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Prince · S2 E1
Warner Bros
The deal that shocked the industry. A teenager negotiates full creative control and producer credit on his debut album
Warner Bros Records, Burbank, late 1977. A demo tape from Minneapolis lands in the mailroom, and the executive who presses play has one question: how many musicians are on this recording?
"Let's Go Crazy" (Prince and the Revolution, 1984). "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life." In 1977, a teenager walked into Warner Bros with one demand: full creative control. This is what that bet sounds like when it pays off.
Let's Go Crazy, Prince and the Revolution (1984)
The sermon that opens this track is Prince preaching to himself as much as to his audience. Built on Oberheim synth stabs, a LinnDrum beat, and a guitar solo that sounds like it might tear the song apart from the inside, every sound arranged by one person. It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, Prince's second chart-topper after "When Doves Cry." Listen for the shift from the spoken intro into the full-band explosion: that is the sound of full creative control paying off.
Sources
Thorne, Matt. "Prince: The Man and His Music." Faber & Faber, 2012.
Hahn, Alex. "Possessed: The Rise and Fall of Prince." Billboard Books, 2003.
“I had to make sure people heard the music before they found out how old he was. If they knew he was a teenager, they would have dismissed him. The music had to come first.”
— Owen Husney, as quoted in Possessed: The Rise and Fall of Prince (Alex Hahn, 2003)
The Bidding War
Owen Husney spends weeks shopping Prince's demo tape to every major label that will listen. He sends packages to Warner Bros, Columbia, and A&M Records. All three want to meet the band behind the recording. There is no band.
Sources
Hahn, Alex. "Possessed: The Rise and Fall of Prince." Billboard Books, 2003.
Nilsen, Per. "DanceMusicSexRomance: Prince, the First Decade." Firefly Publishing, 1999.
TAP TO REVEAL: What was Owen Husney's secret weapon during the bidding war?
Warner Bros Records
The Burbank headquarters where Prince signed his first record deal. He walked out with something almost no debut artist had ever received: full creative control, producer credit, and the freedom to play every instrument on his own album.
The Deal: By the Numbers
Controversy, Prince (1981)
The title track of Prince's fourth album. Over a grinding funk riff and a pounding drum machine, Prince asks the question that defined his career: "Am I Black or White? Am I straight or gay?" This is the sound of an artist who signed a deal at nineteen specifically so nobody else could answer those questions for him.
Controversy, Prince (1981)
Prince opens with the Lord's Prayer, shifts into funk, then drops the question nobody in pop music was asking in 1981. The lyrics are a manifesto disguised as a party song, a declaration that categories don't apply to him and never will.
Which label was NOT part of the bidding war for Prince's first record deal?
The ink is dry and Prince has the keys to the studio. Next: twenty-seven instruments, five times over budget, and a debut album recorded in total isolation that terrifies the label and stuns the industry.
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