changing anything or giving him his masters would open floodgates. It would change how major record companies did business.
“He genuinely was hurt,” said engineer Tom Tucker. He didn’t know he didn’t own them. He either didn’t ask his managers and lawyers or they didn’t tell him. He assumed they were his. He learned otherwise. “He really changed then,” Tucker continued. “At that point, he took control. He started signing the checks, literally.”
Relations with Warner continued to sour. One day, Prince claimed, “some suit at Warners told me I no longer ‘had it.’” The next day, he sat, thought about Mayte, and wrote a ballad, “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World.” He filled it with sound effects: harps, chirping birds, and dripping raindrops. But Warner accountants questioned a single that wouldn’t precede an album. His new CD wasn’t due for four months. This wasn’t on it. Why launch a costly promotional campaign? Warner rejected the song.
He was almost relieved. He contacted independent national distributor, Bellmark, which had huge chart hits the previous year with Tag Team’s dance-raps “Whoomp! (There It Is)” and “Dazzey Duks.” Soon, he and Bellmark president, Al Bell, were talking. Bell, once at Stax Records in the sixties, had recently worked with Mavis on her album for Paisley Park. Now, Bell would help with the single.
In December 1993, ads in several national magazines showed an obscured photo of Prince. A caption read “Eligible bachelor seeks the most beautiful girl in the world to spend the holidays with.” Interested parties should send photos or videos to Paisley Park. Ads in People and Entertainment Weekly mentioned people could order advance copies by calling 1-800-NEW-FUNK (though the service charge exceeded the cost of the record). Reporters rushed to ask Warner’s opinion. “He is able to do this with our consent,” said Bob Merlis. “He is still a Warner Bros. artist and should he do an album, it will be for us.”
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WHAT’S THIS STRANGE RELATIONSHIP?
BY NOW, THE MEDIA WAS CLAIMING WARNER WOULD RELEASE two albums—Come, by Prince, and Gold, also by Prince—on the same day in April or May, frustrating Warner to no end. “I got the feeling they kind of wanted to be rid of him,” said Neal Karlen, who knew people at Warner. “They were waiting for another 10 million seller, and it wasn’t coming.” Before executives knew it, he was asking them to release even more music. When they didn’t immediately rush to release his single “Love Sign,” he told himself he’d throw it on a compilation album, 1-800-NEW-FUNK, named after the phone number customers would call to order copies.
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p; The Warner situation entered its next stage. With Prince about to release music on another label, Warner reconsidered its stake in his label Paisley Park Records. No Paisley record or ancillary release—save for Prince albums and the 1990 Time reunion—had topped charts. Paisley hadn’t broken an artist in years. But Warner had still invested about $5 million as a partner. Finally, Leeds remembered, Warner told him, “We’ve supported you and we’ve never ever said no to something you wanted to do; so when are you going to come with something that will help subsidize that?’” It was “a generous attitude to have,” Alan Leeds felt, since Prince had delivered works by George Clinton and Mavis Staples that Warner vice president Bob Merlis reported had sold 175,000 and “less than 100,000,” respectively.
Warner hadn’t bothered releasing Staples’ work in other countries. Clinton’s Hey Man … Smell My Finger vanished just as quickly. As usual, Prince insisted that bad promotions were to blame.
By February 1, Warner decided to end its deal with Paisley Park Records. Both companies announced the sudden closure. Clinton, Staples, Rosie Gaines, Tyler Collins, and Eric Leeds all lost their deals. Warner stopped pressing Clinton’s album. Prince lost his spot on Warner’s board. Merlis publicly said, “It’s a mutual agreement. When I say, ‘It’s mutual,’ it’s not face-saving. I think he wants to make his career happen.”
As usual, Prince blamed the other side. “All we do as artists is make the music. I didn’t think I’d have to be marketing the records, or taking them to the [radio] station.”
He focused on the single—arriving in mere days—as reporters began to claim his empire might be too expensive to maintain.
As promised, the video debuted during the Miss USA Pageant, featuring women from the ads. Then, February 14, Valentine’s Day, NPG/Bellmark released the single, his first as . MTV aired the video that night and the song rose on Billboard’s Hot 100, from No. 3 to 2 then 1. Using the 800 number, customers paid $3.95 for a cassette, a dollar more for a CD, and other prices for special versions (remixes and different packaging). The handling charge however was $3.25 while shipping ran either $5 (for four- to five-day delivery) or $9.50 (for a two- to three-day rush order).
Without Warner now, he turned to an international network of independent promoters (including the UK’s two-man outfit Grapevine). And according to him, they did a better job. “I was number one in countries like Spain and the UK where I never had a number one single before.”
He was reportedly spending heavily on promotion, but it was worth it. The single was his most commercial hit of the decade. Still, the media remained divided on how well it was actually doing. One reporter claimed it “sold enough to cover its modest overheads” and that a “spin-off EP” did well. Another said it sold a million copies in the U.S., but its price ($1.85 wholesale) “virtually ensured it couldn’t make money.” Either way, Prince was hot again. And though Warner claimed he was glutting the market, the single enjoyed a long Top 10 run. More than ever, Prince felt justified in placing the blame on others—not his material—for all his previous low sales.
March 11, he submitted Come, his album as “Prince,” only to hear major label executives say it needed work: a better title track, stronger numbers and, supposedly, the song “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World.” He allegedly refused to hand them that song. Five days later, at another VIP party at Glam Slam, he played a few songs from his other new album Gold, including “Billy Jack Bitch” (about a local newspaper columnist), his fuzzy “Days of Wild,” “Now,” and a theatrical new ballad, “Eye Hate U.”
In May, Prince was off to Monte Carlo for the World Music Awards, not to mention interviews with Britain’s Q, Germany’s Max, and America’s Vibe. Everyone panicked, however, when a poster for the awards called him Prince. Someone quickly drew his gold over it. “If he’d seen that,” said a relieved employee, “he might just have turned around and gone home.”
In the front row, Prince watched Whitney Houston accept a World Music Award for “I Will Always Love You,” 1993’s most popular record. “I don’t care,” she said to him from the stage, “I’m going to call you Prince.” In his seat, he smiled weakly and nodded. His performance at an after-party thrown by Prince Albert of Monaco kept him in the headlines. And supportive rock writers kept mentioning Warner’s release of Come approaching in July.
He kept money coming by opening a shop in North London and doing good business with Prince memorabilia. But he had gone through four publicity firms in only nine months. In Europe, he continued to maintain that a spiritual change inspired his new name, . But while leaving a posh hotel one night, he heard fans outside scream “Prince!” He lowered his head, smiled, and entered a waiting car, clearly not minding that they used his given name.
Still, he had to continue with the . “He genuinely thought that by changing his name he could get out of his Warners deal,” European publicist Chris Poole told Q Magazine. At one point he told Poole, “If I’m not Prince anymore, they can’t hold me to my contract.” When Poole asked if he’d discussed this with his attorneys, Prince said, “Hah. Lawyers.” But when the Daily Star called him insane, Prince vented. “Why are they calling me mad?” Poole replied, “What do you expect? You do these things and don’t explain yourself properly.” Prince said he’d do interviews. But he wouldn’t let anyone tape or write anything. This way, he’d be able to discuss Warner. “But if there was no record of the conversations he could always say he was misquoted,” Poole explained. “Which drove Warners mad.”
He was eccentric, Poole added, but not careless.
One night at midnight, he was in white silk clothes and full makeup. He was using half brother Duane’s room for an interview. Duane, now his head of security, had led him into the junior suite. Again, Prince banned recorders, notepads, and pens. Sitting near the writer on a bed, he said, “I don’t say much.” After he evaded a few questions, he and his interviewer heard a crackling noise escape the huge TV nearby. Nodding at it, Prince said, “It’s a sign. It’s a sign that we should go to my room.” He raced for the door.
Duane asked what was wrong.
“A sound came through the TV. It’s a sign.”
“Nah, you probably just sat on the remote control.”
He returned to the interview but exploded when the writer asked how he thought others perceived him. He shrilly answered, “Are you normal? Are you normal? Is that what you’re asking me? Do I think I’m normal? Yes, I do. I think I’m normal. I am normal.”
Next up was Vibe’s Alan Light, again in an opulent overseas hotel. After meeting Prince in San Francisco one night a year or so ago, Light had returned to New York City the next day and called Prince’s publicist Karen Lee. “And she said he was happy and I should just sit tight and we would see what would happen.” Months later, Prince’s camp invited Light to Paisley Park.
Light traveled to his studio complex but later called this the weirdest part of trying to arrange the interview. There, Prince had him spend the day watching him rehearse new songs. Only at the end of the session did he offer Light a brief greeting. To this day, Light is “still not sure what that was all about. If he wanted to talk then changed his mind; if there was one specific thing he wanted me to hear …” Light had fun “but I didn’t really get the point.” They met one more time in Manhattan before Prince sent word “in late spring of 1994 that he wanted to commit to an interview,” Light explained. “But the only time and place we could schedule was in Monte Carlo, when he had to be there for a few days for the World Music Awards.”
Once again, Prince let Light glimpse the man behind the image. “When you sit and talk to him, his voice, his whole demeanor when you’re with him one-on-one is so different from the ‘space alien vibe’ he usually projects in public,” Light noted. If anything, he was surprisingly normal.
But in Monaco he continued to promote his dramatic image. One day, he changed his outfit three times. “And that was a day without a show!” Light quipped. “Talk about always bein
g on.” Then he left his hotel to attend the awards show. He let Light accompany him. “And there was this wild throng of people out front screaming and grabbing for him,” Light said. The writer wound up becoming a link in the line of security guards blocking the path Prince used to reach his limousine. “And it was terrifiying,” Light said. “When you really confront just how insane people are around stars like him, it is such a reminder of how unreal their lives are.”
After a few conversations, Prince decided it was time to speak. This time, he hoped to use their interview to convince Warner to reconsider his plan for two albums in one day. He brought out two CDs with hand-drawn art. “And he did play me the two discs, or at least highlights from them,” Light recalled.
First, he played Light Come, by Prince. But he skipped between tracks. “It all sounds strong—first-rate—but he seems impatient, like it was old news,” Light suggested. Next, he introduced The Gold Album, his first collection, and let songs run, played air guitar, even played at the piano. Light saw “he was more excited about these songs.” That “he was so into this music, he wanted to hold it back from Warner” until they came around to the “kind of distribution and strategy” he wanted. In print, Light wound up judging the Prince album as more commercial but “also more conventional.”
Back home, in mid-May, Prince created another version of Come. He included the revised title track that Warner wanted and “Letitgo.” He then momentarily lost himself in further improving Gold, removing his thrashing rock dirge “Days of Wild” and the fake reggae of “Ripop-godazippa” (part of which appeared in that flop Showgirls). After further tinkering, he submitted the newest Come to Warner. Even with an eleven-minute title track, it was his shortest work since Batman.