So, there's this guy named
Prince, you may have heard of him...
Skinny motherfucker with the high voice,
plays every instrument known to man, made some really catchy tunes, quite the
Small Name, Big Ego sometimes,
wrote nearly a thousand songs.
No, you didn't read that wrong. Prince is famous for being prolific when it comes to songwriting. This landed him in a bit of trouble with his record label in
The Eighties - 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
Production Posse, if you will.
Now, if you're not a devoted Prince fan, this is just going to be more
Archive Panic for a man that already has a huge discography. But Prince had lots of talented musicians in his entourage back in
The Eighties, 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
Need More Love, although exactly who does is an exercise best left to the listener. Indeed, barely any of the artists listed below actually garnered their own fanbase to sell albums to; many only listen to them because of Prince's involvement with their careers.
Prince's associates generally come in a few flavours depending on songwriting:
- People for whom Prince played every single instrument, wrote every single note (cleverly disguised with pseudonyms on the album credits) and sometimes even the lyrics. All they had to do was just add their vocals on top. For example: Vanity 6 and Apollonia 6.
- People for whom Prince composed and produced but they had their own input, including lyrics, co-writing credits and occasionally playing instruments. For example: Sheila E., New Power Generation and Ingrid Chavez.
- People for whom Prince sporadically contributed material but otherwise didn't do much. For example: Sheena Easton, Mavis Staples, Martika, and others.
- Actual bands with which Prince was involved. For example: Madhouse and 94 East.
- Formerly associated with him in some way but then broke away completely. Example: Wendy and Lisa, Dr. Fink, Brown Mark, Bobby Z., David Z., and so on.
- Stuff which fits into more than one category. For example: The Time and The Family. This will be duly noted.
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
note How egregious? They'd paid such exorbitant advances to signees (who were frequently signed behind Prince's back!) that Warner forced Prince to lend Paisley Park Studios to other bands in an attempt to recoup some of their losses.
Keep (mostly) Circulating The Tapes (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.
Just added vocals
You can probably guess their whole deal by looking at this...
Vanity 6Come on baby, drive me wild
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.
* Prince
had formed a rock band in 1979 called The Rebels, but they only recorded a handful of songs that were shelved.
Paula Abdul 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, Prince pretends 94 East or Grand Central/Champagne never happened.
So, basically the whole madness of Prince's empire of associates starts here.
Vanity 6 were a
Girl Group formed by Prince sometime in 1981, supposedly after watching
A Star Is Born and thinking "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
her widely acclaimed roles in Terror Train and 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
Stage Name "Vanity".
You Do Not Want To Know one of the stories about its origin. But if you do:
Prince wanted to name her "Vagina", clarifying that it would be pronounced "vag-EE-na", because that's how you pronounce it in Minnesota or something. She predictably went "dude, WTF?" and managed to bargain it down to "Vanity".* Hey, we warned you.
With the Vanity-Bennett-Moonsie lineup in place and a healthy supply of lingerie and
Intercourse with You lyrics, Prince renamed the group Vanity 6. The "6" supposedly came from the amount of breasts in the group, thus making Vanity 6 the only band to have been named after a case of
My Eyes Are Up Here.
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 around), 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
Minneapolis sound, with two forays into synthy
Power Pop ("He's So Dull" and "Bite the Beat") and lots of exaggerated,
Narmy lyrics about
Intercourse with You sung by three women with average vocal talent.
Needless to say, it became a hit and spawned a big hit single with "Nasty Girl".
Vanity 6 broke up a year later in 1983 when Vanity suddenly dropped out of the Prince camp and gave up her role in
Purple Rain. Undaunted, Prince replaced her with Patricia "Apollonia" Kotero and re-named them "Apollonia 6".
Vanity 6 provides examples of:
- Audio Erotica: Oh, man, they tried so hard to hit this and wound up missing wildly.
- An unreleased song, "Vibrator", has Vanity actually using a vibrator during the track. Thrice. Hilarity Ensues when her batteries die the second time and, through spoken word, she is forced to shop for more (Prince makes a cameo as an uncooperative store owner). The song ends with the third usage, acapella (this element was later recycled for Prince's song "Orgasm", whose album credits included "Vanity: she knows").
- Call-and-Response Song: "If a Girl Answers (Don't Hang Up)"
- 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"*
"(in a Voice That Sounds Suspiciously Like a Parody of Morris Day)"
.- Prince also appears in the unreleased "Vibrator" as the shopkeep that sells Vanity batteries for her "body massager".
- Girl Group
- Good Bad Girl: All three members were boxed into a certain personality. Vanity became this by default..
- The Immodest Orgasm: The aforementioned "Vibrator".
- Intercourse with You + Bawdy Song: 99% of their catalogue, pretty much.
- Lad Ette: Brenda chose the role of the cigarette-smoking tough chick. Probably the best straw she could draw.
- New Wave
- Power Pop: arguably "He's So Dull" and "Bite the Beat"
- Sex Sells
- Self-Titled Album
- Spoken Word In Music: "If a Girl Answers (Don't Hang Up)", and some other tunes.
- "I don't like this groove. Try and give me somethin' I can croon to- catch my drift?"
- "That's right, there'll be no more wet dreams for Brenda. At least not tonight."
- Stage Names: Vanity.
Apollonia 6I'm a sex shooter, shooting love in your direction
I'm a sex shooter, come and play with my affection
Vanity 6 except with Apollonia instead of Vanity.
Really, that's pretty much it. Vanity resigned from the band in 1983 for various reasons (some of them being Prince's jerkiness) and kind of disappeared - she's since been
Hijacked By Jesus 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".
Apollonia played Prince's girlfriend in
Purple Rain and the entire band made
a cameo. An album,
Apollonia 6, followed in 1984 but by this point Prince lost interest in his
Girl Group, which probably explains why he allowed more input from others -
Apollonia 6 featured backing vocals from Wendy and Lisa and Jill Jones, but even this couldn't save the album from even weaker material than before and even more over-the-top "explicit" lyrics that stumbled bravely into Narmland, as seen by the hilariously stupid "Sex Shooter" and the also hilariously stupid
Hot for Student song "Happy Birthday Mr. Christian". You know you're in a bad position when what's most notable about your album is what songs
didn't make it - reportedly, Prince had considered "Manic Monday", "17 Days", "The Glamorous Life" and his duet with Apollonia, "Take Me With U", for inclusion before coming to his senses and giving them to
The Bangles, himself, Sheila E. and himself again (on the
Purple Rain soundtrack) respectively.
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.
Fun side-note? The chorus of
The Pixies' "Debaser" was originally "Shed, Apollonia!" before it mutated into "Un chien andalusia!", thus making Apollonia 6
the only Prince-associated band to get a Shout Out in a Pixies song.Apollonia 6 provides examples of:
Jill Jones (later moved to
no involvement)
Who the hell is Jill Jones?
Well, she was a backup singer for R&B star Teena Marie back at the start of
The Eighties, 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
Purple Rain and a cameo in its shittier sequel
Graffiti Bridge, in a scene where she
takes off an undergarment to end a conflict with Prince.
Squ- wait, WTF? Oh, wait, this is the guy who came up with the idea for Vanity 6. Nevermind.
Prince repaid her contributions to
1999 by producing her solo album,
Jill Jones, which was released in 1987. Once again, he did everything and wrote all the songs and Jones merely had to put vocals on top. However, this album gained actual positive reviews from critics, mainly because Jones actually had vocal talent and could sing, as opposed to the competent vocals of Vanity and Apollonia, or the pleasant-but-bland vocals of Sheila E. and The Family.
After this, Jones did... well, nothing really. A second album got as far as the demo stage before being cancelled. She did tour with
Chic in 1996 though. She finally emerged with a new, completely Prince-less pop-rock album in 2001.
Discography:
- Jill Jones (1987)
- Two (2001)
- Living for the Weekend (2009)
Jill Jones provides examples of:
Morris Day And The Motherfuckin' Time
The Time (later moved to
actual band and kinda embody
no involvement)
What time is it?!
The real party's across the street, featurin' da greatest band in da world... MORRIS DAY AN'A TIME!!!
The most successful Prince associates, and
Jay And Silent Bob's favourites. And probably the most famous too.
The members of The Time are as follows:
- Morris Day - vocals
- Jerome Benton - vocals, comic foil, percussion
- Jellybean Johnson - drums
- Jimmy Jam - keyboards
- Monte Moir - keyboards
- Terry Lewis - bass
- Jesse Johnson - guitar
The Time were a
pop-funk-rock ensemble that relied heavily on
Rule of Funny and
very long jams. They were largely defined by frontman
Morris Day's hilarious lyrics and
Chivalrous Pervert-
Handsome Lech 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, admittedly...
Prince's acting makes
Keanu Reeves look like
William Shatner).
As befitting an associate band, for their initial period of 1981-1985, Prince played all instruments on The Time albums and simply overdubbed their vocals. However, Prince got
Hoist by His Own Petard here as The Time ably played the same songs live and occasionally would show up Prince when opening for The Revolution to get back at him for lack of input and low payments. The band became notoriously displeased after having to also play as the backing band for Vanity 6 while live (as they were credited for those performances) during the Prince/Time/Vanity 6 "Triple Threat" Tour. Jam and Lewis were sacked after being snowed in and missing a flight to a concert and were replaced just in time for the film
Purple Rain.
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 Producers, mostly for their work with
Janet Jackson. 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. Jesse Johnson put out a solo album named
Shockadelica in 1986, which drove Prince to write a song called "Shockadelica" since he felt an album with that cool a title needed a title song, but Johnson had neglected to write one.
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).
They then kind of disappeared again, spawning two different touring acts; The Time (which included Jam and Lewis) and Morris Day & the Time (which included the other members.) In 2011, spurred by a performance at the 2008 Grammys, all seven original members reformed under the name The Original 7ven (as Prince refused to license the name "The Time" out to them) and are recording together again.
Discography:
- The Time (1981)
- What Time Is It? (1982)
- Ice Cream Castle (1984)
- Pandemonium (1990)
- Condensate (2011)
The Time provides examples of:
- Blatant Lies: Several early songs (notably "777-9311") include moments where Morris calls for band members by name, so that they can solo. In actuality, Prince played every note for them. Averted on "Jerk Out" and everything past it: once Morris declares, "Cut 'em, Jesse", Jesse Johnson actually solos for himself.
- From "Wild and Loose": "Don't worry baby, I can keep a secret for as long as snow is white / Hey Jesse, come here man, guess what I did last night?"
- Call-and-Response Song: A staple of their repetoire.
- Catch Phrase: "What time is it?", "Ain't nobody bad, like me", "Now I know that's right" and "Somebody bring me a mirror (so I can look at X)"*
the X usually being a variation of "myself"
- Chivalrous Pervert or Handsome Lech: Morris Day.
- Dance Sensation: Parodied with "The Walk". Played straight with "Jungle Love" and "The Bird".
- Early Installment Weirdness: Despite being The Casanova, Morris sang both a ballad about pining over a love that had moved on, and a new wave track about the end of high school on the band's first album. These topics were never revisited.
- Epic Rocking: "Get It Up", "Cool", "The Stick", "Wild and Loose", "The Walk", "Ice Cream Castles", "The Bird", "Jerk Out", "Chocolate", "Skillet".
- Genre Savvy: In "Chili Sauce", Morris tells Jerome in an aside to prompt Morris to stop wooing on a girl by the number 17. He then fills the next 16 phrases (or loops of the backing track) with his bravado, stopping directly at the start of phrase 17. She falls for him.
- Intercourse with You: The lengthy jams on their first album, "Get It Up" and "The Stick."
- Large Ham: Morris Day.
- Self-Deprecation: The conversation in "Wild and Loose", as well as several moments in "Jerk Out".
- Self-Titled Album
- Stealth Parody: "After Hi School", "Gigolos Get Lonely Too" and "Onedayi'mgonnabesomebody" (okay, that one's more obvious...)
- Something Completely Different: The heavy rock of "Skillet".
- Spoken Word In Music: Most of their songs eschew ending in favour of repeating the backing track and adding dialogue that may or may not be all that funny. The song "Chili Sauce" is five straight minutes of seductive dialogue, while "Wild and Loose" features two sets of dialogue at once: groupies who were happy to have met Morris in the left channel and the band in the right, culminating in Morris meeting the girls in the center channel.
- Title by Number: "777-9311" was named after Dez Dickerson's phone number. He had to change it after receiving unwanted calls.
The Family (overlaps with
actual band)
But nothing compares to you
The Family, "Nothing Compares 2 U"
Now, here's a bit of a trickier case. After The Time disintegrated for the first time in 1984, Prince restructured the band with a few new musicians and renamed it "The Family". Its members were as follows:
- Paul "St. Paul" Peterson - vocals, keyboards, bass
- Susannah Melvoin - vocals, keyboards
- Jerome Benton - vocals, comic foil, percussion
- Jellybean Johnson - drums
- Eric Leeds - saxophone, flute
But on the resulting album,
The Family (1985), Prince decided to be a
Control Freak and once again wrote nearly all songs ("River Run Dry", the sole exception, was written by The Revolution drummer Bobby Z.) and played everything on the album, simply overdubbing vocals by Peterson and Melvoin and Leeds' saxophone and flute.
The resulting album contained a mishmash of high-energy funk ("Mutiny"), soul ballads ("Desire"), jazz instrumentals ("Susannah's Pajamas" - this title should not be surprising if you've made it so far down the page...) and
New Wave ("The Screams of Passion"). However, it did contain a small song called "Nothing Compares 2 U", which was
Covered Up and turned into a massive hit single by Sinéad O'Connor in 1990.
The band itself was short-lived, lasting barely a year before Peterson left, sick of Prince's
Control Freakism. Still, it marked the beginning of Prince'ss long-term collaboration with Eric Leeds, for what it's worth.
The Family provides examples of:
Carmen ElectraSo please, don't step to the mic. In fact, please step away from it. Far, far away from it.
i-Mockery's hilarious review of Carmen Electra
Yes,
Carmen Electra used to be a back-up dancer for Prince (in fact, he gave her the
Stage Name "Carmen Electra") in the early nineties and had a self-titled album produced by him in 1993. The album's famous for being a
complete shitburger. A really funny skewering of it, complete with some audio samples, is available on
i-Mockery
.
Carmen Electra provides examples of:
- Old Shame
- Piss Take Rap
- Pretty Fly For A White Guy: Carmen's attempt at being street, especially when rapping about the Exxon Valdez spill.
- Product Placement: Prince used the second segue on this album to subtly advertise many other songs that he worked on, via pretending to dial through a radio: "Hit U in the Socket" by Rosie Gaines, "In a Word or 2" by Monie Love, "The Voice" by Mavis Staples, "Sexy M.F." by Prince and the New Power Generation, "With This Tear" by Celine Dion and "Goldnigga" by the New Power Generation. This serves absolutely no purpose in the context of the album.
- Sexophone: Painfully invoked on another segue, complete with crashing waves.
With their own input
Raise your hand if you're an awesome drummer
Sheila E. (overlaps with
sporadic contributions)
She wants to lead the glamorous life
Without love, it ain't much
Drumming
runs pretty big in Sheila Escovedo's family: her father Pete is a famous percussionist, her uncle Alejandro drummed for various punk bands before starting a solo career, her other uncle Coke played with Santana, her other
other uncle Javier founded the seminal punk band The Zeros, and Tito Puente was her godfather.
It's little surprise then that Sheila took up drumming and quickly became really good at it, playing with such luminaries as George Duke,
Marvin Gaye, Alphonso Johnson,
Herbie Hancock and
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" (and some other vocals here and there, like the "transmississippirap" on "It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night"). She secured herself the position of drummer for Prince after The Revolution disbanded, but left Prince in 1989 due to a collapsed lung. 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 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 Groups: her lyrics were decidedly PG-rated, dealing with love (not
Intercourse with You, 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
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 Albums 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
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.
Discography:
- The Glamorous Life (1984)
- Romance 1600 (1985)
- Sheila E. (1987)
- Sex Cymbal (1991)
- Writes of Passage (2000)
- Heaven (2001)
Sheila E. provides examples of:
- Epic Rocking: "The Glamorous Life", "Oliver's House", "A Love Bizarre", all of which fall squarely into Ear Worm territory.
- Foil: She played this role in the All-Starr Band concerts, especially during the solos where Ringo would comically fail to keep up with her.
- Incredibly Lame Pun: Sex Cymbal, so bad it hurts.
- Piss Take Rap: Averted - her Motor Mouth reading of Edward Lear's "The Table and the Chair" on "It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night" is actually good. (The liner notes credit it as "transmississippirap" since Prince recorded her doing it over the phone from, well, the other side of the Mississippi River.)
- Self-Titled Album: Interestingly, done for the third album.
- Spoken Word In Music: "Toy Box". It sounds like a normal funk song at first, and then right at the end Sheila blind-sides you with a long, shouty rant that makes you wonder who spiked her coffee and with what.
- Word Salad Lyrics: "Dear Michaelangelo", "Toy Box", "Romance 1600" and "Bedtime Story" have a special ability to make you scratch your head and go "huh?".
- Word Salad Title: "Merci for the Speed of a Mad Clown in the Summer"... what?
- You Make Me Sic: Michelangelo, not Michaelangelo.*
Maybe it's actually about a guy named Michael Angelo?
Ingrid ChavezIngrid Chavez is Mexican-American and has been married to David Sylvian of the band
Japan since 1992.
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. 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
Graffiti Bridge. It was during the filming that she,
Lenny Kravitz 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
Public Enemy would be a nifty idea.
* Judging by the success, turned out it was.
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".
Chavez drifted out of Prince's
harem musical empire soon after. Since then, she's frequently recorded with her husband David Sylvian and with Ryuichi Sakamoto of
Yellow Magic Orchestra.
Ingrid Chavez provides examples of:
...with the wardrobe of the Old Generation
New Power Generation (overlaps with
actual band)
Here's another interesting case. In 1990, Prince started forming a new backing band for himself, after the Revolution imploded in 1986 and his newer, untitled backing band was starting to wear thin. He christened them the New Power Generation and their members are:
- Levi Seacer, Jr. - rhythm guitar (1991-1993)
- Kat Dyson - rhythm guitar (1996-1997)
- "Rev." Michael Scott - rhythm guitar (1997-2001, 2004, 2006)
- Sonny T. - bass (1991-1996)
- Rhonda Smith - bass (1996-2004)
- Tommy Barbarella - keyboards (1991-1996)
- Michael Bland - drums (1991-1996)
- Kirk Johnson - percussion, backing vocals, drums, drum machine programming (1993-2000)
- Tony M. - rapping (1991-1993)
- Mayte Garcia - backing vocals (1992-1996)
Of course, there are plenty more members, but these are the ones that appeared on the albums accredited solely to them. Prince, like The Time, wrote nearly all of their music, but the band actually played their own instruments. Prince deliberately introduced the NPG's work as a separate entity by releasing his own song "Pink Cashmere" the same day that NPG's debut album
Goldnigga came out. However, Prince being Prince, he took up the name Tora Tora so he could contribute to the NPG's second album,
Exodus. The band was ultimately dismantled in 1996, where Prince retained the name but hired entirely new musicians. For this second iteration, he included himself in the NPG and took over for lead vocal duties. His likeness appearing on the cover of
Newpower Soul cemented this notion. While the band has not recorded any further albums, they remained Prince's backing band until 2012, contributing a lot musically to his live show.
Discography:
- Goldnigga (1993)
- Exodus (1995)
- Newpower Soul (1998)
- "The War" single (1998)
- "Peace" and "The Daisy Chain" singles (2001)
New Power Generation provides examples of:
- And You Were There: Invoked by Sonny in the closing minute of Exodus.
- Concept Album: Goldnigga loosely based itself around phone calls between members. For example, in one segue it's mentioned that "the record company" wants a song with a positive message, and another band member responds by saying he's got a new song to try out. Cue said song. Exodus goes into full blown concept with 12 of its 21 tracks containing Spoken Word In Music. On this album, the band show up at a nightclub only for them to be playing "ladies night" fare. After the band kicks out the DJ and plays their own music, the DJ gets back at the instigator Sonny by introducing him to two women who will poison him later via a bowl of soup. The soup makes him dream he and the band are in the future taking over a spaceship from a guy who wants to use his "endorphinmachine" to take over the world. Then Sonny wakes up.
- Epic Rocking: "Johnny" and "The Exodus Has Begun", amongst others.
- N-Word Privileges: Goldnigga.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Prince calling himself Tora Tora in order to sing lead vocals on Exodus. It didn't fool anyone.
- Revolving Door Band: The list above provides only half of the people who have been part of the NPG.
- Spoken Word In Music: Some on Goldnigga and tons on Exodus. The latter features additional skits unrelated to the shoestring plot in which Sonny watches television; the show he's watching is a skit within a skit by Prince and each one goes on for three minutes a piece (but are surprisingly funny.) Meanwhile, the single "The War" is 26 minutes of Fauxlosophic Narration.
Millions of stupid jokes about harems and we finally encounter Prince's ex-wife. Coincidence?
Mayte GarciaMayte first joined Prince's
harem entourage in 1990 as a dancer, later graduating to occasionally contributing vocals in
Gratuitous Spanish. She then married Prince in 1996. They were due to become parents, but the baby died from a rare skull disease named Pfeiffer's syndrome a week after he was born. Predictably, the marriage disintegrated after this traumatic event and Prince and Mayte divorced in 2000. Mayte has since returned to dancing and choreography.
Prince produced and co-wrote one solo album for her in 1995 (possibly in his sleep; it's kind of what he does...), entitled
Child of the Sun. Nobody really noticed its existence and it's since gone out of print. In fact, the most notable song it contained was a
a gender-reversed version of the cheesiest,
Tastes Like Diabetes-est song Prince ever wrote, "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World". Yeah, it's like that. And a cover of "Brick House" by The Commodores, which is at least not as corny.
The second disc of Prince's
Emancipation was
inspired by their marriage and her pregnancy. Yes, this means Mayte is partially responsible for
Tastes Like Diabetes-fests like "Friend, Lover, Sister, Mother/Wife". We hope she enjoyed the gift, because we might have not.
Mayte provides examples of:
TámarOne of the latest Princettes, Ashley Támar Davis sang backing vocals on Prince's album
3121 on the song "Beautiful, Loved and Blessed", 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
got delayed and later cancelled. A few promotional copies have surfaced after being sold in Japan, and one of its songs, "Kept Woman", was re-recorded and handed off to Bria Valente.
Támar provides examples of:
Bria Valente
Another protege in the grand tradition of Vanity and Apollonia, Brenda "Bria Valente" Fuentes began her association with Prince in late 2006, contributing backing vocals to "The Song of the Heart" (from the movie
Happy Feet) and his album
Planet Earth.
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
Audio Erotica 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.
Because we all know it would've been a huge hit by itself... It usually got singled out as the weakest album of the three-disc set by reviewers.
Sporadic contributions and one-offs
Martika, being very Eighties.
MartikaMartika, "Toy Soldiers".
Martika was a pop singer and actress in
The Eighties, mostly known for appearing on
Kids Incorporated and... uh, Mr. T's
motivational video
Be Somebody or Be Somebody's Fool!.
Her first album,
Martika, was released in 1988. It spawned a #1 hit single, "Toy Soldiers", which
Eminem later
Sampled Up for his own song "Like Toy Soldiers", and two other hits, "More Than You Know" and a
cover of
Carole King's "I Feel The Earth Move".
Her second album,
Martika's Kitchen, was released in 1991. This album was produced and co-written by Prince, who combined Martika's pop music with elements from gospel, jazz,
Funk, R&B and Cuban music and lyrically explored such
Serious Business topics as crack babies, racism and homophobia. An interesting melange to be sure, which eventually kind of flunked on the charts. Thus endeth Martika's association with Prince.
Discography:
- Martika (1988)
- Martika's Kitchen (1991)
- Violince (2004)
- Oppera (2006)
Martika provides examples of:
Mavis StaplesMuch like Martika, Mavis Staples had already had a career going before her association with Prince. And it wasn't too bad either, what with being famous for having a great voice, recording with her family as The Staple Singers and being a civil rights activist in
The Sixties.
Staples collaborated with Prince for a few years, contributing the song "Melody Cool" to the
Graffiti Bridge soundtrack and having two solo albums,
Time Waits For No One (1989) and
The Voice, co-written and produced by him. And that's... kind of it actually.
Discography:
- Mavis Staples (1969)
- Only for the Lonely (1970)
- A Piece of the Action (1977)
- Oh What a Feeling (1979
- Mavis Staples (1984)
- Don't Change Me Now (1988)
- Time Waits for No One (1989)
- The Voice (1993)
- Spirituals & Gospel: Dedicated to Mahalia Jackson with Lucky Peterson (1996)
- Have a Little Faith (2004)
- We'll Never Turn Back (2007)
Sheena Easton, seen here before being put through the Princegrinder.
Sheena EastonMy baby takes the morning train
He works from 9 'til 5 and then
He takes another home again
To find me waiting for him
Sheena Easton, "Morning Train (9 to 5)"
Sheena Easton was a Scottish singer back in
The Eighties who scored a few hits occasionally, most notably with "Morning Train (9 to 5)" and "For Your Eyes Only", the theme for the
James Bond movie of the same name. Her music was largely pop with bits of soft rock and
New Wave floating around, with a pretty ordinary image.
Which obviously made her the perfect woman to collaborate with Prince. Prince produced her 1984 album
A Private Heaven and predictably transformed her into another trying-too-hard-to-be-sexy siren. She did get two hit singles out of it, "Strut" and the
Narmy "Sugar Walls", so it probably wasn't that bad of a deal. Easton sang on two other Prince songs, "U Got the Look" and "The Arms of Orion", and collaborated with him some more on
The Lover in Me before parting ways with him.
As a bit of trivia, she has contributed twice to
Phineas and Ferb, guest starring and singing (in a duet with Dr. Doofenschmirtz) "Happy Evil Love Song" in the episode "Chez Platypus" and singing "When Will He Call Me?" in "Backyard Aquarium". Which means that she has the distinction of being
the second artist on this list both to have had a career before Prince and to have been on a children's television show.Discography:
- Take My Time (1980)
- You Could Have Been with Me (1981)
- Madness, Money & Music (1982)
- Best Kept Secret (1983)
- A Private Heaven (1984)
- Todo Me Recuerda a Ti (1984) - Spanish language release
- Do You (1985)
- No Sound But a Heart (1987)
- The Lover in Me (1988)
- What Comes Naturally (1991)
- No Strings (1993)
- My Cherie (1995)
- Freedom (1997)
- Home (1999)
- Fabulous (2000)
Sheena Easton provides examples of:
- Moral Guardians: "Sugar Walls" is best known for being one of the songs listed on the PMRC's "Filthy Fifteen" list.
MadonnaPrince wrote and produced "Love Song" on
Madonna's album
Like a Prayer. He also played the guitar solos on "Act of Contrition" and "Keep It Together".
* And one on "Like a Prayer", but it was removed from the album version. It's on the maxi-single though.
Completely unrelated to this, former Revolution guitarist (and current one-half of Wendy & Lisa) Wendy Melvoin played guitar on the song "She's Not Me" from the album
Hard Candy.
Kate BushPrince 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.
* The final version also features backing vocals from Bush's friend
Lenny Henry, a comedian known for his good Prince impersonation, as well as the obligatory Trio Bulgarka cameo.
Bush also made a cameo appearance on
Emancipation, singing backing vocals on "My Computer", but good luck hearing her at all on that song.
The BanglesPrince wrote their big hit "Manic Monday", for which he recycled the verse melody of "1999" (fun activity: when you hear "Manic Monday", sing the lyrics from "1999"). He also dated their frontwoman Susanna Hoffs for a while, and that was it.
Tevin CampbellCampbell contributed the song "Round and Round" to the
Graffiti Bridge soundtrack and provided some additional vocals. Prince repaid him by writing and producing several songs on his 1993 album
I'm Ready.
Candy DulferA Dutch smooth jazz 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.
She's rather famous for the brutally,
Incredibly Lame Puns that masquerade as her album titles, such as
Saxuality,
Sax-a-Go-Go and
Candy Store. Also, she's the daughter of Dutch saxophonist Hans Dulfer, if that rings a bell with anybody.
...Anybody?
*crickets*Yeah, thought so.
Elisa FiorilloA backing singer on the
Batman,
Graffiti Bridge and
Diamonds and Pearls albums. Fiorillo had one album named
I Am co-produced by Prince and Levi Seacer, Jr. in 1990.
She also contributed a song to the soundtrack of
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.
Actual band
Mazarati, seen here wearing clothes Prince thought were a bit silly.
MazaratiMazarati were a funk/Minneapolis sound band formed by Prince and his bassist Brownmark, active between 1986-1989. Its members were:
- Casey Terry - vocals
- Jerome "Romeo" Cox - bass
- Craig "Screamer" Powell - guitar
- Tony Christian - guitar
- Mark Starr - keyboards
- Aaron Paul Keith - keyboards
- Kevin Patricks - drums (whenever it's not Mr. Linn LM-1...)
Its first album,
Mazarati, was produced and co-written by Prince and spawned one hit single, the funk-rock "100 MPH".
Notably, Mazarati first received the demo of Prince's song "Kiss", back when it was a blues-styled song. They transformed it into a funk song. Prince was so impressed he added his vocals and guitars on top and released it as a single from
Parade, quickly rocketing to #1 on the charts. Mazarati's backing vocals were kept on the song and they were credited for them. They were also initially given an outtake from The Time called "Jerk Out", but this was also later redone by The Time and turned into a #1 single. Mazarati's backing vocals were also kept on "Jerk Out".
Mazarati later moved away from Prince, signed with Motown Records and recorded another album, the
New Jack Swing-styled Mazarati 2, before breaking up.
Discography:
- Mazarati (1986)
- Mazarati 2 (1989)
Mazarati provides examples of:
Oh look, it's the
YouTube Commenter Rehab Centre!
Not to be confused with the similarly-named
Post Punk band led by Monica Richards or the similarly-titled
Funk band led by Gary Cooper (if you're into either of those...), Madhouse was formed in 1987 and intended to be the successor to The Family. Its members were:
- Prince - everything
- Eric Leeds - saxophone, flute
- Levi Seacer, Jr. - bass
- Matt "Dr." Fink - keyboards
- Sheila E. - drums
Madhouse was a largely instrumental jazz-fusion band with a few funk influences, notable for its song and album titles: both released albums contain 8 songs and are named
8 and
16 respectively, with the songs on
8 being named "One", "Two", "Three", and so on up to "Eight", and the songs on
16 being named from "Nine" up to "Sixteen".
Madhouse released only two albums during their short existence, but at least two others were recorded and remain unreleased to this day. Some of their songs tended to show up during Prince's late eighties tours, "Twelve" in particular.
Discography:
Madhouse provides examples of:
- Fake Band: In the few concerts they performed opening for Prince, Madhouse's musicians heavily disguised themselves with baggy clothes and sunglasses.
- Instrumentals
- Sampling: The only vocals on both albums are either samples from The Godfather or samples of Vanity simulating an orgasm.
- Shout Out: 16 is subtitled "New Directions in Garage Music", in reference to "Directions in Music by Miles Davis" from one of his most important releases, Bitches Brew.
94 EastThe first "real" band Prince ever played in
* He was also previously in a band named Grand Central and then Champagne with André Cymone and Charles Smith, but they never recorded anything
, 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.
Their recordings were predictably reissued a couple of times after Prince hit the big time, and the most common of these is the
Minneapolis Genius album. This is technically Prince's first professional album, but he ignores its existence entirely, considering that he had no input into its recording.
94 East provide examples of:
Broke away completely
Can you tell them apart easily?
Wendy and LisaWendy?
Yes, Lisa?
Is the water warm enough?
Yes, Lisa
Shall we begin?
Yes, Lisa
Prince and the Revolution, "Computer Blue"
Take a ride on the honeymoon express
Wendy and Lisa, "Honeymoon Express"
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
Gary Coleman 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
The Smashing Pumpkins... until he
died of a heroin overdose.
Lisa was the first to join The Revolution as a keyboardist in 1980, replacing Gayle Chapman. Once guitarist Dez Dickerson left in 1983, Lisa pulled the
I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine card and got Wendy into the band as a guitarist.
Wendy and Lisa (as they were always credited) were generally acknowledged by fans and critics as The Revolution's "secret weapon": their complex approach to melody and songwriting helped push Prince and the band to a whole different level musically, while their love of
The Beatles was reflected in the
Pop and
Psychedelic Rock influences they added. Their backing vocals and contributions to
Purple Rain,
Around the World in a Day and
Parade are held in very high regard. And their spoken introduction to "Computer Blue" (quoted above) has proven
quite memorable, being referenced in
Mystery Science Theater 3000 and other places.
Prince decided to repay their hard work by being a complete
Jerk Ass towards them, turning each tour between 1984-1986 into a game of "How can I piss off Wendy and Lisa today?" (answer: giving Leeds Wendy's solos on "Purple Rain", expanding The Revolution with more musicians, antagonising Wendy by bringing her twin sister Susannah in the band and getting romantically involved with her, etc). Prince's asshole behaviour towards Wendy and Lisa in
Purple Rain wasn't exactly acting. In fact, Prince's conflict with the two was one of the key intra-band conflicts that eventually led to Prince's disbanding of The Revolution in 1986.
In response, Wendy and Lisa recorded their first self-titled album in 1987. They co-produced the album with Revolution drummer Bobby Z, called up contributions from family members (namely Wendy's sister Susannah, Lisa's brother David and father Gary), played various instruments, wrote and sang all the songs. The result was a quirky, low-budget pop album filled with
memorable melodies and possessing an overall ethereal character. The album received positive reviews, made a bit of headway in the USA and climbed up to a moderate position up in the UK.
For their follow-up album,
Fruit at the Bottom, the two abandoned the low-key charms of their debut and tried to take a shot towards success, adding more synths and dance beats to their music. Unfortunately they came up short in the songwriting department, which was reflected in its sales: the USA pretty much ignored it completely, while
the British again sent it up the charts.Wendy and Lisa next signed with Virgin Records and released a new album,
Eroica, a much more eclectic alternative-rock oriented work that didn't sacrifice the group's trademark ethereal atmosphere or memorable melodies. It met with strong reviews and became their biggest success... in the UK, natch.
The two took some time off from their solo career and found a second job out of soundtracks - they've since contributed soundtracks and incidental music for various films and TV shows such as
Toys,
Dangerous Minds,
Heroes,
Bionic Woman,
Crossing Jordan,
Something New and
Nurse Jackie, the last of which they won an Emmy for. They also took up work as session musicians, appearing either together or alone on albums by
Eric Clapton,
Joni Mitchell, Meshell Ndegeocello, Michael Penn,
Liz Phair, Seal,
Madonna and k.d. lang.
They've also made two solo albums since, the Tchad Blake-produced
Girl Bros. in 1998 and the entirely self-released
White Flags of Winter Chimneys in 2008 (the latter's online release being similar to the ones for
In Rainbows and
Ghosts I-IV). No word yet on their sales in the UK.
Discography:
- Wendy and Lisa (1987)
- Fruit at the Botton (1989)
- Eroica (1990)
- Girl Bros. (1998)
- White Flags of Winter Chimneys (2008)
Wendy and Lisa provide examples of:
Matt "Doctor" FinkMatt 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 the joint Fire It Up tour in 1979 that one of
Rick James' bandmates did that already, and "doctor's scrubs" was the first thing he could think of as a replacement.
His first appearance on record was on "Head" from
Dirty Mind, to which he contributed a noisy, atonal synthesizer solo.
Fink is the longest-lasting original member of The Revolution, surviving the band's axing in 1986 and staying on until 1991, when he left along with last remaining Revolutionite Miko Weaver after the fractious Nude Tour.
After he left the Prince camp, he built his own studio (named StarVu Studios), worked on some videogame soundtracks, created a sample library, put out a solo album named
Ultrasound in 2001, and signed an exclusive management deal for Europe with the company Mozart & Friends. Presumably this will lead to his releases being actually distributed in Europe.
Dr. Fink provides examples of:
- Token White: 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. He stopped being the Token White after Lisa Coleman, Wendy Melvoin and Eric Leeds became members.
David Z.David "Z." Rivkin, brother of original Revolution drummer Bobby Z. and former member of Lipps Inc., does play instruments but is mostly famous for his work as
Record Producer and engineer who pretty much helped
codify the whole Minneapolis sound.
After producing and engineering for Prince and his associates in
The Eighties, he left the camp sometime around 1989. He's carried on working as a producer ever since, with credits including the Fine Young Cannibals (their second album
The Raw and the Cooked), Billy Idol, Neneh Cherry, Terri Nunn, the
Trans-Siberian Orchestra and others.)
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