PROLOGUE

Photos: Jeff Katz

Following a string of both critically and commercially successful albums in the eighties, Prince was all set to continue his streak of greatness by releasing a Rave Unto The Joy Fantastic album in 1989, but Prince's record company Warner Brothers would not release a new album so soon after the Lovesexy album. But then Prince was approached about writing a few songs for a Batman movie and he grabbed the opportunity to get some new music released, resulting in an entire Batman album. Although it contained some great tracks, it wasn't exactly the great follow-up to Lovesexy which both critics and fans had dreamt of. They didn’t lose faith in Prince, though, as it could be excused as being a soundtrack album. However, in 1990 Prince disappointed with the introduction of the Game Boyz rappers on the Nude Tour and with the Graffiti Bridge album that would have been great if it had been just a Prince album rather than a collection of songs also featuring his protégées of the time. Again, it could be excused as being a soundtrack album to the critically lambasted movie of the same title which went straight to home video in Europe.

In 1991 Prince wrapped up work on the Diamonds And Pearls album that pandered a lot to popular trends in music where it used to be Prince himself who set the trends for others to follow. And this album couldn’t be excused as being a soundtrack album. However, Diamonds And Pearls became a huge commercial success. It reached number three on Billboard’s Pop Chart and spawned four hit singles. It sold about 2 million copies in the US and almost 4 million copies outside of the US.

But while waiting for the Diamonds And Pearls album to get released on 1 October 1991, Prince had already started work on his next album, the 1992 O(+> album that would also spawn a home video collection and a comic book telling the story of the O(+> rock opera storyline from the album. And Prince’s fans would generally be pleasantly thrilled with the project, some calling it a return to exciting form. Here is the story of the O(+> album, as well as of the side-projects he worked on at the same time – abandoned songs for the I’ll Do Anything movie and albums with Carmen Electra, the New Power Generation, George Clinton, Mavis Staples, MPLS, Rosie Gaines and Tevin Campbell – it’s all entwined. And all this while touring in support of the Diamonds And Pearls album too.

Photos: Lynn Goldsmith

CHAPTER ONE: BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE O(+> ALBUM

Photo: Herb Ritts

Meeting O(+> album star Kirstey Alley
On 12 May 1991 Prince recorded the song Blue Light which would get re-recorded during the October 1991 sessions for the O(+> album and end up on that album. On 19 July 1991, the 33-years old Prince was scheduled to perform at the Special Olympics in Minneapolis. Before his performance, Prince met actress Kirstey Alley from the TV sitcom Cheers. She was one of the celebrity guests at the event. Prince’s drummer Michael Bland recalled her presence in a 2024 interview with Funkatopia on YouTube: “She walked out with, like her little crew, her little entourage and they sat, like crosslegged on the astroturf at the Metrodome while we soundchecked and I didn’t see any interaction between her and Prince at that point. She just looked, you know, like in awe the whole time.”

Kirstey Alley herself recalled their meeting in her 2012 autobiography The Art Of Men (I Prefer Mine al Dente): "I was sitting all alone in the middle of an enormous arena," she wrote. "I'd come to participate in the Special Olympics. The rumors were that Prince was shy and never approached people. He walked right up to me. I looked up and there he was. 'Hi, I'm Prince,' as if I wouldn't recognize him, 'and this is my father.'"

After Alley introduced herself, Prince replied, "I know who you are" and after the show, Kirstey Alley was invited to an afterparty at Prince’s Paisley Park studio facilities in Minneapolis. The two struck up a fast friendship and stayed in touch over the years, visiting each other on the set of Cheers, at his Paisley Park studio and at her house in Encino. They would collaborate on Prince's 1992 O(+> album with Kirstey Alley portraying reporter Vanessa Bartholomew in segues strewn throughout the album and in the video for the song My Name Is Prince. At the 1994 VH1 Honors award show, she would also present Prince with an award for his educational philanthropy.

"He is the most interesting person I've met to date," Alley wrote in her book. "I needn't speak of his talent because it's evident. What you might not know is that he is electric. His being radiates and lights up the room. I mean that literally. He lights up a room like a firefly in a jar. ... Prince taught me that I was unique, just by being the only 'me' in the universe. I love him."

O(+> recordings without Rosie Gaines
Singer and keyboard player Rosie Gaines from Prince’s New Power Generation band (the NPG) had approached record companies about a possible contract. She was eager to pursue a solo career and wanted to leave Prince’s employ. Prince found out that she had been in meetings with record labels and they had a falling-out. However, they reached an agreement that she would remain in the NPG for a planned Diamonds And Pearls tour, but leave thereafter so she wasn’t involved at all in the sessions for the O(+> album that took place in the latter part of 1991 and in 1992. She would still be contracted to Paisley Park Records for a projected solo album, however.

The song My Name Is Prince which would become the opening track on the O(+> album was recorded at Paisley Park on 18 September 1991 with NPG member Tony M. listed as co-writer for his rapping on the song. The original version lasted 9 minutes and 56 seconds but was edited down and remixed by Keith “KC” Cohen as Original Mix Edit for release on an October 1992 maxi-single. The album version which was released that same month would be an edit of the Original Mix Edit and a single edit was also made for the original single release 29 September 1992.

Other tracks recorded in late September 1991 included Gett Off’s Cousin which was recorded 27 September, Boom Box – a Prince and Eric Leeds instrumental which was the only recorded track intended for Brass Monkey, an aborted Madhouse-style project, as well as Letter 4 Miles, an instrumental featuring Prince on piano and NPG member Michael Bland on drums. The latter track was bootlegged as Miles Is Not Dead. It was a tribute to jazz musician and recording artist Miles Davis who died on 28 September 1991 after having been a great inspiration to Prince.

Photos: Herb Ritts

The origin of the NPG Hornz
On 9 September 1991, Prince And The New Power Generation appeared on The Arsenio Hall Show. They watched the show at Prince’s house in LA. “After we did Arsenio, there was a plan to announce a US tour,” drummer Michael Bland recalled in a 2019 interview with Podcast On Prince. “We were all at Prince’s house in LA and the show just finished and we were ‘Wooo! Man, we killed that.’ I said, ‘Well, when are we gonna tour the States?’ Prince just looked at me and said, ‘We just did. There was 50 million people watching. We’re going to Europe.’ And that was it. That was when the Diamonds And Pearls tour went to Europe. And Japan. And Australia.”

Around this time, Michael Bland was asked to put together a possible warm-up act for the upcoming Diamonds And Pearls tour. Prince wanted a Madhouse style group but with a larger horn section. “I'll tell you exactly what happened,” Michael Bland told The Current in 2017. “Prince stopped me in the hallway at Paisley and said, ‘You need your own band, you need an instrumental group, like with a horn section.’ And I had been working with Steve Strand and Mike Nelson and Brian Gallagher, rest his soul, on another project at that time. I said, ‘I know three’ and he said, ‘You need five.’ And he turned around and walked away from me. So, then the Jensens, Dave and Kathy, were employed so I had five horns. We were working up arrangements of some of the Madhouse material and we were recording the rehearsals from day to day. And Tommy and Sonny were also playing with me, so it was me and Tommy and Sonny and the horns. And Prince was getting these cassettes of rehearsals for about a week, and he comes in at the beginning of the following week and says, ‘Can you have those dudes come to the studio tonight?' And I knew as he was walking away from me again that my band was done — he was going to hijack the horns and they were going to become a part of the larger picture. So yeah, not only did I observe it, it's my fault. [laughs]”

Songs for O(+> and a ballet
On 1 October 1991, the Diamonds And Pearls album was finally released and on the same day Prince recorded three new songs at his Paisley Park studios, Do U Wanna Rock?, Sweet Baby and I Pledge Allegiance To Your Love of which Sweet Baby ended up on the O(+> album. I Pledge Allegiance To Your Love would get released on the 2023 Diamonds And Pearls Super Deluxe Edition. Do U Wanna Rock? remains unreleased.

The opening track on the Diamonds And Pearls album was the song Thunder and on 5 October 1991 Prince extended the existing version of Thunder with new portions, making it almost eleven minutes long. The song was contributed to The Joffrey Ballet dance company which Prince was introduced to through Patricia Kennedy, a Los Angeles member of the company. She had leased one of her two Bel-Air homes to Prince and invited him to attend a performance – it was the first ballet he had seen. The Thunder Ballet would get included in The Joffrey Ballet’s Billboards production which premiered 27 January 1993 and was filmed and subsequently shown on TV in many countries.

Then Prince recorded The Max which was different from his 1988 track of same title and updated Blue Light. Additional work would get done on The Max in early 1992 and both songs would get included on the O(+> album. He also recorded She Spoke 2 Me, but it didn’t make the album. The full version was released on the The Vault… Old Friends 4 Sale compilation in 1999 instead after an edit had been released on the 1996 Girl 6 soundtrack.

In early November 1991, Prince spent a week in Paris. He attended a Jean-Paul Gaultier fashion show and met a model, Francesca Dellera. He hired a local cinema to see Flesh, a movie she starred in, before sending her a note asking for a date. They went to restaurants and a number of clubs during the visit.

 

Photos: Herb Ritts

10-hour recording session for O(+>
Upon returning to Paisley Park, Prince had a long recording session with his band The New Power Generation which spawned three songs. Drummer Michael Bland recalled it in a 2024 interview with Funkatopia on YouTube and called it “the longest recording session of my life.” He explained that besides Love 2 The 9’s, “We recorded Johnny in that session, and we also recorded 3 Chains O’ Gold in that session. So, it means not just the time to track it, but the time to build the arrangements. Really! You know, Prince just kind of walked into the studio with (a cassette deck). He’s sitting down and he is going back over some parts that he played on piano at his house and he is working them out and then he gets to like, ‘Okay, I’m hearing this kind of rhythm’. (…) We worked at it until we get the beat for Love 2 The 9’s. And then Kirk falls in on the congas (…) and then he starts showing the band… You know. They all fall in. We’re just taking instructions at this point. We had to assist him in the arrangement of that and also 3 Chains O’ Gold. We kept trying to record it and every time somebody would make a mistake because it was a lot to remember. He’d be like, ‘That’s not really working. These two sections back-to-back that’s not really working. What if we do this? And then record it that way?’”

Michael Bland had also told Guitar World about the recording process for 3 Chains O’ Gold in 1994: “O(+> tends to go for spontaneous, first take, live-in-the-studio tracks - even when he’s cutting a complex, episodic piece like 3 Chains O’ Gold from the O(+> album. That’s one of many we had to do in one take. We had to cut that all-in-one big hunk, and it was murder man. All O(+> had was all these little sections that he’d written while he was in Paris. We had to piece it all together and then play it.”

As for Johnny, belly dancer Mayte recalled in her 2017 book My Life With Prince – The Most Beautiful that she wasn’t a huge fan of Johnny “which is this crude song about condoms. The first time I heard it, I wrinkled my nose and said, ‘What’s up with that? My father’s name is John. Your father’s name is John. I don’t like that.’” Johnny would later get re-recorded or overdubbed and released on the 1993 The New Power Generation: Goldnigga album.

While working on recordings with Carmen Electra at the Record Plant in Los Angeles in November 1991, Prince recorded the song Race on the same day as Go Go Dancer, 8 November. Tony M. rap was added on 4 January 1992, but it didn’t get used on the O(+> album. It was saved and re-recorded in May 1993 for Prince’s next album, Come.

Enter: Mayte – Prince’s future wife
Mayte, a girl trained in both ballet and belly dance, had entered Prince’s life in the summer of 1990 when she was just 16 years old, and he was 32. "I saw him in Spain, on the Nude Tour," Mayte revealed in a 1995 interview for Uptown #21. "I saw his concert there with my family and my mom just said, "You have to give him a video of your dancing! Just give it to him.’"

At the time, Mayte was living with her Puerto Rican parents in Wiesbaden, Germany, where Mayte's father was posted as a pilot in the US military. Mayte's parents brought her to another Prince concert, and they managed to get invited backstage by Prince's roadies and got Prince to watch a video tape of her dancing. "It was my mother who did it," Mayte told Uptown. "My mother made me give him the video of my dancing. I met him five minutes later."

After their initial meeting, Prince would send her tapes of his new songs and she would send him videos of her dancing to his songs. When she turned 18 on 12 November 1991, Prince invited Mayte to visit him at Paisley Park. "I was more shy than he was," Mayte confessed in Uptown #21. "He was very nice, very polite."

"Prince was very protective of me and my father was happy to place me in his care. I was given my own apartment and within weeks I was off on (the Diamonds And Pearls) tour to Australia and the Far East (in April 1992) as a dancer in his band," she recalled to Daily Mail Online. "He was very precise about what he wanted, in private too, because it was all work. Being with him was like being at the center of a 24-hour creative machine; if we weren't on stage, we were rehearsing, if we weren't rehearsing, we were in the studio. I've heard people say he's demanding, but I never gave him reason to be demanding, I was always on point. I loved it."

The first song Prince had Mayte work on upon her arrival in Minneapolis was However Much U Want which he had initially recorded as a rock and roll piano jam along with a piano demo of And God Created Woman. "That was a duet that we did when I first came to Minneapolis," Mayte revealed about However Much U Want in Uptown #21. "It was supposed to be on the O(+> album, but it didn't make it."

Photos: Jeff Katz

Recordings for O(+> start in earnest
Besides the However Much You Want duet with Mayte and And God Created Woman, Prince also recorded three other songs on 1 December 1991, embarking in earnest on his next album project. Rave Church Style was a re-recording of the 1988 song Rave Unto The Joy Fantastic that didn’t make the O(+> album, but a later version of Arrogance which was originally recorded this day did. Finally, (Excuse Me Is This) Goodbye was recorded on 1 December. It was ultimately left off the O(+> album but would receive overdubs by Clare Fischer in December 1994 and get included on an unreleased January 1995 album entitled New World that morphed into the 1996 Emancipation album. The song was titled simply Goodbye on early configurations of Emancipation before also getting left off that album. It was finally released on the 1998 Crystal Ball compilation.

Meanwhile, work on putting The NPG Hornz together also progressed. Trombonist Michael B. Nelson related his version of the story to Rolling Stone in 2016: “The impetus of him getting a horn section was they were rehearsing for the Diamonds and Pearls tour. There was a concept that Michael Bland would front an instrumental warm-up group. So, when Prince said, ‘Put a bigger horn section together,’ Michael called us. They were very simple funk tunes. So, I arranged them for five horns, and we rehearsed with the band a couple times, and they’d sent tapes to him in Paris. The next thing you know, we come out and walk into the soundstage and the whole Diamonds and Pearls four-level set is set up and it’s like, ‘Oh, my God!’”

“That was November 1991,” he continued. “Then we recorded that Symbol album which was just loaded with horns. The first song we recorded with him was Sexy M.F.,” Michael B. Nelson recalled about the December 1991 O(+> album sessions.

The stories behind Sexy M.F.
NPG keyboard player Tommy Barbarella recalled the back story to the recording of the song Sexy M.F. to Star Tribune in 2016: “The NPG wasn't a collective by any means, but he loved the band concept. With Michael Bland on drums, he had a band that could do anything musically on the drop of a dime. On Diamonds and Pearls and that next record, he would come in with the tunes, pretty skeletal, and we'd try this, try that, throw out ideas. We had played together so much, we got to know what he wanted. Things would happen very fast. We cut entire records in a day sometimes. Sexy M.F. was one take.”

Prince reveled in the bawdy humor offered up by Levi Seacer Jr. and other members of the NPG ensemble. When Levi took to greeting colleagues in the halls at Paisley Park by bellowing, “You sexy motherfucker!”, Prince found this hilarious and built Sexy M.F. around this phrase which garnered a co-writing credit for Levi Seacer Jr. as well as for Tony Mosley who wrote a rap for the song.

“Levi was always joking around with some phrase he thought was funny,” Tommy Barbarella recalled to Rolling Stone in 2016. “He’d start doing some simple little riff, stop and say the phrase. Sexy M.F. was like that. It was recorded in about 20 minutes, half an hour. I hated my organ solo on it. I wanted to make it better and fix it. But Prince was like, ‘No, it’s fine, just leave it.’ He wanted that spontaneity with that band.”

“There were a lot (of favorite moments on a Prince record) on the symbol album because we did quite a bit of that live and all the parts evolved as we were going to tape,” Tommy Barbarella told Q in 1994. “Some of that was really spontaneous.”

Prince himself talked about Sexy M.F. to Interview in 1997: “The music I make a lot of the time is reflective of the life I am leading and Sexy M.F. came during the period I had the Glam Slam disco, and I was hanging out there a lot. There was a dance troupe there, and the sexier the dancers, the bigger the revenues and the noisier the crowd. It’s funny, but you have to remember that was during the time when the biggest club song was Bitch Betta Have My Money. When you hear something constantly, you can get swayed by the current. I was swayed by hip-hop at the time.”

‘People hear the sex in my songs much more than I ever write it. If you listen to the words in Sexy M.F., you’ll see they’re about monogamy rather than promiscuous sex,’ he added to the Observer.

Photos: Herb Ritts

Previews of O(+> songs
More recordings for the O(+> album followed in December 1991, including an updated Love 2 The 9’s which featured Tony M. auditioning Mayte for a part in The New Power Generation. An unreleased single edit was made of the song which got released on the O(+> album, as did The Sacrifice Of Victor and The Morning Papers which were also recorded in December. On 18 December, overdubs were made on the previously recorded Rave Church Style, but it still didn’t make the album. Neither did Go-Go Rap.

Other songs that didn’t make the O(+> album were The Dance and Face 2 Face. The Dance was originally recorded during the 1989 Batman sessions, but now it was updated in a Middle Eastern style for Mayte to dance to. It would later get re-recorded for inclusion on the 2004 The Chocolate Invasion album. Face To Face was based on a sample from Forever In My Life, structured like the 1989 outtake I Wonder and included lyrics that would get used in Space on the 1993 Come album.

On 31 December 1991, Prince recorded a song titled Goodbye with the NPG and hosted a New Year’s Eve party at Glam Slam in Minneapolis. Several new songs were previewed, including The Max. Then, in January 1992, the Herb Ritts photos used for the 1993 The Hits/The B-Sides compilation were originally published in Vogue.

“I did see someone asking, ‘Was there any tracks on the Love Symbol album that Rosie had vocals on that might have been taken off?’,” NPG drummer Michael Bland said in the 2024 interview with Funkatopia on YouTube. “The Sacrifice Of Victor would be the one,” he answered. The Steeles ended up doing background vocals on that song instead.

On 11 January 1992, the Diamonds And Pearls show which did feature Rosie Gaines was previewed at Glam Slam, Minneapolis. Thirty-one years later, the show would get released on both CD and Blu-Ray as part of the Diamonds And Pearls Super Deluxe Edition. The NPG was augmented by The NPG Hornz, Mayte and record-scratching DJ William Graves. The setlist included the newly recorded The Sacrifice Of Victor with The Steeles providing backing vocals and Sexy M.F. The performance of Cream was also noticeable for including snippets of the songs Well Done, I Want U and In The Socket which are covered in Chapter Seven: Recordings For MPLS, Rosie Gaines And Other Artists on this blog.

A live recording of Nothing Compares 2 U performed as a duet between Prince and Rosie Gaines similar to the Glam Slam performance of the song, but from a 27 January 1992 show at Paisley Park would get released on the 1993 The Hits compilation.

Photos: Herb Ritts

The first O(+> album configuration
Recordings for the O(+> album continued in January and February 1992 while rehearsals for the Diamonds And Pearls tour also continued. Tony M. worked on Arrogance and Race on 4 January 1992 before the first known O(+> album configuration was compiled in March 1992. It included The Continental featuring Carmen Electra of which an unreleased Dance Remix was also made. A 1994 remix of The Continental by Kirk Johnson of The Game Boyz entitled Tell Me How U Want 2 B Done was released on the 1998 Crystal Ball compilation.

Clare Fischer added orchestral overdubs to 3 Chains O’ Gold in February. Other songs recorded for the O(+> album included Damn U, a new take on the Diamonds And Pearls outtake The Flow and a new version of the upcoming hit single off the album, 7 which had originally been recorded in December 1990. 7 included a drum loop sampled from the 1967 song Tramp by Lowell Fulson. At some point, a single edit was made of 7. Additional work was also done on The Max from October 1991 with Tony M. adding a rap before it got included on the O(+> album.

On 29 January, a song called Check It Out was recorded and The NPG Hornz added horns to Letter 4 Miles in February. The latter would get released on the 2023 Diamonds And Pearls Super Deluxe Edition. Nine segues were also recorded that told the story of an underage Princess Mayte's arrival in Minneapolis and subsequent romance with Prince. Damn U was extended with one of these segues and Kirstey Alley did overdubs on Arrogance besides the segues she participated in as reporter Vanessa Bartholomew. Sexy M.F. was edited shorter to make room for it all.

In The Middle Of The Night and There were left out, but However Much You Want had yet to be removed from the album. It would next appear as the B-side on an unreleased summer 1994 Mayte: If Eye Love U 2night single before getting re-recorded and released on Mayte’s 1995 Child Of The Sun Album.

The track list for the O(+> album in March 1992 was as follows:

Prince And The New Power Generation: O(+> (March 1992)
1. Album Intro (1:40)
2. My Name Is Prince (6:38) (Prince/Tony Mosley)
3. Sexy M.F. (5:25) (Prince/Levi Seacer Jr./Tony Mosley)
4. Segue (0:58)
5. Love 2 The 9’s (5:45)
6. The Morning Papers (3:57)
7. The Max (4:30)
8. Blue Light (4:38)
9. Segue (0:21)
10. However Much U Want (3:33)
11. Segue (2:00)
12. Sweet Baby (4:01)
13. Segue (0:39)
14. The Continental (5:31)
15. Damn U (4:03)
16. Segue (0:22)
17. Arrogance (1:35)
18. The Flow (2:37) (Prince/Tony Mosley)
19. Segue (0:40)
20. 7 (5:09)
21. Segue (0:15)
22. And God Created Woman (3:18)
23. 3 Chains O’ Gold (6:03)
24. Segue (0:33)
25. The Sacrifice Of Victor (6:01)

Photos: Jeff Katz

A harem of 7 women
On 17 March 1992, Prince previewed several new songs during a party at Paisley Park, including The Continental, Damn U and Sexy M.F. He stood by the DJ table and observed the reactions on the dance floor. Sexy M.F. was destined to be the first single off the O(+> album and two remixes that remain unreleased were made, Sexy M.F. (Dance Remix) and Sexy M.F. (Hardcore Dance Mix). When Prince received the prestigious Heritage Award for career achievement at the sixth annual Soul Train Music Awards held in Los Angeles 10 March 1992, he had approached actress Troy Beyer after the ceremony with an invitation to star in his video for Sexy M.F. She accepted and the video was shot at Paisley Park 20-22 March 1992. It was filmed in the Paisley Park parking garage and in Prince’s own home. The result can be seen on YouTube right here:

In October 2020, Prince’s Graffiti Bridge movie co-star Robin Power who also appeared in the Sexy M.F. video told in an interview shared on Lipstick Alley that Prince and Troy Beyer were dating. “Whatever girls that he was dating… I always say he had at least seven in rotation. (…) He was dating Miss Minneapolis. He was dating Troy Beyer. He was dating Jill Jones. He was dating Sheila E. He was dating me. He was still messing around with Ingrid. He also was dating this girl named Karen. (…) Prince had a harem. (…) He had a group of girls. (…) Prince had a variety of women and these are the girls I knew about. What about the ones who lived in other countries? Prince would go to Paris and other places when I wasn’t there. Prince was like an NBA basketball player – he had a bitch in every city.”

“When Mayte first came, and they did the whole video in Egypt… Did you notice he had her in the tub with all these women? Did that not look like a guy who was trying to have a harem again or have her be a part of a harem?” she continued. “The day that Mayte’s mother gave Prince the VHS tape of her dancing, Prince brought the tape to me, put the tape in and said ‘Robyn, I want you to see something.’ And then, when I saw it, I was like ‘wow! Who the fuck is that?’ And he was like ‘I just got this tape. What do you think of her?’ I said, ‘She is beautiful.’ He said, ‘What do you think I should do with her?’ I said ‘Anything, man. Put her in your band – do something! Look at her! Oh my God, she is gorgeous!’ But I didn’t know she was 16 years old. (…) At that time, I was 22.”

This story gives a whole new meaning to the lyric for the song 7 where Prince sings “all 7 and we’ll watch them fall, they stand in the way of love, and we will smoke them all.” Did he mean that he would give up the seven girls in his harem for Mayte whom he would eventually marry?

Photos: Jeff Katz

Mayte on Prince’s harem
Mayte recalled in her 2017 autobiography My Life With Prince – The Most Beautiful about rehearsing for the Diamonds And Pearls tour: “Lori Elle and Robia LaMorte, aka Diamond and Pearl, were Prince’s mascots at that moment. They were on the Diamonds And Pearls album cover and featured heavily in the touring show. It didn’t take long for me to wise up to the fact that Lori and Prince were romantically involved.”

It also didn’t take long before Mayte realized that she had yet another competitor for Prince’s affections: “The Diamonds And Pearls Tour was a great introduction to touring life for me. Even though I was only in a few numbers, I was on the soundstage for every rehearsal,” she wrote in her book. “I did get lonely, though, when Prince was gone out of town or too busy to hang out, and we hadn’t quite figured out my role in the whole Paisley universe, so I had a lot of downtime.”

“I loved coming and going from Paisley Park every day. Rehearsals for the tour were in full swing, and in the studio, Carmen Electra was working on an album. Prince went to LA for a few days to produce something for someone, and before he left, he suggested that Carmen and I hang out while he was gone. Carmen hit me up to go see a movie. I was surprised to learn that she was nineteen, only a year older than me.”

“After the movies, we drank tea in my apartment, and the conversation was eye-opening. I hadn’t realized that she and Prince had a thing, and it never occurred to me before how challenging it was to be his girlfriend. He traveled constantly and worked insane hours. His girlfriend couldn’t call him. Didn’t even have his number. He called, you answered.”

”When he called me later that evening, I asked him, ‘Are you dating Carmen?’ *No, no. She has a crush on me,’ he said. He was so good at this. One could easily take a very cynical view of the way he was with women, but for the most part, you gotta admit, the women weren’t complaining.”

”It was a one-time hang with Carmen. I didn’t see much of her after that. She was sent off on tour to promote her album, even though the reviews weren’t great. Something I eventually learned: Prince’s top girlfriend was always in Minneapolis. When you came to Minneapolis, you were the girl on her way in. When you left Minneapolis, you were the girl on her way out.”

Photos: Jeff Katz

CHAPTER TWO: CARMEN ELECTRA IS INEVITABLE

How Carmen Electra met Prince
Carmen Electra, whose real name is Tara Leigh Patrick, was born in Sharonville, Ohio, in April 1972. When she was 9 years old, Tara was accepted at the prestigious School for Creative and Performing Arts in Cincinnati to study ballet, modern dance and choir. After graduating from high school, she got a job dancing at a King’s Island amusement park. Though she enjoyed the gig, she had Hollywood on her mind. “I saved up my money and took my mom to lunch and told her that I was going to fly to L.A. with a girlfriend to try it out for a week, to see if I even liked it,” she told Lapalme Magazine in 2017.

It was 1991 and Tara Leigh Patrick was 18 years old and having the time of her life on the dance floor in an L.A. nightclub when Robin Power from Prince’s Graffiti Bridge movie approached her. “She said she was the lead singer of a girl band Prince was producing,” Carmen Electra recalled. “She told me she loved the way I danced and that I had the look she wanted for the group.” Robin Power told her that Prince was on his way to the club and asked her if she wanted to audition for him. When he didn’t show, Tara began to have her doubts. A blue BMW pulled up in front of the club and  Robin Power told her that Prince’s brother was inside and wanted them to head to Prince’s house. “I was really nervous because I still didn’t know whether or not to believe that this was real,” Carmen remembered. Fortunately, Robin Power was telling the truth.

“That first time I met Prince (…) he broke the ice by ask­ing me if I wanted to play pool.” Prince went to the piano and started playing Do-Re-Mi from The Sound of Music. “I had a feeling he thought I didn’t know the song, but it just so happened I had played Marta and Brigitta at two differ­ent dinner theatre productions of The Sound of Music in Cincinnati.” Then she danced for him – the art in which she was most trained. Prince seemed impressed by her dancing, but days passed without her hearing back regarding the part in the band.

Offered a three-way on first meeting
Robin Power revealed in a 2020 interview shared on Lipstick Alley why Tara Leigh Patrick didn’t hear anything back from Prince right away. After the audition, “We ate. We hung out. We talked. We had fun and everything and then… It was getting late. It was probably six o’ clock in the morning by this time and I told Tara, ‘Look, the limo driver can take you home to your cousin’s house OR, if you’d like to spend the night you can spend the night in the guest room. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable. If you feel uncomfortable, you can go.” She was like ‘No, I’ll stay. I’ll just sleep downstairs.’ I was like ‘Okay, cool.’ So, she went downstairs to the guest room. I went upstairs. I’m talking with Prince and Prince says, ‘Well, she can dance. She can’t sing. She can rap a little bit, but she can dance.” And I was like ‘Yeah, I like her. She would be a great background singer and a good dancer in the band.’ But he was like, ‘I don’t think you should put her in the band.’ (…) I said, ‘Why?’ and Prince said, ‘You never want to put someone in your band that could possibly outshine you.’”

“He said, ‘Invite her to come upstairs to watch movies with us,’” Robin continued. “So, we’re in the bed alone. It’s 6 o’clock in the morning. She’s 18 years old, fresh from Cincinnati, Ohio – had only been in L.A. for two weeks and, ‘You want me to invite her into the bedroom?’ And I just asked this girl to come audition to be in the band, so I said, ‘Well, you know, I feel a little uncomfortable with that.’ What I did was I wrote a letter and the note said ‘Prince would like for me to invite you to come watch movies with us. If you feel comfortable, feel free to come upstairs. If you don’t, I understand. The ball is in your court. Just let me know what you wanna do.’ I slipped the note under her bedroom door. She read the note and she was like ‘No, I’d rather just stay here’ and I said, ‘Cool.’ So, I went back upstairs, and he was like, *Okay’ and we did what we normally do – you know, we did our thing. Fucked or whatever. Had sex. And the next morning the limo driver and I took her back to her cousin’s house and dropped her off.”

As good as Paula Abdul
“I told Tara in the limo on the way to drop her off at her cousin’s house, ‘Look, I asked Prince if you could be in my band and Prince told me I shouldn’t put you in my band’ and she said, ‘why?’” Robin Power continued. “’Because Prince told me I shouldn’t put women in my band who could possibly outshine me. I think that you’re beautiful and talented. I would love for you to be in my band. I’m not insecure. I don’t have any problem with that. He just probably wants to put you in HIS band. He probably just wants you to dance behind him because he said you were a good dancer, that you couldn’t sing and that you were an okay rapper, so if he doesn’t think you can sing and that you’re just an okay rapper, obviously he wants you to dance for him.’"

"And I told her, ‘You need to be careful. You really don’t wanna fuck with Prince. I don’t think you’re ready. Let me prove to you that I believe in you and your talent.’ Because personally, I thought that she could sing just as good as Paula Abdul. Her voice was definitely at least at that level. So, I told her, ‘You have the ability to be the next Paula Abdul.’ She said, ‘Really? Do you think so?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, girl. Trust me. You’re beautiful. Like, you can dance like her, so how about I prove to you I believe in you and I’m gonna get you a record deal?’ She was like, ‘You can do that?’ ‘Yeah, let me introduce you to some people. Let me see what I can do. Either you can get a record deal and be a star or you can dance behind Prince – whichever one you wanna do, that’s on you.’”

“I wound up getting my deal with Capitol Records, so I stayed in L.A. to record my demos,” Carmen told Lapalme Magazine. “During that time, I got a call from Prince who said he’d heard I was recording and asked to hear my songs.” After playing the songs for him, Prince told her he could do better. A few days later, she met him in a studio in L.A. “He wrote me a song called Carmen on Top. I loved it, but I reminded him that my name was Tara. He told me, ‘You look like a Carmen, so, to me, you’re Carmen.’” The new name stuck. She was now officially Carmen Electra.

Moving to Paisley Park
Prince didn’t actually write Carmen On Top for Carmen. While recording at Larrabee Sound in Los Angeles between 4 March and 2 April 1991, Prince took the song Robin On Top originally recorded with Robin Power and transformed it into Carmen On Top featuring a Tony M. rap. When it didn’t make Carmen Electra’s album, he actually recorded it again with Mayte as Mayte on Top in 1993. That version also went unreleased.

Prince also pulled three other songs out of his vault for Carmen Electra to sing, Fantasia Erotica, which was originally recorded with Anna Fantastic on 5 January 1989, Fun which might possibly have originated during the Lovesexy sessions in December 1987 and Good Judy Girlfriend which was originally recorded in October 1988. All three songs made her album.

Not long after, Carmen Electra accepted Prince’s invitation to move to Minneapolis and sign a record deal with Paisley Park Records. “He called me and said, ‘I have a flight booked for you tomorrow morning to Minneapolis,’ she told GQ in 2016. “I packed up my little, tiny suitcase, and I had maybe $20 and four or five outfits. As soon as I landed, a purple limo was waiting outside. He wasn't there, but he called, and he said, ‘Do you have a lot of clothes?’ He made a kind of sarcastic comment, said, ‘I'm gonna have my brother take you shopping.’ He specifically said what he wanted it to be: ‘I want you to buy something white—a white dress or white leggings and a top.’”

“So we're on a mad hunt in a little tiny mall in Minneapolis for something white. I stayed at his house for a little while—I thought I was going to go to a hotel. But he was a gentleman. There was a lot of makeup in the guest room, and someone said, ‘We're gonna get all that stuff out for you - that's Kim Basinger's.’ I think she had maybe just left.”

Living at Paisley Park was utterly surreal, Electra told Lapalme Magazine. “It looked like you were in heaven and a magical unicorn was going to come running around the corner. Everything in Paisley Park was pastel and light and fluffy and dreamy. You just felt like you were in another world - a world that Prince created.”

Prince and Carmen Electra’s platonic relationship shifted to a romantic one. “He was so mysterious, but one of the wittiest people I’ve ever met,” she told Lapalme Magazine. “He was simply one-of-a-kind.”

Carmen: Female rapper
Following his initial recordings with Carmen Electra, Prince worked with female rapper Monie Love between 2-8 April 1991. They recorded Born 2 B.R.E.E.D. (Paisley Park Version) on 2 April of which a remix by Steve Hurley credited to Prince, Levi Seacer Jr. and Monie Love became Radio Mix. They also recorded the song In A Word Or 2 co-credited to Prince and Monie Love. It got remixed by Keith “KC” Cohen as Paisley Park Mix.

Working with Monie Love may have influenced Prince’s perception of where he wanted to go creatively with Carmen Electra, but the first song Carmen recorded at Paisley Park studios was produced by Levi Seacer Jr. on 23 April 1991. Levi Seacer Jr. also played most of the instruments on the song which was the still unreleased Go Carmen Go. In July, Carmen Electra recorded the also unreleased The Juice with Prince, as well as the song Powerline which had originally been recorded by Robin Power for her girl group project that she had wanted Carmen to audition for. The song included a “power”-chant by Prince resembling the chorus of the next song recorded with Carmen, Power From Above.

Power From Above is yet another song that remains unreleased. It was recorded at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles between 26-29 August 1991. It too was originally recorded by Robin Power. It included the chorus from the unreleased October 1988 Prince song We Got The Power which had previously also been incorporated into the 1989 Batdance track. This new version featured backing vocals by Mavis Staples and Jevetta Steele. A different mix had the phrase “we will not give up the fight” added a few times as the song started.

“We got into an argument in the making of my album because Prince tried to give me a lot of songs that I recorded - let me repeat myself - that were recorded, but I did not like them once I heard them,” Robin Power told Prince Podcast on YouTube in 2022. “And I told Prince. I was honest. I was not that kiss-ass. I wasn’t that girl that was like ‘whatever you give me, I’m gonna do.’ Period. (…) I told Prince, ‘What works for you doesn’t work for everybody. This is just not my feel.’ And so, the whole Carmen thing. Prince gave my songs to Carmen.”

Carmen replaced Robin Power
In the 2020 interview shared on Lipstick Alley, Robin Power told how she found out about Prince having replaced her with Carmen Electra: “We were rehearsing for my first show at Glam Slam (…) I’m in rehearsal one day and I get a phone call from Joy at Capitol Records and Joy is like, ‘Robyn, tell Tara to get her ass back to California because she’s under contract.’ I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’ She’s like, ‘Tara’s in Minneapolis recording with Prince.’ I said, ‘Tara’s not here. I just talked to Tara yesterday.’ ‘No, Robyn, Tara is in Minneapolis right now recording with Prince and I’m telling you to tell Prince that we will sue the shit out of his ass to get her back on that plane. She’s under contract with us.’ I said, ‘Tara’s not in Minneapolis.’ Joy said, ‘I’m telling you right now, she’s there right now.’ (…) I said, ‘Look, let me go in here and ask Prince.’ (…) So, I walk into the recording studio and Tara’s sitting right there! Tara has on Prince’s clothes. Her hair is blow-dried completely straight. She doesn’t look like the girl that I saw in the club anymore. She looks like a little Prince clone. When I walked in, it really felt like somebody hit me with a ton of bricks. I said, ‘Hi, Prince. Hello, Tara.’ Tara turned her face and looked at the wall and did not say one word to me. She said nothing. And I looked at Prince and said, ‘Can my band watch your band rehearse today?’ He said, ‘Yeah, sure. They can come.’ I said ‘Okay. Bye, Tara.’ And I walked out and went back to where my girls were, and I sat there, and I cried like a baby.”

“When I did my show at Glam Slam, Tara and Prince were sitting together watching me perform with my band,” Robin continued. “The night of the performance, Prince calls me and says, ‘I want you to fire the band.’ I said, ‘What? What are you talking about?’ He said, ‘They can’t sing, they can’t dance, and they can’t play. I want you to fire all of them and start over.’ I said, ‘No, I’m not gonna fire my band. We’ve only been together five weeks.’ (…) He said, ‘Either you do it my way or you do it with somebody else.’ I said, ‘You know what Prince, I’m just gonna do it with someone else.’ He said, ‘That’s what you want?’ I said, ‘Yeah, that’s what I want.’ He said, ‘Okay’ and hung up the phone.”

The next day I got a call from Gilbert Davison who was the President of Paisley Park. He said, ‘Prince is releasing you from your contract and you don’t owe him anything.’ (…) So, when I left, I moved back to L.A. (…) The band dissipated. Everybody went their separate ways.”

“After I left, we still saw each other. I still came to Minneapolis. He still came to L.A. I still went to the house in the Hollywood Hills. He came to my own apartment in L.A. and hung out there. So, we still dated for six more months after I left.”

“I saw Tara in the club after she did what she did to me. Prince was sitting in one area, and she was over talking to some other people. I got real pissed off. I literally went over there and grabbed her by the hair and kinda dragged her a little bit. I was like, ‘No, you didn’t do what you did to me!’ The security came and they broke it up and told me I had to go downstairs. They stayed upstairs. I stayed at the club for a little bit and then I left.”

Photo: Lynn Goldsmith

Fun promo cassette
Recording with Carmen Electra didn’t seem like a high priority for Prince. During September 1991, they only recorded All That on 18 September. It was a re-interpretation of Prince’s song Adore from his 1987 Sign O’ The Times album. It would later get remixed to sound less like Adore and made it to the final, released configuration of Carmen Electra’s album. Another Prince-penned song that made the album was Go Go Dancer which was recorded at the Record Plant in Los Angeles in November 1991.

Also at the Record Plant, Levi Seacer Jr. produced two songs for Carmen that would make the album. The first was Go On (Witcha Bad Self) which featured a rap by Tony M. and This Is My House which Carmen Electra received a co-writing credit for. Also, at some point in 1991 the song Skin Tight was recorded co-credited to Carmen and Tony M., but it was largely a cover of the 1974 song Skin Tight by The Ohio Players which was also sampled in Carmen’s version. It got retitled S.T. before getting released on her final album configuration.

Tasty was recorded with a co-writing credit to Tony M. and contained a sample from the 1971 jam Make It Funky by James Brown. Tasty would get remixed by Keith “KC” Cohen before getting released as Just A Little Lovin’ on the final configuration of Carmen’s album. Also, a cassette was made with a remix of the Carmen Electra song Fun. Fun (Final Long Version) featured saxophone by Eric Leeds.

Carmen: Fun cassette (1991)
Fun (Final Long Version) (5:44)

A different edition of the Fun cassette had a picture of Carmen and the Final Long Version split up into two parts with the extended part titled Mo Fun.

Carmen: Fun cassette single (1991)
Fun (3:42)
Mo Fun (2:01)*

The first Carmen album configuration
In a 2019 interview with The Violet Reality, Tony M. of the NPG was asked if it was true that he and Prince had a disagreement over the fact that Tony M. was pretty close with Carmen. Tony M. replied: “Man, no. Here’s the true story. So, we were cutting Carmen’s album and we were doing… Skin Tight? One of the songs… Carmen was not getting where we needed her to be, so I just said ‘Stop! Let’s stop. Everybody out of the studio.’ Prince liked candles. I said, ‘Let’s get the candles going’ and it wasn’t Carmen cutting by herself. I went in the studio, and we actually looked at each other and cut together. It just added a different harmony. (…) I remember Prince heard the demo and said ‘Oh! That sounds good. How did you all record that?’ ‘Oh, we were in the studio together.’ We were just trying to get her the way we needed her to be on that song, so she worked with me in the studio.”

 
Alan Leeds, president of the Paisley Park record label since 1989, told Prince biographer Matt Thorne for his 2012 book Prince: “He came in one day and he had been working on the Carmen Electra record which I couldn’t give a shit about. It wasn’t his best work as a writer and producer. I didn’t see her as a real artist. It was completely about, ‘Can she make a sexy video?’ He was convinced that she could and that this would sell records. I didn’t say anything because she was his girlfriend at the time. And he said, ‘I bet I’ll sell more Carmen Electra records than you will Ingrid Chavez records.’ And I’m like, ‘What, we’re competing now? It’s your label.’”

“At that point, I knew my days were numbered, because it was just a game of putting one girlfriend up against the other and I’m like ‘I don’t even want to be a part of this. This is just silly,’” Alan Leeds added in a 2021 interview with Prince Podcast. He left his position in 1993.

A video for Carmen Electra’s Go Go Dancer was shot at John Marshall High School in suburban Los Angeles in late March 1992 at a location that also served as the setting for the classic James Dean movie Rebel Without A Cause. Rapper Monie Love guest-starred in the video which can be seen on YouTube right here:

The day before the Diamonds And Pearls Tour opening, the first known configuration of Carmen Electra’s debut album was put together. It basically contained everything she had recorded so far but the song Power From Above. It had the original versions of All That and This Is My House.

Carmen: On Top (2 April 1992)
1. Go Go Dancer
2, The Juice
3. Carmen On Top
4. Go On (Witcha Bad Self)
5. Fun
6. S.T.
7. Go Carmen Go
8. Good Judy Girlfriend
9. Fantasia Erotica
10. Powerline
11. Just A Little Lovin’
12. All That
13. This Is My House

Photo: Lynn Goldsmith

Opening act for Prince
While on the Diamonds And Pearls Tour, Prince and the New Power Generation made some recordings at Studios 301 in Sydney, Australia, including early versions of Everybody Get On Up and Step 2 The Mic for Carmen Electra. NPG keyboard player Tommy Barbarella told Rolling Stone in 2016: “There was so much music going around. We never knew what we were doing. You never knew if it was a Prince song or for someone else. I remember recording half an album in one day, finishing it the next day, and later realizing it was for Carmen Electra.”

When Prince’s Diamonds and Pearls Tour hit Europe, Carmen Electra was his opening act. A 10-minute video-loop was shown before the shows. It featured a female voice reading out a selection of quotes, including advertising Carmen Electra with the line “Carmen is inevitable.”

“It was so cool to have my own band and to open up for Prince in these arenas all over the world,” Carmen told Lapalme Magazine in 2017. “I just couldn’t believe this was my life.”

The European Diamonds And Pearls tour started 25 May 1992. Carmen Electra opened for Prince with a 30-minute act where she performed Go Carmen Go, Carmen On Top, Go On (Witcha Bad Self) Fun and Go Go Dancer. In between Fun and Go Go Dancer, the band would jam or play Just A Little Lovin’ while Carmen changed clothes. Her band included NPG member Kirk Johnson’s sister Kathleen Johnson on backing vocals. However, Carmen’s own weak voice could hardly be heard when accompanied by a live band in a large arena. Initially, Prince put the blame on her musicians who were almost all replaced one by one with members of the NPG. When the tour reached Hamburg in Germany on 9 June, the fans waiting in line outside the Alsterdorfer Sporthalle couldn’t help but overhear Prince drilling Carmen’s band for hours right up until the doors were opened to let them in. “He couldn’t put the blame on her, so he put it on the band – it was kind of a joke,” recalled Tommy Barbarella in Alex Hahn’s 2004 book Possessed – The Rise And Fall Of Prince. ”The problem wasn’t the band, it was that her squeaky little rap vocals did not carry in an arena or auditorium.”

From Carmen’s band to the NPG
In a 2018 interview, The Violet Reality asked keyboard player Morris Hayes: “Before you were in the NPG, you were in Carmen Electra’s band. Prince was working on Carmen’s record for ages and ages, something like two years from start to finish, and he takes her on the European leg of the Diamonds And Pearls tour. After about less than two weeks, the drummer quits, the bass player quits, the guitar player quits and Sonny, Levi and Michael jump in. Then you do like four more shows with them in the band and your last show is here in London at Earls’ Court and then, ‘Bam!’, Carmen’s off the tour. What happened?”

Morris Hayes replied: “Well, first off, the band didn’t quit, it transpired – that’s an important distinction. Prince called me up and kinda told me the reason why he let the band go. He said, ‘75 percent you get it, like, what I’m trying to do here. Hence you are here, and they are gone.’ And he just kinda told me I’m gonna be in his band because they worked on that record. ‘They pretty much know all that stuff anyway. You just need to show them the ins and outs.’ So, we just had a couple of days here in London before we did the shows. I don’t know the exact reason why we only did a few of the shows at Earl’s Court. He said, ‘Now the energies are different and I’m just gonna table it now.’ I remember the last show (on 19 June). George Michael was there. I’d seen him out in the audience just dancing, like jumping up and down like a cheerleader. It was great, and I remember going back to the dressing room. It was just a couple of us who stayed over – the two dancers and the other keyboard player - and I just told Prince, ‘Hey, man, I appreciate the ride. Thank you for having us out.’ And he just said, ‘your work is not done here.’ That was really cool. And sure enough, what he was elaborating to was, ‘You’ll be in the NPG.’”

“Carmen would tell me: ‘Prince likes you. He thinks you’re funny. He really digs you,’” Morris Hayes added in a 2023 Wings of Pegasus interview on YouTube. “I’m like, ‘Get out of town. He’s got Barbarella. He’s got Rosie. He’s got two of the killers, y’know?’ And sure enough, by the end of the tour, Rosie had quit, and I ran into him in a nightclub. At his club. And he said, ‘Hey grandson, you need some work? Want a job?’ And I said, ‘Oh yeah, I’ll be over there to cut that yard for you first thing Monday.’ We had a big laugh. ‘No man, I want you to be in the band.’"

Photo: Randee St. Nicholas

Album put on hold
While in London, a new configuration of Carmen’s album was made up. It now contained Power From Above as the opening track instead of Go Go Dancer which now closed the album. The Juice became a CD bonus track. Otherwise, the tracks were the same as on the previous configuration with All That and This Is My House still being the original versions.

Carmen Electra (15 June 1992)
1. Power From Above (4:35)
2. Carmen On Top (3:42)
3. Go On (Witcha Bad Self) (4:08) (Levi Seacer Jr./Carmen Electra)
4. Fun (3:42)
5. S.T. (4:03) (The Ohio Players)
6. Go Carmen Go (4:33)
7. Good Judy Girlfriend (1:59)
8. Fantasia Erotica (4:35)
9. Powerline (4:02)
10. Just A Little Lovin’ (4:02) (Prince/Tony Mosley)
11. All That (5:14) (Prince/Carmen Electra)
12. This Is My House (4:04) (Levi Seacer Jr./Carmen Electra)
13. Go Go Dancer (4:44) (Prince/Carmen Electra/Tony Mosley)
CD bonus track: The Juice (4:06)

An in-house version continued with the following tracks:
15. Mo’ Fun (2:01)
16. Fun (Instrumental) (3:45)
17. Skin Tight (Alternate Mix) (3:54)
18. Fantasia Erotica (Alternate Mix) (2:57)

Mo’ Fun and Fantasia Erotica (Alternate Mix) were bootlegged as Mo’ Fun (Dance Remix) and Fantasia Erotica (Dance Remix). Mo’ Fun was also known as Fun (Pt.II).

During an aftershow the night between 11 and 12 July 1992 at Les Bains Douches club in Paris, France, Prince performed the Carmen Electra tracks Skin Tight and Step 2 The Mic himself.
Carmen On Top was planned for release on 25 July 1992 and promotion for the album had already started with advertisements on MTV and in music publications. However, the release of the album was put on hold as Warner Bros. wasn’t completely happy with it and favored replacing some tracks with new material.

As part of the promotional campaign for Carmen’s album, the video clip of Go Go Dancer had been released and copies of Go Go Dancer, the album’s first single – a kind of 9 To 5 for strippers, had been sent to 369 strip clubs in America. The remixes by Junior Vasquez on the CD single released on 18 June 1992 all lasted equally long and sounded quite similar. They sampled Lost In Music by Sister Sledge from 1979.

Carmen Electra: Go Go Dancer CD-single (18 June 1992)
1. Go Go Dancer (Radio Edit) (4:28)
2. Go Go Dancer (12” Mix) (6:01)
3. Go Go Dancer (The Dub Dub Dancer) (6:02)
4. Go Go Dancer (Royal Mix) (6:01)
5. Go Go Dancer (Factory Mix) (6:00)

Photo: Randee St. Nicholas

The second single
On the day of the release of the Go Go Dancer single, 18 June 1992, Prince was working with Monie Love at Olympic Studio on finishing a couple of songs for Carmen Electra, Step To The Mic and Everybody Get On Up which had originally been recorded in Sydney in April. Back home in Minneapolis after the tour, All That was remixed to sound less like Adore and additional work was done on This Is My House before work wrapped on the album.

In the autumn of 1992, Prince produced a The Ryde Dyvine TV special that was broadcast 19 December 1992 on ABC TV in their In Concert series. Filmed at Paisley Park, the 45-minute Ryde Dyvine featured live performances by Prince and several Paisley Park Records artists, including Carmen Electra who performed Everybody Get On Up that was slated to be the second single from her upcoming debut album. A promotional cassette tape was made up to coincide with the TV special. It featured several remixes of Everybody Get On Up.

The Ryde Dyvine Sampler – (4 the ultimate RAVE) cassette (1992)
1. Prince and the Crayons: The Ryde Dyvine (4:00)
2. George Clinton: Let’s Get Satisfied (5:00)
3. George Clinton: This Beat Disrupts (4:40)
4. Carmen Electra: Everybody Get On Up – Single Edit (3:12)
5. Carmen Electra: Everybody Get On Up – Single Remix 3rd Time Funky Mix (4:07)
6. Carmen Electra: Everybody Get On Up – Wet And Juicy Dub (6:51)
7. Carmen Electra: Everybody Get On Up – Instrumental (7:00)

A promo CD-single of Everybody Get On Up included two mixes that would not appear on the officially released single, Mainstream Radio Mix (Album Edit) and Instrumental. Prince didn’t make any of the remixes himself.

Carmen Electra: Everybody Get On Up promo CD-single (21 January 1993)
1. Everybody Get On Up (Single Remix) (3rd Time Funky Mix) (4:07)
2. Everybody Get On Up (Mainstream Radio Mix) (Album Edit) (3:14)
3. Everybody Get On Up (12" Up Mix) (7:09)
4. Everybody Get On Up (Jeep Mix) (4:21)
5. Everybody Get On Up (Stiff Dub) (6:51)
6. Everybody Get On Up (Wet ‘N’ Juicy Dub) (6:51)
7. Everybody Get On Up (Instrumental) (6:59)

Everybody Get On Up was released as a CD single on 21 January 1993. It included the previously released edit of Go Go Dancer. All the remixes were made by David Shaw. 3rd Time Funky Mix is an edit of 12” Up Mix.

Carmen Electra: Everybody Get On Up CD-single (21 January 1993)
1. Everybody Get On Up (3rd Time Funky Mix) (4:09)
2. Everybody Get On Up (12" Up Mix) (7:12)
3. Everybody Get On Up (Jeep Mix) (4:22)
4. Everybody Get On Up (Stiff Dub) (6:54)

5. Go Go Dancer (Radio Edit) (4:27)
6. Everybody Get On Up (Wet ‘N’ Juicy Dub) (6:51)

The album is finally released
On 9 February 1993, Carmen Electra’s one and only album was finally released. Having spent over $2 million on a promotional campaign for the aborted July 1992 release, Warner Bros. now decided to reduce their promotional activities to a bare minimum. The reviews were lackluster, and the album failed to enter the Billboard charts. Power From Above, Carmen On Top, Go Carmen Go, Powerline and The Juice had been removed from the album to make room for the Monie Love collaborations Step To The Mic and Everybody Get On Up as well as two segues, the first of which featured a tuning between radio stations playing songs from all the artists Prince had worked with in the past year or so. The last segue was a news report intro to This Is My House. The segue preceding All That was originally the beginning of that track, now cut separately.

Carmen Electra CD (9 February 1993)
1. Go Go Dancer (4:45)
2. Good Judy Girlfriend (1:59)
3. Go On (Witcha Bad Self) (4:09) – by Tony M & Levi Seacer, Jr.
4. Step To The Mic (3:16)
5. S.T. (4:03) – by The Ohio Players
6. Fantasia Erotica (4:36)
7. Everybody Get On Up (4:01)
8. Segue (0:29)
9. Fun (3:42)
10. Just A Little Lovin’ (4:02)
11. Segue (0:46)
12. All That (4:29)
13. Segue (0:12)
14. This Is My House (3:28) – by Carmen Electra & Levi Seacer, Jr.

Prince’s collaborations with Monie Love were also finally released. The song Born 2 B.R.E.E.D. (Build Relationships Where Education And Enlightenment Dominate) was released as a single on 11 February 1993 ahead of her album In A Word Or 2 which was released in May 1993. The accompanying music video featured Born 2 B.R.E.E.D. (Hip-Hop Mix).

Monie Love: Born 2 B.R.E.E.D. CD-single (11 February 1993)
1. 2 B.R.E.E.D. (Paisley Park Radio Mix) (3:55)
2. Born 2 B.R.E.E.D. (C.J’s 12” Mix) (6:27)
3. Born 2 B.R.E.E.D. (Silky Jazz Mix) (6:37)

Monie Love: In A Word Or 2 (9 May 1993)
8. Born 2 B.R.E.E.D. (4:06)
9. In A Word Or 2 (3:36)
12. Born 2 B.R.E.E.D. (Hip-Hop Mix) (4:12)

The title song of the album was released as a single on 31 May 1993.

Monie Love: In A Word Or 2 CD-single (31 May 1993)
1. In A Word Or 2 (Paisley Park Mix) (3:37)

On 27 July 1993, the third and final Carmen Electra single, Fantasia Erotica was released. Once again, Prince had nothing to do with making the remixes.

Carmen Electra: Fantasia Erotica CD-single (27 July 1993)
1. Fantasia Erotica (Indecent Proposal Mix Radio Edit) (4:00)
2. Fantasia Erotica (Erotic Groove Mix) (5:38)
3. Fantasia Erotica (Sex Drive Dub) (6:50)
4. Fantasia Erotica (Xtra Sex Dub) (6:47)
5. Fantasia Erotica (He Dances Instead) (5:36)
6. Fantasia Erotica (Double Deep House Mix) (2:31)
7. All That (4:29)

A double 12” vinyl release of Fantasia Erotica included two additional mixes, Dub Erotica (4:11) and Fantasia Dub (also 4:11).

Just another Prince girl
Alan Leeds, president of Paisley Park Records, summed up his feelings about the Carmen Electra album in his 2021 Prince Podcast interview: “It was stupid. It was a guy trying to do something that he didn’t understand. He’s taking her, who was an ambitious – let me be polite, a very ambitious young lady who was looking for whatever avenue she could find to get a career. And Prince took a ton of B-side type material and in infatuation with Carmen and her charisma – put it politely, and whatever it was she offering… And then incorporating elements of hip-hop. Again, it wasn’t a culture he understood. It was like, back to the idea of Tony M. in the band. Diamonds And Pearls is a huge record. He goes on tour and he’s got an MC in the band who was a background dancer who just one day at rehearsal said, ‘I can spit a little bit’ and Prince was like, ‘Okay, you’re my rapper then!’ You know, it was almost like if I had gone in rehearsal and made a little spit, I would’ve become the rapper. That’s kind of how he looked at it, like it’s a gimmick. He didn’t get the culture. That’s why I said the record was stupid ‘cause it was made for all the wrong reasons. He was trying to be something he wasn’t.”

Prince’s recording engineer at the time, Michael Koppelman, summed up Carmen Electra’s life with Prince in Star Tribune in 2016: “Carmen Electra lived here for a year or two while Prince named her and all that stuff. But she sat here and rotted doing almost nothing, except working on a little music and waiting for Prince to call and take her out to clubs. I used to drive her around in my Hyundai, and I just remember thinking what a waste it was for this beautiful woman to be sitting in Eden Prairie, waiting for Prince to call.”

In the 2020 interview shared on Lipstic Alley, Robin Power said: “A couple of years passed and I ran into her again. I saw Carmen at the same club and then Carmen came over and apologized. She was like, ‘I’m sorry for everything that I did. I was young, I was stupid. Prince told me - that day when you came into the studio, and I didn’t speak with you – I wasn’t allowed to talk to you. I did everything he told me to do, and I owe you an apology and I’m sorry that I did that to you.’ (…) So, a lot of people don’t know that story. That is how Carmen Electra became Carmen Electra. (…) She literally took a dagger and stabbed me in my back. (…) The career she could’ve had… (…) She had the potential to be a huge star. (…) She chose to walk away from that opportunity and just be one of Prince’s girls.”