1994 Part 2: Come
When I undertook this project, I immediately thought of what it would take to write about the albums released in 1994-1996, and it gave me The Fear. It still does, even though these are some of my all-time favorite albums by any artist. Including this one. Nevertheless, the circumstances surrounding these records are weird. So buckle up, and bear with me – the music is fantastic. Here we go.
Some time during 1993 Prince’s output hit a massive spike that never came down again, but unlike the rest of his career, he was actively in conflict with his primary means of distribution. One way of fighting Warner Bros. was to get them to release him from his contract by making himself a nuisance: change his name to an unpronounceable symbol, scrawl the word “SLAVE” on the side of his face, refuse to promote albums like “Come,” etc. The other way was to try to find loopholes in his exclusive contract. The fruitless search for those loopholes became the primary reason the many songs Prince recorded in 1993 and 1994 ended up spread across albums for the next three years (although primarily just this album and The Gold Experience).
How to (try to) screw Warner Bros. Records
For some reason, whenever Prince hit a bump in the road or felt a need to really make a statement, his first impulse was always “release a triple album!” Warner Bros.’ first impulse was always to refuse to do any such thing. In fact, once he got away from Warner Bros., he released two triple albums in two years. No lie. But that’s in the future.
In 1985-1986, when Prince was experiencing a moment of personal and artistic upheaval, he attempted to release a triple album. It went through various forms, at different times it was called The Dream Factory or Crystal Ball, and eventually Warner Bros. got him to cut it down to the double album masterpiece Sign O The Times. Usually when Prince had his strange urge to release triple albums, it was just his inclination to self-indulgence running away with him. In this case however, there was definitely method in his madness.
In 1993, when Prince first decided the exclusive, long-term, multi-million dollar, six album deal he had signed less than a year ago was no longer something he wanted, in accordance with his natural instincts he attempted to release a triple album. The plan was to roll up the early version of Come with a big batch of the other songs he was working on at the time and release them all as a triple album called The Dawn. It would be the first album released under his new name, and showcase his renewed purpose and enthusiasm for his work, as well as a return to a pared-down NPG lineup with more eclectic stylistic range featuring a guitar-forward sound that left room for R & B and club music as well. Warner Bros. was on board for all of this except the “triple album” part of the project. The Dawn was never even submitted to Warner Bros. and no known configurations exist, so it’s unclear what tracks were even meant for inclusion, but it’s generally believed that at least some tracks from Come, The Gold Experience, Chaos And Disorder, and Crystal Ball (1998) all came from this pool of songs.
Warner Bros. gave its usual reasons for not releasing a triple album: manufacturing costs, consumers would be unwilling to pay for a triple album, etc etc. All these were true, of course, but there was another reason. At the time, the record industry counted “albums” in a way that might seem counterintuitive to a human being. Each “album” was counted as each individual object in the package that produced sound, not each package of recorded sound.
Okay, I know that was obtuse, so let me take another run at it.
The Beatles’ self-titled album, better known as The White Album is a double album. I’m using it as an example because it’s well-known and it remains a double album in both vinyl and CD editions. In 1993, if you went to Tower Records and bought The White Album, you would leave the store with one package of recorded sound called The White Album, but the industry would count it as two records sold. Double album = two sales. See? By the same logic triple album = three sales.
It makes perfect sense they did not want Prince to release a triple album at this time. Not just because of sales, but because the industry’s way of artificially inflating their sales of multiple albums (which major labels like WB had made up, by the way) could also be used as a way for Prince to argue that Prince had just fulfilled half his contract with this single, deliberately low-selling package. It also seems reasonable to expect that if Prince tried this trick in 1994, he might try it again in 1995 or at the very latest 1996, and they would have very little defense against it at that point. Considering he did release those two triple albums in 1996 and 1997 / 1998, that would have been a reasonable fear.
Mixing And Matching
The fallback plan for Prince was to release Come and the next album The Gold Experience a few weeks apart. Come would be released under the name Prince, and TGE would be released under 0(+>. Prince told WB this would highlight the stylistic differences between Prince’s work before and after the name change. They balked, because they were not stupid and immediately twigged to the notion that this was a transparent ploy to knock two albums off his deal at once instead of three.
They were amenable, however, to releasing the albums under the two different names. Now, we wander into an area where I am speculating a bit. Prince seems to have cooled on the idea of releasing this batch of songs as an album on its own for a minute, but at the same time he did want out of the contract. Specifically, he wanted to have two punches on his card, so to speak, by January 1995. WB was definitely not going to release TGE.
I believe (and that’s all – I have nothing to back this up), that what happened was this: WB came up with the idea to release The Black Album in time for a holiday release if Prince delivered Come for a late summer 1994 launch with no further complaints about new material releases that year. Prince countered with a demand for an absurd advance for The Black Album ($1 million) and he wanted it to be a limited time release. For some reason, they actually agreed to this. It cannot have been a good business decision. It was the most widely bootlegged album of all time, Prince’s public relations profile was at an all time low, there were no singles to be released from The Black Album and to top it all off, if you’ve been keeping up with this blog, you know that the album is not that good.
The Lose – Lose Solution
Meanwhile, Prince went to work compiling the final version of Come. Over the early months of 1994, several versions of the album were put together, and several were sent to WB. Several of them even have known tracklists. One of the more interesting versions (for which I could not find a complete tracklist for) was dated March 11, 1994 and was rejected by WB, partly because it did not contain the title track. They sent it back, asking for that track and “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” (which had just landed in the Top 10 worldwide as an independently released single), and several other tracks that were more radio worthy. Finally, after a few more rounds back and forth, Prince delivered the final version of the album in May 1994.
WB was not entirely happy with it, but Prince flatly refused to change anything else about it, so they were stuck with it: tracklist, album art and all. Prince wasn’t happy with it either. For whatever reason, he did not see Come as being in line with his current musical goals. It was not the album he wanted to either release or promote. That album was The Gold Experience, which WB would not release until the following year. On the few occasions when he would publicly speak about Come during the release window, he would refer to it as a mere “Prince” album. It was “old” music, not the sort of thing he was currently producing. I can find no interview or TV appearance where he directly referred to the album as nothing more than a contractual obligation, but he came as close as he could.
Not that he ever did anything to specifically promote the album, mind you. He did no touring to promote it, no TV appearances, and no interviews. There were two commercially available singles (see below), but they had remixes in place of non-album b-sides. The upside to that is they were really fantastic remixes (again, see below), but even so it was unusual. In fact, everything about this album makes it an outlier. The music is good, but Prince all but disavowed it within six months of its release. On his online discography in the 2000’s you couldn’t even see the album art because he had s massive red “CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATION” sticker on it. Speaking of album art, all of it comes from a coffee table book called “Prince Presents The Sacrifice of Victor” which was a bunch of photos taken on the Act II Tour. It didn’t sell very well, but that’s not surprising. And to top it all off, it’s the only album that is completely left out of every compilation, including the posthumous ones. Even the imaginary compilations. After the Estate released Anthology 1995-2010, they started selling merch with a similar logo for an Anthology 1979-1991. Which would hit every album, except 0(+> and Come. Although I’d be willing to bet they’d throw “7” on there and assume nobody would notice it was released in 1992. All of this is a shame, because the worst thing I can say about this album is that it is easily his most explicit album. Seriously. Dirty Mind is positively coy by comparison.
Tracklist
Come
Several versions of this song were recorded in 1993 and 1994. This was the last version, and was recorded after WB asked for the title track to be included on the album. As usual, he did his best to make them be careful what they wish for. Instead of delivering a clear, concise four to six minute track, Prince turned in an eleven minute meandering funky ode to oral sex. It’s interesting that I’m pretty sure that in trying to make the song less palatable to WB, he made it better for the listener.
Space
This one was originally recorded in May of 1993 and sort of succeeds in spite of itself. “I’ve had dreams of us cuddling on the planet Mars” is not an example of Prince’s best lyrical stylings, after all. Still, it works, partly due to the lighthearted delivery and the swooping vocal arrangement. At one point this was also recorded as an instrumental for inclusion on a version of Madhouse 24. This was the second of the commercially available singles, and it shared a quality with the first: kickass remixes. I’m making an exception to my policy not to link to music here to give you a taste of the acoustic remix (spoilers: not actually acoustic) and the Funky Stuff remix of “Space”.
Pheromone
If the title track, and ending the album with a track called “Orgasm” didn’t get it there, “Pheromone” would definitely put this album high in the running for Prince’s most explicit work. It’s basically erotica about Prince having a voyeuristic experience watching an ex lover and her new partner’s kinky sex. It’s a banger… hurr hurr hurr.
Loose!
A quick club focused track that was played in heavy rotation at Glam Slam in the mid-90’s. It is one of the few songs from this album Prince continued to bring back later in his career, and it was even more successful live than it was on the album. Even though he calls out to “Tommy and Sonny” this is a solo recording by Prince.
Race
This song was originally recorded in 1991, but this is a remake from 1993. In the aftermath of Rodney King, this might have had a different kind of resonance, but the sentiments fall flat now. Even Prince moved past these ideas before his passing. It’s not that the song is not well-intentioned, but “I don’t want to know why those before us hated each other / I’d rather believe they never did” and “Race- In the space I mark ‘human’” are not exactly helpful notions these days.
Dark
Pure Al Green. One of Prince’s finest ballads. Full Stop.
Solo
This is a collaboration between Prince and David Henry Hwang who wrote “M. Butterfly”. Hwang wrote the lyrics and Prince came up with this sparse, unsettling melody and musical backing. It’s like nothing else in the discography and distinctly creepy sounding.
Letitigo
This was written to give WB a definite single to release. Interestingly, for all Prince’s talk of this being a “Prince” album, and consisting of “old” music, this was written and recorded seven to eight months after the name change. It is a combination of a celebration of his engagement to Mayte and thumbing his nose at WB. “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” had sold three million copies as an independent single release, so he knew he could make a future without a label, so he made sure to take a shot at them. The single to this song also had some fantastic remixes (the mid 90’s were the golden age for such things), and below is the song re-imagined as a mid-80’s Quincy Jones production.
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