Image: NPG Records
1999, Part 2: Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic
In the past few years, I have been asked by people too young to remember what it was like during the last year of the twentieth century. Sometimes they want to hear about hysteria over the Y2k bug or some such nonsense, but they tend to be disappointed when I tell them that 1999 was, in a word, anticlimactic. The riots, political unrest and financial meltdowns that were supposed to happen never arrived, and everything went on much the same as before. Sadly, things were much the same for Prince, in spite of all his plans for a banner year. The real problem for Prince was that he committed the great error the universe never let him get away with: he tried to create a hit by doing what someone else was doing at the same time. In his defense, it wasn’t all his idea.
A Joint Venture Record Deal
Clive Davis with Whitney Houston, who was probably his proudest discovery. Image: Reuters
At some point in 1998, Prince came into contact with legendary music executive Clive Davis, who signed Prince to a one-shot "joint venture" record deal with his label, Arista. Clive Davis’ reputation is well-earned. He changed the course of pop music several times partly by being in the right place at the right time and signing acts before anyone else could. He also made sure artists signed to his labels received the kind of support, attention and development labels don’t normally give their artists anymore.
The flipside to that is he also has selective memory for any incident when an artist has a problem with him double-dealing with them or outright lying to them in order to get them to record the song he thought they should record. He’s 91 years old now and still working. Frankly, he is a prime candidate for becoming a problematic figure in the next decade or so, but it seemingly hasn’t happened yet.
Not that his record was ever truly spotless. Davis made his name at CBS Records, but was abruptly fired in 1973 for using company funds to pay for his son’s bar mitzvah, for example. In 1974 he founded Arista records, and quickly turned it into a juggernaut.
It Was A Hot One
Bassist David Brown and Carlos Santana during the band's heyday. Image: VICTOR ENGLEBERT/PHOTO RESEARCHERS HISTORY/GETTY
Arista did a lot of good for a lot of artists’ careers, but apart from Prince, the artist we really need to concern ourselves with is Santana. By the late 90’s, Santana barely seemed to exist anymore. The last studio album from the band was 1992’s Milagro, which was neither a commercial nor critical success. Their contract had expired and they found themselves at a loose end, so Carlos got in touch with the man who had signed the band to their first contract decades ago: Clive Davis.
Image: Polydor
Davis not only signed the band to Arista, he also demanded creative input. Santana trusted him, so they accepted the condition, even knowing that he had some strong ideas for the new album. He and his production team wanted to restore Santana’s relevance by pairing them up with contemporary pop figures. The result was Supernatural and it was an absolutely enormous success, led by the single “Smooth” which featured Matchbox Twenty singer Rob Thomas.
If you think you can't escape this song in July now, my God, you should have been there in '99. It was a monster. Image: Santana / Arista
These days Supernatural feels like a bit much. The concept actually comes off as forced as it actually is, and the band seems to be insisting on its own coolness by recruiting known cool kids and standing beside them. The problem with that is the choice of “cool kids” is as follows: Dave Matthews, Everlast, Rob Thomas, Lauryn Hill, Cee-Lo Green, The Product G & B, Eagle-Eye Cherry and Eric Clapton. Few of these kids remained cool. Some are not even recognizable. A couple weren't even cool at the time.
Image: Santana / Arista
The point I’m trying to make here is that while it absolutely destroyed the charts at the time, sold millions of copies, won a record number of Grammys and revitalized Santana’s career, it didn’t exactly have much longevity as a complete work. The concept had problems.
Just Do What The Other Guy Did
This collegial atmosphere would not last. Image: Getty
When Clive Davis met with Prince, he pitched using the same basic approach as Santana, with less of his direct involvement. Davis somehow got Prince to go for it. I’m not entirely certain how he did that. Davis is well known for being able to smooth-talk (no pun intended) even the most recalcitrant artists, but how you get someone like Prince to do what someone else is doing before that person’s record is even out and can be proven to be working on a successful formula is beyond me.
It’s a fact that Prince felt he needed a hit, so maybe that made the “Santana Formula” concept an easier sell. As it was, Prince was already planning a return to sounds and techniques from earlier in his career. Marketing for Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic would call it a rebirth of his 80’s sound, but that’s something of a stretch. That makes it sound like he is trying to go back to Purple Rain when in fact he’s aiming for something later in the 80’s, much closer to Lovesexy. And even then, he’s not actually trying to recreate that sound as much as using those instruments to create new songs.
How Did It Work Out?
Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic was released Thanksgiving Weekend of 1999, and it sold modestly well. Prince did not tour to support the album, but he did do a large number of appearances on European T.V. and he also did a Pay-Per-View Special “Rave Un2 The Year 2000” during which he said he would “retire” the song “1999.” (Spoiler: A total lie. He continued to play the song).
A grainy scan of the original DVD release of the pay-per-view, which was one of the first two DVDs I ever owned. Image: NPG Records
Having said all that, it did not fulfill the goal of producing the “hit” Prince was looking for. True, Warner Bros. did try to sabotage the media blitz for the album by releasing The Vault…Old Friends 4 Sale, but that didn’t seem to have much of an effect on sales of Rave. The real bottom line is that there is nothing Clive Davis, Prince and his roster of featured performers could do to make an album a hit in 1999.
So if nobody was going to listen to it, was it any good? I would say it’s a sign that Prince is back on the upswing. The doldrums of the late 90’s are finally coming to an end, but they are not yet over. Rave is still a lukewarm late-90’s Prince album, but it is the best of that bunch. What holds the album back is that Prince spends this album pandering to an audience that he doesn’t seem to understand, which is a shame, because at least on paper some of these collaborations are the stuff of fans’ dreams.
TRACKLIST
Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic
As misguided as some of the pandering is on this album, this particular bit of pandering is directly on target. This song has an interesting history, and its inclusion here is pure, first-class fan service. If this album is about giving the audience what they want, it seems that at least in this case he knew what the audience wanted and delivered.
This song dates all the way back to June of 1988 during sessions for a proposed follow-up to Lovesexy. The tour for that album then took off for Europe. Some further work was done on the track at Olympic Studios in London during the same set of sessions that produced the extended version of “I Wish U Heaven” and several B-Sides.
At one point, Prince had a great deal of faith in the song, leaving clues to its existence here and there that gave it a kind of mythical status among fans. It was intended to be the title track on that previously mentioned Lovesexy follow-up, but that never materialized when Prince took on the work for the Batman Original Soundtrack. Prince did send “Rave” to Tim Burton and the producers of "Batman" for consideration, who immediately rejected it. Prince responded by replacing “Rave” with “Partyman,” which is a far, far better song for the scene. Meanwhile, Prince slipped samples of “Rave” into remixes of “Batdance.”
Adding to this , there is the presence of “Rave Unto The Joy Fantastic” (as it was then known) on the most famous Prince bootleg ever. An aftershow recording made on August 19, 1988 in a club called “The Trojan Horse” in The Hague, Netherlands. So ubiquitous is this bootleg that when it is distributed, it is usually just called “Small Club.” This bootleg is notable for its relative quality at the time and the fact that an unreleased song (“Rave”) was featured as both the opening number and the encore.
All of this combined to make this song highly sought-after by the fan community. This album, in which Prince had a specific desire to haul out the Linn drum machine and “return to his previous sound” made for a perfect opportunity to haul this one out of the vault.
As a song it works well enough, although it feels like he could have used another pass on the lyrics “Arrividerci cock poppy, that was hip yesterday” is not what I would call an inspired turn of phrase. On the other hand, the arrangement is fantastic, and there is a reason Prince continued to resurrect the guitar lick from this song and slip it into various songs, such as “The Max” from 0(+> . It’s not enough to lift the album up to the legendary status Prince was shooting for, but it was a good start. Unlike so many of his choices in the last few years of the 90’s, this was in no way a misguided decision.
Undisputed
The first of Prince’s collaborations here is one that I would actually have put on my wish list, and at the same time would have thought was so farfetched as to be completely impossible. “Undisputed” features a guest verse by hip-hop pioneer Chuck D.
If you only listen to two classic hip-hop albums this year, listen to this one twice. Image: Columbia / Def Jam
In case you don’t know who he is, Chuck D. formed Public Enemy with Flava Flav in 1985, and has been a voice in the hip-hop world that insists on maintaining the political and social justice voices in the music that permeated the scene since the beginning, but has always been under threat of being silenced as it has gone more and more mainstream.
While this might not be his most edgy and groundbreaking effort, this is one of the more effective fusions of hip-hop with Prince’s music. I never skip this one, and not just to hear Chuck. The melody is more catchy than most of his recent work, and hints of his thinking about his future plans are peppered throughout the song. Evidently, he had also spoken to Chuck about this, since his verse starts: "Come one, come all to the download ball / There ain't no curfew to hurt you..." Also about this time, a saying appeared on his website: "Trying to stop file sharing is like trying to stop the rain." Prince's fascination with the internet would soon reach critical mass and change the course of his career permanently.
The Greatest Romance Ever Sold
Oh, look out, here comes the Side 1 ballad. Like so many of the songs on this album, it’s neither the best nor the worst of Prince’s work. There’s nothing wrong with it, certainly, but there’s just nothing to distinguish it from Prince’s other, better, work.
Image: NPG Records
It was the only commercially released single from the album, released just before the album. The single featured “The Greatest Romance Ever Sold (Adam & Eve Remix)" which breaks the song into three sections. The first section of the remix turns the song into an Eve song that works incredibly well, the second is Prince singing lyrics different from the album version, most of which he would re-use in the song “Silicon” in another year or so, and the last section is an extended guitar solo doubled by a keyboard set to produce the sound of a sampled guitar. It’s not bad, but for my money, the interesting remixes are the Neptunes remix, which has a more authentic late-90’s hip-hop sound and the Jason Nevins remix (my favorite), which turns the song into a full-on disco jam.
Segue 1
Normally I wouldn’t talk about segues, especially this one which is four seconds of silence, but this has a little more to it in a figurative sense. In the liner notes, Miles Davis is credited on this track. This is interesting, because Miles is often credited with the quotation “It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play.” Or “Music is the silence between the notes.” Or several other permutations of the same sentiment.
I like to dig around for sources when I write these and I found that there is no source for these quotations. He very likely never said it, or anything like it. But Prince believed it so much that he put it on his album without even bothering to ask himself whether or not this person – a person he had worked with and known personally—ever actually said this. It’s a useful window into his thought process to keep in mind over the next few years.
Hot Wit U
When Prince attempts to emulate the style of pop music of the time, it usually blows up in his face. This is a rare case where it works well, probably because the emulation is limited. The slinking bass creates the exact right mood, and the presence of Eve, again, elevates the song rather than drags it down. It’s a shame that Prince finally seems to be getting the knack of integrating hip-hop into his music just as it becomes unpopular to do so in the way he has learned. Nevertheless, his choice of M.C. is spot on. In one of Prince’s “I’m the master of seduction” songs, having Eve slap back in her verse not with submission but “Trying to turn me on - I never had this, so stop this / I'm supposed to tremble cuz they call you 'The Artist’?” is exactly what is called for. I wish they had collaborated further.
This advert appeared on Prince's website, but the record was never released. Image: NPG Records.
There were big plans for this album that low sales cut off. One big part of those plans were several other commercially released singles, with this song being the next major release. There was supposed to be an EP or maxi-single called The Hot X-Perience. It was going to have tons of remixes, including at least one that became an entirely different song that will be covered in another entry, but it never materialized.
Tangerine
Clocking in at a minute and a half, this ode to a lost love is some of the best work on the album. It’s a glimpse of the old Prince, a sign that he’s still in there somewhere, still feeling contradictory things simultaneously and able to put that down into a song both lyrically and musically.
Plus, it’s a really pretty song, which is good too.
So Far, So Pleased
This is a straight ahead, major key, radio rock saltine of a song specifically designed for a guest vocal from the 1999 version of Gwen Stefani. The only question for the listener is: Are you in the mood for a good saltine? Note that I say “good” and not “very good” and not even “quite good.” It’s good, and that’s it. The real problem I have with it is that it’s so polite it almost annoys me. I listen to Prince for many reasons, but his politeness is not one of them. Even the distortion on his guitar sounds so polite it’s bizarre. On the other hand, I have to admit, sometimes I am in the mood for a saltine.
The Sun, The Moon, And Stars
Another glimpse of the old Prince, but also a sign that he has not yet regained his ability to judge his own material, because as far as I can tell this was never considered anything but album filler, which is ridiculous.
Even more ridiculous, it was only performed live one time, on March 29, 2009, and even then it only made it into the set under odd circumstances. The show was the last in a set of three full-length shows that night to promote his latest album. Each show had a completely different set, so the last show had almost all deep cuts.
Everyday Is A Winding Road
And right in the middle of the album is an inexplicable Sheryl Crow cover. Look, I’m not going to dance around the point here: it’s terrible. He makes stupid lyric changes like “I hitched a ride with a Crazyhorse showgirl,” I presume because Prince is uncomfortable with hitching a ride with a vending machine repair man? Or maybe he wants to change the tone of the song to something with more sequins. Either way, it sucks. The changes to the arrangement remove the feeling of “racing down the road” that is so effective in the original, and there is a call-and-response breakdown in the middle that drags down the pace further. Most of Prince’s covers are good. This is not one of them. Avoid. Reading this, you might be tempted to hop on Tidal or some other streaming service and listen to this horrible freeway disaster out of some desire to looky-loo and watch Prince burn down this song. Don't. It's not worth it. You've been warned.
Segue 2 / Man ‘O’ War
I’m putting these two together because the segue is really the intro to the song. A few months after the album came out this song was released as a promo single in the U.S., but it never went anywhere. I like the song well enough, and Prince sold the song very well in a live setting.
Cover art for the promo single. Image: NPG Records
Still, he should’ve sent “The Sun, the Moon & Stars” to radio instead.
Baby Knows
This is Prince’s other “rock” song for the album, and it is mercifully far less polite. Maybe this song is a bit too well-groomed, but it’s not the “sixth grader in a suit getting an award at a school assembly” annoying that you get with “So Far, So Pleased.” This one’s more of a Wheat Thin. Never not in the mood for one of those.
"Baby Knows" was a promo single in Holland. Just Holland. This is the best image I can find online. Image: NPG Records.
The presence of Sheryl Crow and her authentic-sounding blues harp are both helpful, but the driving beat of Michael B.’s brief return on drums is probably what puts this song over the top. Even for a solo album, the lack of Kirk Johnson, the NPG's regular drummer at the time, was notable.
Kirk Johnson’s tenure as the main drummer for the NPG was unusual. He was a Prince associate for a long time - from at least 1990 all the way to the end of Prince’s life - but his time behind the drums is almost forgettable. It’s not really his fault, because this is the most fallow period in Prince’s career. 1997-1999 is not the time to be in Prince’s band if you want to be there for legendary happenings in the mythology of Paisley Park. Michael B. and several other drummers play on Rave and it’s a sign that Kirk’s time is just about up. Only his time behind the drums, though. He’ll be with Prince literally to the end for both good and very ill.
I Love You, But I Don’t Trust You Anymore
This is one of Prince’s best songs. Full stop. It is sparse, raw and heartbreaking. The presence of Ani DiFranco on guitar only enhances the song’s status. According to DiFranco, Prince did not actually give her a composed guitar part, but showed her the chords and let her basically improvise.
Prince enjoyed working with Ani DiFranco, and was keen to keep working with her. The way Prince got a lot of guests on this album was to promise to reciprocate by guesting on their albums. Most of those appearances never happened – but he did show up for this one. Her song “Providence” on the album To the Teeth has backing vocals by Prince. Also, over the years they both guested with each other at various gigs.
Prince sang on the song "Providence" found on this album from 1999. Image: Righteous Babe Records
Even 1999 model Prince knew what he had with this song. It immediately went into the set, where it basically remained for the rest of his life.
Silly Game
This is the side 2 ballad, and it is a yeomanlike piece of work. That’s about it. I like it better than “The Greatest Romance” but that’s probably just me responding to excellent use of the formula. More than anything else, this sounds like the sort of stuff he would usually write specifically to hand off to someone else. I imagine his assistant comes into the studio and says “<INSERT CLASSIC ARTIST PRINCE REVERES HERE> is recording a new album and would love to record something written by you. Wonders if you have anything. There’s a note here from the producer, says they need a ballad?”
Strange But True
This sounds like Prince had bought a new kit for producing EDM and he was trying to learn by doing. This is pure album filler, and you can tell he wasn’t exactly inspired when he was writing it: “All understand and all stand under this affirmation now / By the power invested in me by God / All negativity bows” is not something you hear and go “now there is a musical genius!”
Also, maybe it's just a pet peeve of mine, but any time I hear someone talk about ridding themselves of the "negativity" of others, I become 99% certain they're about to tell me about a situation in which they're the asshole. "Other people's negativity" is almost always nothing more than the sensation a narcissist feels when they encounter the resistance of others to their narcissism.
Wherever U Go, Whatever U Do
It’s a generic power ballad to close out what amounts to a generic album. What more is there to say? Prince knew it, because he loved his power ballads and almost never failed to at least play them on the next tour, but this one had only one performance ever: June 24, 2002. That show was mostly a solo guitar performance for his fan club, and he played the song largely to illustrate how similar the chords and melody were to the Lenny Kravitz song “Again.” It’s a good thing there is a hidden track, or this album would basically fizzle out.
Prettyman (hidden track)
This is a song done in a style very close to a classic James Brown number in order to cater to Maceo Parker, the legendary saxophonist. For anyone who might not know, Maceo Parker is best known for being the sax player on “(I Got You) I Feel Good” and played in James Brown’s band for many years. He was very influential, and Prince was understandably in awe of having such an august presence on his album.
James Brown, Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley in their glory days. Image: Eastern Promotions / Tblisi
It’s a strange album indeed when the hidden track is easily the best uptempo number on the whole thing. The only competition “Prettyman” has at all in terms of quality is “I Love You, But I Don’t Trust You Anymore.” The song was played live, but only until 2000 or so when it was superseded by better material. Yeah. No matter how good this song is, that future album had a James Brown-ish number that Prince was both more interested in and was just plain better.
Prince sits in with Maceo's band. Image: Getty
Getting Maceo on the album had an ulterior motive. Prince was already thinking a few albums ahead, and he wanted Maceo in his band. Eighteen months later, Maceo Parker began a run with the NPG that would continue steadily for the next ten years and semi-steadily for the rest of Prince’s life.
NEXT WEEK: Prince abandons mainstream music distribution entirely. He begins what will become his lasting legacy to the contemporary industry: NPG Music Club launches and has its first year of availability. As part of this, the exclusive album Rave In2 the Joy Fantastic ships to the members.
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