History Music / PrincesAssociates

Day left the band after an argument with Prince in 1985, focusing on a solo career. The Time disbanded right then, with its remaining members being amalgamated into The Family and Jam and Lewis going on to be famous {{Record Producer}}s, mostly for their work with JanetJackson. Jerome Benton also starred as Prince's sidekick in ''Under the Cherry Moon'', and similarly managed to out-act Prince and be considered the one character reviewers liked. The band reunited in 1990, this time with almost no involvement from Prince and complete creative control. The resulting album, ''Pandemonium'', spawned their highest selling single, "Jerk Out". They also appeared on the soundtrack to ''Graffiti Bridge'', on the songs "Release It", "Shake!", "Love Machine" and "The Latest Fashion" (the last in collaboration with Prince).

The band itself was short-lived, lasting barely a year before Peterson left, sick of Prince's {{Control Freak}}ism. Still, it marked the beginning of his long-term collaboration with Eric Leeds, for what it's worth.

* SelfTitledAlbum (Prince's associates had to have self titled albums as part of their contract... we think...)

Sheila's solo albums after leaving Prince's organisation were {{New Sound Album}}s somewhat, introducing Latin and jazz influences into her upbeat pop-funk. She took a long break from her solo career after the horribly-titled ''Sex Cymbal'', presumably out of embarassment that she put out an album titled ''Sex Cymbal''[[hottip:*:we can't blame her for that]], and played with various other musicians (including being part of three versions of [[TheBeatles Ringo Starr]]'s All-Starr Band). She also reunites with Prince every once in a while for live concerts and contributed to his album ''3121''.

* YouMakeMeSic: Mich'''e'''langelo, not Mich'''ae'''langelo.

Chavez is one of those fringe figures in Prince's entourage. That's probably because she ain't an actual singer, but a poet instead. OhCrap. Prince was impressed by her poetry and quickly recruited her into his ever-expanding harem-cum-musical empire, first letting her contribute vocals to ''Lovesexy''. Around this time, she cultivated a mysterious appearance and was nicknamed "The Spirit Child". OK, sure, whatever, at least Prince didn't try to rename her to "Clitoris" or something like that.

Prince co-wrote and co-produced (yes, you guessed it!) an album for her named ''Milk & Honey''. It was set to be released in August 2006, but [[{{Vaporware}} got delayed and later cancelled]]. A few promotional copies have surfaced after being sold in Japan.

Another protege in the grand tradition of Vanity and Apollonia, Brenda "Bria Valente" Fuentes began her association with Prince in 2007, contributing backing vocals to his album ''Planet Earth''.

Prince is a fan of Kate Bush, and met her during the 1990 ''Nude Tour'', discussing a collaboration. Bush sent him the song "Why Should I Love You?", asking for backing vocals. When she received it back, Prince had not only sung but also added his own sizeable instrumental overdubs. This baffled Bush and her engineer Del Palmer, who then spent two years working on and off on it to try and "turn it back into a Kate Bush song". It eventually came out on 1993's ''The Red Shoes''.

Day left the band after an argument with Prince in 1985, focusing on a solo career. The Time disbanded right then, with its remaining members being amalgamated into The Family and Jam and Lewis going on to be famous {{Record Producer}}s, mostly for their work with JanetJackson. The band reunited in 1990, this time with almost no involvement from Prince and complete creative control. The resulting album, ''Pandemonium'', spawned their highest selling single, "Jerk Out". They also appeared on the soundtrack to ''Graffiti Bridge'', on the songs "Release It", "Shake!", "Love Machine" and "The Latest Fashion" (the last in collaboration with Prince).

* TheCameo: Prince himself plays the girl on the other end of the line in "If a Girl Answers (Don't Hang Up)". This was recorded well before he sped up his voice for female vocals (and he already proved he could pull off a falsetto), so it's more like "If a Guy Answers"[[hottip:*:"(in a Voice That Sounds Suspiciously Like a Parody of Morris Day)]]".

* The Cameo: Prince himself plays the girl on the other end of the line in "If a Girl Answers (Don't Hang Up)". This was recorded well before he sped up his voice for female vocals (and he already proved he could pull off a falsetto), so it's more like "If a Guy Answers".

-->'''Jay''', ''Film/JayAndSilentBobStrikeBack''.

So, there's this guy named {{Prince}}, you may have heard of him...[[SelfDeprecation Skinny motherfucker with the high voice]], [[IAmTheBand plays every instrument known to man]], made some really catchy tunes, quite the SmallNameBigEgo, [[PrettyCoolGuy doesn't afraid of anything]] and [[AttentionDeficitCreatorDisorder wrote nearly a thousand songs]].

Vanity 6 deserve a bit of a special mention since they were the first side-project Prince came up with on his own and produced an album for.[[hottip:*:Prince ''had'' formed a rock band in 1979 called The Rebels, but they only recorded a handful of songs that were shelved. PaulaAbdul was later given their song "U" (heavily rearranged to not be rock), and "If I Love You Tonight" somehow made its way onto Mayte's album. And... uh, we don't talk about 94 East.]] So, basically the whole madness of Prince's empire of associates starts here.

Vanity 6 were a GirlGroup formed by Prince sometime in 1981, supposedly after watching ''AStarIsBorn'' and saying "Oh hey, that's neat. I wanna do that!" He managed to gather together three of his female friends, Susan Moonsie, Brenda Bennett and Jamie Shoop. We can only presume how awkward the meeting was when Prince told them that they would be named "The Hookers", would perform in lingerie and sing about sex a lot. The sheer fact that he wasn't comically chased out of the room is amazing in itself.

Somehow, presumably through his immense charm, he managed to convince them to record a few demos. He then met nude model and B movie actress Denise Matthews, famous for [[SarcasmMode her widely acclaimed roles in]] ''[[SarcasmMode Terror Train]]'' [[SarcasmMode and]] ''[[SarcasmMode Tanya's Island]]''. Also, a certain part of the body. An awestruck Prince kicked out Shoop and installed his new girlfriend Matthews as the frontwoman instead, giving her the StageName "Vanity". YouDoNotWantToKnow one of the stories about its origin. But if you do: [[spoiler:Prince wanted to name her "Vagina", clarifying that [[ItsPronouncedTroPAY it would be pronounced "vag-EE-na"]], because [[SarcasmMode that's how you pronounce it in Minnesota or something]]. She predictably went "dude, WTF?" and managed to bargain it down to "Vanity"]].

The group released one album, ''Vanity 6'' in 1982. Prince wrote and produced it almost completely (disguising this fact by crediting himself as "The Starr Company" and randomly assigning credits), with Revolution guitarist Dez Dickerson managing to sneak in a credit for "He's So Dull", Jesse Johnson co-writing "Bite the Beat" and Terry Lewis co-writing "If a Girl Answers (Don't Hang Up)". The album itself represented a pretty generic example of Prince's [[SignatureStyle Minneapolis sound]], with two forays into synthy PowerPop ("He's So Dull" and "Bite the Beat") and lots of exaggerated, {{Narm}}y lyrics about IntercourseWithYou sung by three women with average vocal talent. [[SexSells Needless to say, it became a hit and spawned a big hit single with "Nasty Girl"]].

** An unreleased song, "Vibrator", has Vanity actually using a vibrator during the track. Thrice. HilarityEnsues when her batteries die the second time and, through spoken word, she is forced to shop for more. The song ends with the third usage, acapella (this element was later recycled for Prince's song "Orgasm".)

* The Cameo: Prince himself plays the girl on the other end of the line in "If a Girl Answers (Don't Hang Up)". This was recorded well before he sped up his voice for female vocals, so it's more like "If a Guy Answers".

Fun side-note? The chorus of ThePixies' "Debaser" was originally "Shed, Apollonia!" before it mutated into "Un chien andalusia!", thus making Apollonia 6 [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative the only Prince-associated band to get a]] ShoutOut [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative in a Pixies song.]]

* SpokenWordInMusic: "In a Spanish Villa".

Well, she was a backup singer for R&B star Teena Marie back at the start of TheEighties, and this is exactly how she met Prince during his 1980 ''Dirty Mind'' tour. She was quickly recruited as a backing singer for The Revolution itself, adding backing vocals to several songs on ''1999'' and appearing in the videos for "1999" and "Little Red Corvette". She had a bit part as a waitress in ''PurpleRain'' and a cameo in its shittier sequel ''Graffiti Bridge'', in a scene where she [[{{Squick}} takes off an undergarment to end a conflict with Prince]]. [[{{Squick}} Squ- wait, WTF?]] Oh, wait, nevermind. This is the guy who came up with the idea for Vanity 6. Dude's got issues.

-->'''Jay'''.

The Time! The most successful Prince associates, and JayAndSilentBob's favourites. And probably the most famous too.

The Time were a [[NeoclassicalPunkZydecoRockabilly pop-funk-rock]] ensemble that relied heavily on RuleOfFunny and [[EpicRocking very long jams]]. They were largely defined by frontman [[FaceOfTheBand Morris Day]]'s hilarious lyrics and ChivalrousPervert-HandsomeLech persona, with Jerome Benton serving as his {{Foil}}. This dynamic was observed through their appearance in ''Purple Rain'' as Prince's rival band, and Day's humorous persona proved to be one of the few points that critics liked, with many even commenting that he upstaged Prince's acting (not much of a compliment; [[DullSurprise Prince's acting]] makes KeanuReeves look like WilliamShatner).

Day left the band after an argument with Prince in 1985, focusing on a solo career. The Time disbanded right then, with its remaining members being amalgamated into The Family and Jam and Lewis going on to be famous {{Record Producer}}s, mostly for their work with JanetJackson. The band reunited in 1990, this time with almost no involvement from Prince and complete creative control. The resulting album, ''Pandemonium'', spawned their highest selling single, "Jerk Out".

* CatchPhrase: "What time is it?" and "Somebody bring me a mirror (so I can look at X)"

The resulting album contained a mishmash of high-energy funk ("Mutiny"), soul ballads ("Desire"), jazz instrumentals ("Susannah's Pajamas" - this should probably be expected if you've made it so far down the page...) and Music/NewWave ("The Screams of Passion"). However, it did contain a small song called "Nothing Compares 2 U", which was CoveredUp and turned into a massive hit single by Sinéad O'Connor in 1990.

With such a pedigree, it's little surprise that Sheila took up drumming and quickly became really good at it, playing with such luminaries as George Duke, MarvinGaye, Alphonso Johnson, HerbieHancock and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Lionel Richie]] before her early twenties.

Prince first met Sheila when attending a concert where she was playing with her dad. He quickly brought her into her entourage, where she contributed drums and percussion in the studio and provided vocals to "Let's Go Crazy"'s famous B-side, "Erotic City". She secured herself the position of drummer for Prince after The Revolution disbanded, but left Prince in 1989 due to medical problems. This split has notably been free of the ''really'' bad blood that other splits engendered, and the two have collaborated occasionally to this day.

While Sheila did attract attention for her vocals on "Erotic City", she quickly proved she was not another Vanity: while Prince did produce her first two solo albums, she got some co-writing credits and added her awesome drumming all over the place. Most notably, Sheila at first broke from the very explicit "personas" that had been assumed by Prince's previous {{Girl Group}}s: her lyrics were decidedly PG-rated, dealing with love (not IntercourseWithYou, at least not yet) and sung in a pleasant, girl-next-door voice. In fact, many of the funk-pop songs existed solely for the sake of lots and lots of percussion solos. Nobody seemed to mind though. These two albums, ''The Glamorous Life'' and ''Romance 1600'', were well-received and spawned two notable [[EpicRocking and really long]] hits, the super-catchy ditty about how materialism's, like, superficial, man, "The Glamorous Life" (9 minutes) and a duet with Prince entitled "A Love Bizarre" (12 minutes!). Prince was noticeably less involved with ''Sheila E.'', letting David Z. produce the album and writing only a few songs.

Sheila's solo albums after leaving Prince's organisation were {{New Sound Album}}s somewhat, introducing Latin and jazz influences into her upbeat pop-funk. She took a long break from her solo career after the horribly-titled ''Sex Cymbal'', presumably out of embarassment that she put out an album titled ''Sex Cymbal'' (we can't blame her for that...), and played with various other musicians (including being part of three versions of [[TheBeatles Ringo Starr]]'s All-Starr Band). She also reunites with Prince every once in a while for live concerts and contributed to his album ''3121''.

Ingrid Chavez is Mexican-American and has been married to David Sylvian of the band Japan since 1992. [[SarcasmMode And no, I'm not just throwing in blatant filler because I don't know the first thing about her.]]

Well, see, Chavez is one of those fringe figures in Prince's entourage. That's probably because she ain't an actual singer, but a poet instead. OhCrap. Prince was impressed by her poetry and quickly recruited her into his ever-expanding harem-cum-musical empire, first letting her contribute vocals to ''Lovesexy''. Around this time, she cultivated a mysterious appearance and was nicknamed "The Spirit Child". OK, sure, whatever, at least Prince didn't try to rename her to "Clitoris" or something like that.

Chavez next played Prince's romantic interest in ''GraffitiBridge''. It was during the filming that she, LennyKravitz and Andre Betts co-wrote and recorded Madonna's famous hit "Justify My Love" - reportedly, Chavez came up with most of the lyrics and Kravitz thought sampling PublicEnemy would be a neat idea. A solo album followed, ''May 19, 1992'' (released, oddly enough, in 1991), which combined Chavez's spoken-word poetry with atmospheric backing music composed by Prince and was favourably reviewed, one critic comparing it to "an entire album of 'Justify My Love's" (wait, [[YourMileageMayVary that's a good thing?]]).

Chavez drifted out of Prince's [[strike:harem]] musical empire soon after. Since then, she's frequently recorded with her husband David Sylvian and with Ryuichi Sakamoto of YellowMagicOrchestra.

* CoverVersion: besides the aforementioned Prince cover, she covered "Brick House" by The Commodores.

One of the latest Princettes, Ashley Támar Davis sang backing vocals on Prince's album ''3121'' and played a few live concerts in some small clubs.

Prince co-wrote and co-produced (yes, you guessed it!) an album for her named ''Milk & Honey''. It was set to be released in August 2006, but [[{{Vaporware}} got delayed and later cancelled]]. A few promotional copies have surfaced.

-->'''Prince''' [[http://www.last.fm/music/Bria+Valente describing Valente's album to the Los Angeles Times]] (clearly oblivious about his track record)

Prince produced a solo album for her named ''Elixer'', in 2009. He described it as "a quiet storm" album, raising the prospect that he still hasn't abandoned his search for AudioErotica and would give the world another hilarious trip to Narmland. ''Elixer'' was bundled together with Prince's two solo albums ''[=LOtUSFLOW3R=]'' and ''[=MPLSound=]'' as a three-disc set, which debuted at #2 on the Billboard charts. [[SarcasmMode Because we all know it would've been a huge hit by itself...]] Expect lots of ErectionRejection given Prince's track record on this...

Prince wrote and produced "Love Song" on {{Madonna}}'s album ''Like a Prayer''.

A Dutch smooth jazz [[{{Sexophone}} saxophone]] player who has sporadically contributed to Prince's albums and has served as an on-and-off member of his backing bands. Prince contributed the song "Sunday Afternoon" to her album ''Sax-a-Go-Go''.

* {{Sampling}}: The only vocals on both albums are either samples from ''Film/TheGodfather'' or samples of Vanity simulating an orgasm. Don't ask.

Childhood friends Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman, much like Sheila E. above, had musical families: Wendy's father Mike and Lisa's father Gary (not to be confused with GaryColeman the actor) were highly in-demand session musicians, and Wendy's brother Jonathan also went on to become a musician and served as touring keyboardist for Music/TheSmashingPumpkins.

* GriefSong: "Jonathan" deals with the death of Wendy's brother Jonathan after an overdose during a tour with Music/TheSmashingPumpkins (the same incident resulted in Jimmy Chamberlain being fired from that band.) This topic was also explored in SarahMcLachlan's song "Angel".

Vanity 6 deserve a bit of a special mention since they were the first side-project Prince came up with on his own and produced an album for.[[hottip:*:Prince ''had'' formed a rock band in 1979 called The Rebels, but they only recorded a handful of songs that were shelved. PaulaAbdul was later given their song "U".]] So, basically the whole madness of Prince's empire of associates starts here.

The first band Prince ever played in, 94 East was a funk band that existed between 1975-1979. It was formed by Pepe Willie, the husband of Prince's cousin, and included Willie, Prince and André Cymone. Their stuff is hard to find and very likely isn't even worth looking for in the first place anyway.

Matt Fink was a member of The Revolution and the NPG, working with Prince between circa 1979-1991. He played keyboards and became known as "Dr. Fink" for always wearing surgical scrubs on stage. According to Fink, it was the only outlandish outfit that Prince felt looked good on him. According to somebody else, Fink initially wore a prison outfit but discovered during a joint 1979 tour that one of RickJames' bandmates did that already, and "doctor's scrubs" was the first thing he could think of as a replacement.

After he left the Prince camp, he built his own studio, worked on a some videogame soundtracks, as well as a solo album that still hasn't appeared.

* TokenWhite: Prince intentionally assembled the Revolution to be a multi-ethnic, multi-gender band like Sly & the Family Stone, and opted not to hire James Harris (later of The Time) because, while good, he did not contribute to the band's diversity. Fink was asked to audition instead and received the job, and while his talent and contribution to The Revolution is undeniable, the fact that he was a white keyboard player did represent a factor in him getting the job.

Dr. Fink was a member of The Revolution and the NPG, working with Prince between circa 1979-1991. He played keyboards and became known as "Dr. Fink" for always wearing surgical scrubs on stage. According to Fink, it was the only outlandish outfit that Prince felt looked good on him. According to somebody else, Fink initially wore a prison outfit but discovered during a tour that one of RickJames' bandmates did that already, and "doctor's scrubs" was the first thing he could think of as a replacement.

* Actual bands with which Prince was involved. For example: Madhouse.

Now, if you're not a devoted Prince fan, this is just going to be more ArchivePanic for a man that already has a huge discography. But Prince had lots of talented musicians in his entourage back in TheEighties, and the records of his associates are mostly interesting, with the occasional stinker, and at best just as catchy and well-made as his own. Thanks to the lack of availability of these albums, one can even claim that these associates would [[NeedsMoreLove Need More Love]], although exactly who is an exercise best left to the listener.

* {{Sampling}}: The only vocals on both albums are either samples from ''TheGodfather'' or samples of Vanity simulating an orgasm. Don't ask.

Vanity 6 deserve a bit of a special mention since they were the first side-project Prince came up with on his own and produced an album for. So, basically the whole madness of Prince's empire of associates starts here.

Vanity 6 were a GirlGroup formed by Prince sometime in 1981, supposedly after watching ''AStarIsBorn'' and saying "Oh hey, that's neat. I wanna do that!" He managed to gather together three of his female friends, Susan Moonsie, Brenda Bennett and Jamie Shoop. We can only presume how awkward the meeting was when Prince told them that they would be named "The Hookers", would perform in lingerie and sing about sex a lot. The sheer fact that he wasn't comically chased out of the room like [[LoveHina Keitaro]] [[hottip:*:at least, not as far as we know]] is amazing in itself.

** An unreleased song, "Vibrator", has Vanity actually using a vibrator during the track. Thrice. HilarityEnsues when her batteries die the second time and, through spoken word, she is forced to shop for more. The song ends with the third usage, acapella (this element recycled for Prince's song "Orgasm".)

The band broke up for good a year later. Brenda managed to snag herself backing vocals on "17 Days" but otherwise hasn't done anything, Apollonia continued with her acting/modeling career and Susan...

Er...

We'll get back to you on that.

[[hottip:*:Fun side-note? The chorus of ThePixies' "Debaser" was originally "Shed, Apollonia!" before it mutated into "Un chien andalusia!", thus making Apollonia 6 [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative the only Prince-associated band to get a]] ShoutOut [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative in a Pixies song.]]]]

* {{Narm}}

So, there's this guy named {{Prince}}, you may have heard of him...[[SelfDeprecation Skinny motherfucker with the high voice]], [[IAmTheBand plays every instrument known to man]], made some really catchy tunes, quite the SmallNameBigEgo, [[PrettyCoolGuy doesn't afraid of anything]] and [[{{ADCD}} wrote nearly a thousand songs]].

No, you didn't read that wrong. Prince is famous for being prolific BeyondTheImpossible when it comes to songwriting. This landed him in a bit of trouble with his record label in TheEighties - see, Warner Bros. Records wanted him to do the same write-record-release-tour grind as everybody, but he was crankin' out tunes so quickly that they just couldn't keep up with his ever-expanding vault. As a means to avoid this, Prince wrote numerous songs under pseudonyms or gave them to others - Prince's musical ProductionPosse, if you will.

* SpokenWordInMusic: [[BeyondTheImpossible Too. Fucking. MUCH.]] Most of their songs eschew ending in favour of repeating the backing track and adding dialogue that [[YourMileageMayVary may or may not be all that funny.]] The song "Chili Sauce" is five straight minutes of seductive dialogue.

The second disc of Prince's ''Emancipation'' was [[TheMuse inspired]] by their marriage and her pregnancy. Yes, this means Mayte is partially responsible for TastesLikeDiabetes-fests like "Friend, Lover, Sister, Mother/Wife". We hope she enjoyed the gift, because [[YourMileageMayVary we certainly didn't]].

* TheMuse: One of the less fruitful cases.

* Aaron Paul Keith - keyboards (power to the max!)
* Kevin Patricks - drums

Not to be confused with the similarly-named PostPunk band led by Monica Richards or the similarly-titled {{Funk}} band led by Gary Cooper (last.fm being useful? NO WAI), Madhouse was formed in 1987 and intended to be the successor to The Family. Its members were:

Madhouse released only two albums during their short existence, but at least two others were recorded and remain unreleased to this day.

The first band Prince ever played in, 94 East was a funk band that existed between 1975-1979. It was formed by Pepe Willie, the husband of Prince's cousin, and included Willie, Prince and André Cymone. Their stuff is hard to find and isn't even worth looking for in the first place anyway.

* AudioErotica: Finally done ''right''.

* InTheStyleOf: Given away right in the title of "Salt and Cherries (MC5)".

Dr. Fink was a member of The Revolution and the NPG, working with Prince between circa 1979-1991. He played keyboards and became known as "Dr. Fink" for always wearing surgical scrubs on stage. According to Fink, it was the only outlandish outfit that Prince felt looked good on him.

Really, that's pretty much it. Vanity resigned from the band in 1983 for various reasons and kind of disappeared - she's since been HijackedByJesus and repented for her extreme harlotry, but that's another story for another time. In the meantime, Prince found actress Patricia Kotero after a frantic casting call. Re-christened "Apollonia", she was installed as the new frontwoman and the band was very appropriately renamed "Apollonia 6".

Also a fun note: many of these releases ended up out of print because they appeared on Prince's record label Paisley Park Records, and that was shut down in 1994 by Warner Bros. due to severe mismanagement from his managers Bob Cavallo, Joe Ruffalo and Steve Fargnoli[[hottip:*:How egregious? They'd paid such exorbitant advances to signees that Warner forced Prince to lend Paisley Park Studios to other bands in an attempt to recoup some of their losses]]. [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes Keep (mostly) Circulating The Tapes]] ([[YourMileageMayVary you can go ahead and "lose" the ones for Vanity and Apollonia 6, for starters.]]) Also, keep in mind that this list is by no means complete: there are several projects that never saw any form of release outside of bootlegs (like The Rebels and M.C. Flash) and there are probably even more that we don't even know about, sitting in Prince's vault.

Also a fun note: many of these releases ended up out of print because they appeared on Prince's record label Paisley Park Records, and that was shut down in 1994 by Warner Bros. due to severe mismanagement. [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes Keep (mostly) Circulating The Tapes]] ([[YourMileageMayVary you can go ahead and "lose" the ones for Vanity and Apollonia 6, for starters.]]) Also, keep in mind that this list is by no means complete: there are several projects that never saw any form of release outside of bootlegs (like The Rebels and M.C. Flash) and there are probably even more that we don't even know about, sitting in Prince's vault.

* {{Narm}}

One of the latest [[DetractorNickname Princettes]], Ashley Támar Davis sang backing vocals on Prince's album ''3121'' and played a few live concerts in some small clubs.

* NewWave

The resulting album contained a mishmash of high-energy funk ("Mutiny"), soul ballads ("Desire"), jazz instrumentals ("Susannah's Pajamas" - this should probably be expected if you've made it so far down the page...) and NewWave ("The Screams of Passion"). However, it did contain a small song called "Nothing Compares 2 U", which was CoveredUp and turned into a massive hit single by Sinéad O'Connor in 1990.

Sheena Easton was a Scottish singer back in TheEighties who scored a few hits occasionally, most notably with "Morning Train (9 to 5)" and "For Your Eyes Only", the theme for the [[Film/ForYourEyesOnly James Bond movie of the same name]]. Her music was largely pop with bits of soft rock and NewWave floating around, with a pretty ordinary image.

* NewWave

Somehow, presumably through his immense charm, he managed to convince them to record a few demos. He then met nude model and B movie actress Denise Matthews, famous for [[SarcasmMode her widely acclaimed roles in]] ''[[SarcasmMode Terror Train]]'' [[SarcasmMode and]] ''[[SarcasmMode Tanya's Island]]''. [[IfYouKnowWhatIMean Also, a certain part of the body]]. An awestruck Prince kicked out Shoop and installed his new girlfriend Matthews as the frontwoman instead, giving her the StageName "Vanity". YouDoNotWantToKnow one of the stories about its origin. But if you do: [[spoiler:Prince wanted to name her "Vagina", clarifying that [[ItsPronouncedTroPAY it would be pronounced "vag-EE-na"]], because [[SarcasmMode that's how you pronounce it in Minnesota or something]]. She predictably went "dude, WTF?" and managed to bargain it down to "Vanity"]].

[[caption-width:280:A literal example of FemaleSuccessIsFamily?]]

Sheena Easton was a Scottish singer back in TheEighties who scored a few hits occasionally, most notably with "Morning Train (9 to 5)" and "For Your Eyes Only", the theme for the [[ForYourEyesOnly James Bond movie of the same name]]. Her music was largely pop with bits of soft rock and NewWave floating around, with a pretty ordinary image.

Childhood friends Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman, much like Sheila E. above, had musical families: Wendy's father Mike and Lisa's father Gary (not to be confused with GaryColeman the actor) were highly in-demand session musicians, and Wendy's brother Jonathan also went on to become a musician and served as touring keyboardist for TheSmashingPumpkins.

* GriefSong: "Jonathan" deals with the death of Wendy's brother Jonathan after an overdose during a tour with TheSmashingPumpkins (the same incident resulted in Jimmy Chamberlain being fired from that band.) This topic was also explored in SarahMcLachlan's song "Angel".