The Very Best of Prince
Occupation
Prince, Prince and the Revolution, Prince and The New Power Generation
The Very Best of Prince (English for The very best of Prince) is the fourth compilation album by American musician Prince. It was released on 31 July 2001 at the music label Warner Bros. Records. The album contains 17 songs that were released as a single from nine different Prince albums 1979-1992.
Prince had separated from Warner Bros. Records in late 1999 and did not agree with the release of The Very Best of Prince. But Warner Bros. Records owns the copyright to all the songs that Prince recorded in his career for this label. Although neither Prince nor Warner Bros. Records appreciable Music Promotion held for the album, it reached platinum status, for example, in England and in the United States.
Formation
Although the contract between Prince and Warner Bros. Records expired on 31 December 1999, but the beginning of the 21st century, the major label contacted repeatedly Prince ' lawyers. Warner wanted to find out whether Prince would again support the release of a greatest hits album. As early as 1993 he published The Hits 1 The Hits 2 and The Hits / The B -Sides three compilation albums with his former record label Warner Bros. Records.
Originally wanted to release a greatest hits album titled A Celebration Warner in 2001. In this project, Prince showed interest and wanted to start providing new unreleased songs. Warner and Prince could but then on financial aspects, some not - the major label was even willing to pay higher royalties Prince, as they had agreed with him in previous treaties. But Prince refused this offer. Warner Leaders Gregg Geller was eventually commissioned by the label, together Prince ' most commercially successful song from 1979 to 1992 and to publish them under the title The Very Best of Prince.
At its former site NPG Music - Club.com Prince criticized the release of The Very Best of Prince and informed, as Warner Bros. Records own the copyrights to his songs, he would earn the album " virtually no money." Some industry experts disagreed with this assertion, saying that even if Prince did not belong to the Masters, he would receive as a performer and songwriter royalties from the sales of The Very Best of Prince. No other bonuses he would get from music publishing interests.
Design of the cover
Are seen, which are arranged in three rows of four, with each nine square photos of Prince on the front of the booklet. The oldest photo shows the record covers from the album Dirty Mind of 1980, the most recent photo shows Prince from the year 1990. The booklet can be unfolded and on the front of the cover of the respective singles are shown, which are present on the compilation. On the back were printed information to the 17 songs, lyrics is not available. In 2010 The Very Best of Prince appeared with a different cover, the tracklist was unchanged.
Music
The music from the album The Very Best of Prince is assigned to different genres of music; For example, I Wanna Be Your Lover and Little Red Corvette are in the area pop music, 1999 and Kiss in the field of radio, When Doves Cry and I Would Die 4 U from the field of electronic dance music, Let's Go Crazy from the field of rock music as well as Cream and Diamonds and Pearls from the Contemporary R & B.
List of titles and publications
Until Money Do not Matter 2 Night all 17 songs from The Very Best of Prince in the year 1993 appeared on the compilation The Hits / The B -Sides. The order of the tracklist of The Very Best of Prince is arranged chronologically by the date of publication of singles and is composed of the following nine Prince albums:
Some songs are present in an Edit version, so in a shortened version in comparison to the respective album version. Singles were not decoupled from the album The Very Best of Prince, because there are none on the album so far unreleased songs. Music Videos exist to all the songs from the album.
The Very Best of Prince is as Compact Discs and the MusicCassette available for purchase. Furthermore, in Germany, a 6- track promo CD with the song When Doves Cry, Purple Rain, Kiss, Cream, 1999 and Money Do not Matter 2 Night is published.
Tour
On June 15, 2001 Prince began his A -Celebration Tour in Saint Paul ( Minnesota ) in the Xcel Energy Center, where he gave another concert on June 16. This was followed by concerts in Columbus ( Ohio), Detroit and Omaha. However, after a total of six concerts broke Prince - without giving any reason - his current tour after the concert on June 28th in Milwaukee from. Originally the A -Celebration - tour should include 22 concerts in the U.S. and ended on August 5, 2001 in Anchorage. However, Prince canceled the remaining 16 concerts and performed only at the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal on July 6 on. Live concerts he gave then again in January 2002.
From then on, there was speculation in the press, the Prince has deliberately aborted tour to want to do any advertising for the upcoming July release of The Very Best of Prince; he did not agree with the release of the album and wanted to Warner Bros. Records do not support.
Later it became known, the Prince 's father John Lewis Nelson was seriously ill and Prince wanted to spend time with him. On 25 August 2001 John Lewis Nelson died at the age of 85 years at his home in Chanhassen ( Minnesota ), the cause of death was until today (as of 2014) not disclosed.
Reception
Press
The CD The Very Best of Prince was hardly observed and evaluated by musical journals. The U.S. music magazine Rolling Stone distributed four out of five stars, but did not explain how this result came about. Stephen Thomas Erlewine music journalist of Allmusic gave the maximum number of five possible points and praised the album as Nina Hortig from Amazon.de judged " perfect for those who want to have a Prince - disk easily and want to hear some of his best songs. ": " For beginners and fans: This Very Best Of [sic ] is worth the money. "
Charts
In 2001 The Very Best of Prince reached # 66 in the U.S.. It was only in 2004, when Prince was successful with his then Musicology tour through the United States, the album reached its maximum placement with space 55 Over the years, The Very Best of Prince always returned to the Billboard 200. Also in other charts, the album is to be found again and again in the top 100; for example, climbed The Very Best of Prince of space 999 at number 38 in the Top Sellers from Amazon.com after Prince had occurred in February 2007 at the Super Bowl XLI. The Very Best of Prince were sold worldwide since 2001 about three million copies internationally and won several gold and platinum status. For example, it received:
- In England platinum for 300,000 copies sold
- In the U.S. platinum for one million copies sold