THE RITUALISTIC LIFE and MURDER OF PRINCE: PT. 4 SEGMENT 18 “Love Symbol” (Pt.1)

We pick up after the "Diamonds and Pearls" Tour of 1992. where Prince and the band take a short break to decompress from the tour.  "Sexy MF" is released during the tour and is doing well on the charts.  Prince goes to Paris to work on the music for the new "concept" album.  Prince develops a concept and storyline for the new album, and begins to record this new music and makes videos for almost every song on the album for the "3 Chains O' Gold" video compilation.  

Prince's creative team has been working on the "Love Symbol" for years, since Prince first used it on the "Purple Rain" album.  Prince "conceptualizes" changes to the symbol and decides to copyright it and adopt it as the title of the new album, "Love Symbol".  

Mayte is broke and has blown through her "dancer money", but doesn't want to leave Prince.  We examine further "inconsistencies" in Mayte's depiction of this time with Prince, but this is just the tip of the iceburg in terms of looking at this with Prince and Mayte.  More coming up in the series.

Prince signs his landmark $100 Million contract with Warner Brothers, and its terms make him the highest paid entertainer in pop music.  However, WB starts to walk back the terms of the contract that Prince publicly detailed in the media, feeling that Prince's announcement makes them look like suckers.

The media and industry insiders begin to feel that Prince has misrepresented the deal with the label.  This new contract marks the start of a tumultuous and tense time in the relationship between Prince and the label, that is still being discussed and dissected by many to this day.  In this episode, we will discuss the origins of this huge dispute between Prince and WB, but of course, 1993 brings more change and upheaval, that we will discuss in Pt. 2 of SEGMENT 18.  

"Love Symbol" turns out to be a disappointment, particularly when compared to the huge success of the last album, "Diamonds and Pearls", and the relationship between Prince and WB begins to further deteriorate due to the low sales and WB weak promotion.  Also, the public is confused by "Love Symbol's storyline and music and not sure what to even call it.  Reviews are mixed, since the music press is just as confused by the album as the music-buying public is.

-15 Unreleased Prince tracks from the episode posted for Patrons of the “Lovesexy” Tier and higher.    

-1 OUTTAKE posted, 3 Music XTRAS posted for Patrons of the "Lovesexy" Tier and higher.