During Prince's incredible music career, he became known for being a leader both in terms of the songs he wrote and the artists he mentored. Due to Prince's legacy of fearlessness, fans have wondered how the beloved singer would handle things like modern racial unrest.
While it makes sense that generations of fans have admired how Prince conducted himself during his life, some of his decisions have baffled observers. Most notably, fans found it hard to understand it when Prince changed his name to a symbol which led to his record label suffering financially.
Why Did Prince Change His Name To A Symbol?
Throughout the late-'70s and the '80s, Prince did something that very few people have ever been able to do. After releasing a slew of hit songs and albums full of tunes that people genuinely loved, Prince turned himself into a legitimate legend.
Unfortunately for everyone involved, the perception of Prince changed pretty dramatically in the early-'90s.
On Prince's 35th birthday, the extremely talented singer shocked everyone when he announced that he was changing his name. In 1993, Prince suddenly adopted an unpronounceable symbol that looked vaguely like a musical note or an Egyptian symbol as his name.
Of course, it is fairly normal for musicians to do outrageous things like when Elton John trashed American Idol even though it is one of the biggest musical institutions of the modern era. Still, Prince's decision to change his name to a symbol wasn't just outrageous, it was downright baffling for pretty much everyone.
Given how hard it was for fans to make sense of Prince's new name, it seemed like everyone had one question for the singer, why? At the time of Prince's name change, the singer released a statement that supposedly was meant to explain what was going on but only confused a lot of observers more.
”It is an unpronounceable symbol whose meaning has not been identified. It’s all about thinking in new ways, tuning in 2 a new free-quency.”
During Prince's career, he never made it a habit of explaining his artistic decisions in great detail. Thankfully for anyone who wanted to know the truth about Prince's name change, however, the singer's reasons for the strange change have since been explained.
In 1977, Prince signed a record deal with Warner Bros. when he was still a teenager. Under that contract, Prince recorded and released his most famous songs, and he made a fortune for the company and himself.
Despite all that success, Prince grew to resent Warner Bros. for a couple of reasons including the company's demanding recording schedule. In a separate press release from the one explaining his name change, Prince further explained why he was angry at his label.
"Warner Bros took the name, trademarked it, and used it as the main marketing tool to promote all the music I wrote. The company owns the name Prince and all related music marketed under Prince. I became merely a pawn used to produce more money for Warner Bros."
Realizing that he couldn't break his contract with Warner Bros., Prince instead opted to work hard to fulfill all of his obligations as quickly as he could, so it would be over. As a result, Prince released the albums "Come", "The Black Album", "The Gold Experience", as well as "Chaos and Disorder between 1994 and 1996.
At the same time that Prince was busy pushing out album after album for Warner Bros. he decided to get back at the company. From all accounts, Prince changing his name to an indecipherable symbol was his way of expressing his outrage at his record company.
Did Prince's Name Change Cost Warner Bros. Money?
When fans look back at the phase of Prince's career when he went by a symbol, it is seen as a complete oddity for good reason. Just because the whole situation was weird, some people may leap to the conclusion that what happened was all bad for Warner Bros. and Prince.
Looking at the history of Prince's career, the truth is that it could be argued that Warner Bros. profited off the singer's name change in some ways.
First off, the most obvious reason that Warner Bros. had to be happy with their relationship with Prince in the mid-'90s is how many albums they got to release. After all, Warner Bros. signed Prince to a contract that called for him to record so many albums for them because they were excited to release the artist's music.
On top of getting to release a lot of Prince albums in a short period, one of the songs from that era became a hit with audiences, "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World". Finally, there is one other positive that Warner Bros. could take from their experience with Prince during the mid-'90s.
When a record company releases a new album, one of its biggest challenges is bound to be promoting it. When Prince changed his name to a symbol, that move fascinated a lot of people which resulted in the artist getting a lot of free press.
Unfortunately for Warner Bros. all the positive aspects of their relationship with Prince during the mid-'90s can easily be twisted into negatives. For example, getting free press is a great thing but a lot of the talk about Prince at that time reflected fans' confusion and the singer was openly mocked by a lot of people.
As for the fact that "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" was a big hit for Prince, that arguably was disappointing for the singer. After all, Prince's earlier albums were full of successful songs so having only one major hit during that era says a lot about how his music performed during those years.
Of the five Prince Albums Warner Bros. released between 1994 and 1996, none of them went platinum and only two of them went gold. Financially speaking, Warner Bros. clearly would have preferred to wait a little bit longer to have more albums to release if they were more successful.
In 2016, The BBC published an article about the era of Prince's career when he went by a symbol. In that piece, Jessica Lussenhop perfectly summed up how Prince's name change affected the singer and his record label.
The controversial decision was derided as "crazy" and "ridiculous". Record sales declined. It presented all kinds of logistical challenges for the media, resulting in the clumsy title, "Artist Formerly Known As Prince".
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