1987, Part 4: Don’t Buy The Black Album. I’m Sorry
Some of the Prince music I have bought has been harder to get a hold of than others. What's weird is that I went to the most trouble and expense to get one of my least favorite albums. In my freshman year of college I learned there was this Prince album that had only seen a limited release for like half a second a few years before. I remembered seeing it on the shelves of the Best Buy, but had never paid it much attention. Now I wanted it. Badly. My roommate suggested I attempt to secure a copy using a preposterous new invention – an online auction! Sure enough, I got won a contest for an album and paid almost Forty Earth Dollars for The Black Album via the ebay.
Wait Now, Hang Up
If you’ve been reading the last few entries in this blog, it will come as no surprise when I say that a lot was happening for Prince in 1987, not the least of which was a further ramping-up of production as Paisley Park opened. Long story short, nine months after “Sign O The Times,” Prince wanted to release another album. Warner wasn’t saying no, but they weren’t super enthused either. After all, they hadn’t yet squeezed all the money possible out of the last album. The Grammy nominations hadn’t even happened! What was Prince thinking?
Good question, but as usual there is no clear answer. Part of it probably has to do with reactions to the last album. The criticism of “Sign O The Times” Prince took most seriously was that his music had gotten out of touch with contemporary African-American sounds. He did not sound like what the kids were listening to. To put it plainly: Prince wasn’t funky enough. If ever there was a criticism calculated to hit him where he lived, that was it. He could not have people saying that about him. For all its shortcomings, one thing you can say for The Black Album is that it has no lack of funk.
Part of it probably has to do with lingering frustration over the process of getting to the final form of “Sign O The Times.” For some reason, he couldn’t shake the notion of releasing music under a pseudonym. The Black Album was to be that idea taken to its extreme: a completely black sleeve. No credits or text of any kind beyond the required catalog number. It is rumored Prince tried to use this to assuage Warner’s concerns that Prince was again trying to flood the market with his material, which must have played wonderfully: instead of too much Prince, there would be nothing whatsoever with which to sell this wretched slice of vinyl. Great. Thanks, Prince. For whatever reason, Warner Bros. allowed the album to be released on December 7, 1987. Or they definitely would have, had Prince not pulled the album on December 1.
Well, Why Can’t We Just Dance?
Even for Prince, this move was buck wild. Prince had pulled albums before, but that was after the album had been sequenced, and on one occasion after it had been mastered, but this was after the album had been manufactured. The album had already been sent to DJs and critics. You might see where I’m going with this already. Prince stopped the album before it could be sold, but he did not stop it getting out there into the great wide world. So it got listened to, talked about…and copied. And copied. And copied. The Black Album is widely regarded as the most bootlegged album of all time.
And it got rave reviews! Partially due to the fact that their readers couldn’t (legally) get their hands on it, accolades for it rolled in. Several artists, including no less than Bono, listed it as one of their top ten albums of the year.
But as it got copied over and over, the sound quality degraded more and more, until finally scratchy, muddy copies were all that was available. The lyrics were even too fuzzy to make out in places. The fans yearned for something more, something pristine. Like an official release. Only Prince could give it to them, but he was not inclined. On a video from his next album there is even a brief message which reads “Don’t buy The Black Album. I’m Sorry.” (see below) Prince did briefly speak on the incident, but as usual the answers were not exactly satisfying. In an interview he gave to “Rolling Stone” in 1990, The Black Album came up and he said:
“I was very angry a lot of the time back then, and that was reflected in that album. I suddenly realized that we can die at any moment, and we’d be judged by the last thing we left behind. I didn’t want that angry, bitter thing to be the last thing. I learned from that album, but I don’t want to go back.”
….’kay. So he really did not want to release The Black Album. Got it.
There are all kinds of stories running around fandom, most of which revolve around Prince taking a drug (once and only once) and having a bad experience. and for some reason that was why he did it. Sometimes it's LSD, I've also heard PCP and meth, usually it's ecstasy. Sometimes it's with Ingrid Chavez and if she's there, it's always at her suggestion, which really does not add up. She's around for years, and if you gave Prince a bad trip your remaining time at Paisley Park would be measured in milliseconds. All of this sounds incredibly far-fetched to me, might as well say a skunk ape rolled up to Paisley Park driving a 1974 Ford Pinto and said "Don't do it, Prince!" Anyway, they call it Blue Tuesday. Whatever.
Fast forward to 1994. Prince (then going by an unpronounceable symbol) and Warner Bros. are no longer on good terms. This has to do with a few things that I’ll talk about later, but the one that is important now is their concerns over the pace of his releases had reached the boiling point. They were now forcibly slowing the pace of things by refusing to release albums to his schedule.
Prince wanted out of his contract. Badly. The only way out was to release a certain number of albums, which Warner Bros (who, to be honest, had to be getting sick of this dude) would not do. He would do anything – anything – to get enough music out there to end this contract.
I can’t figure out who first brought up The Black Album, but I’m guessing it was Warner Bros. The deal was this: The Black Album gets released, Prince gets another punch on his “record deal loyalty club card,” BUT the release is limited. Only two months. They haggle over exactly which two months, and finally Warner gets November and December – which they want for obvious reasons. And Prince gets a million dollars. And that is how, in 1994, The Black Album finally went on sale officially. It is also how, four years later, I had to pay forty freakin’ dollars to hear one of Prince’s worst albums.
Yeah. You heard me, Bono. The Black Album sucks.
Are You Sure I’m In The Right Place?
It’s not as if this fertile creative period is going sour or anything, because the backing tracks are fantastic. These should be good songs, it’s just that the lyrics are trash. The most amazing thing about The Black Album is that at this time Prince was running so hot he could burn up music this good on lyrics this bad and still make a stone masterpiece like “Lovesexy” in the next two months.
Tracklist
Le Grind
The opening track is one of the funkiest things Prince has produced since the “Controversy” album six years earlier, if not the funkiest. It is the best this poor, ill-conceived album has to offer that isn’t used elsewhere (more on that later). Alas, the lyrics are unintelligible for about 90% of the song and insipid for the rest. No, Prince, it is not time to do Le Grind.
Cindy C.
And here is an example of a perfectly good backing track shot dead in the street in broad daylight by lyrics that never should have been there in the first place. Do people still know who Cindy Crawford is? Well, in 1987, we all knew who she was. She was a model. She was pretty. The song is about her and hurr hurr hurr guess what this one’s about. Sheesh.
Dead On It
As I have said before, Prince never really synthesized hip-hop in a meaningful way. He was a genius, so I can’t help but suppose it’s because deep down he didn’t want to and resented even having to acknowledge the need to try. I base that supposition largely on this song, which is Prince rapping badly about how all rappers and rap music is terrible. So.
When 2 R In Love
The only part of The Black Album that (legally) saw the light of day before 1994 was this song, which was put on the album “Lovesexy,” and it doesn’t suck, so I’d rather talk about it next week.
Bob George
The best word to describe this is “problematic.” The song is basically a man (played by but not meant to be Prince) verbally abusing a woman until the cops show up and a (sampled, courtesy of the Fairlight sequencer) gunfight ensued. I can believe Prince when he said this music came from hate and anger. And crap music.
Superfunkycalifragisexy
The title is a lie.
2 N*gs United 4 West Compton
Mercifully, this is an instrumental track, and so I have nothing to complain about, except for the title. It slaps. Track this one down if you can. And avoid the rest of the album.
Rockhard In A Funky Place
It’s just not good, y’all. It’s just not good. I’m so tired.
NEXT WEEK: Prince makes up for this week with “Lovesexy”
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