Read on Twitter
So, done listening to Cosmic Day? Good…
“Let’s go!
‘3121’
It's loco right?”
‘3121’
It's loco right?”
Over the next two weeks eleven contributors will write multiple mega Twitter threads about the 2006 Prince album ‘3121’. To warm everybody’s appetite a bit, we will kick things off with ‘‘3121 - The Basics’, a housewarming of sorts. #PrinceTwitterThread
While we are at it, give the album a listen! It was reissued last year on vinyl and cd and it is available on most streaming services. Check it out here: https://open.spotify.com/album/0GxSuS75qN3igpjycrPNxT?si=uzjXFskqR3SKwElGdbCrpA
The ‘3121’ album was released on March 21, 2006. If you look at the album in a wider perspective, you could argue though that the ‘3121 era’ started in late 2004 and lasted until early 2008.
That long? But didn’t he release another album in 2007? Yes, he did. More on that later.
The first song recorded was the title track, on November 19, 2004. The title was inspired by a house on 3121 Antelo Road in Los Angeles. Prince lived in that house from October 2004 to September 2005.
Although he did record parts of the ‘3121’ album at 3121 Antelo Road, the title track was not one of those tracks. It was recorded at Paisley Park during a three hour recording session with Michael Bland and Sonny Thompson.
That session spawned multiple songs and these were used on the albums ‘3121’, ‘Planet Earth’ and ‘LotusFlow3r’. So when Prince claims ‘It's going down... like the wall of Berlin’ on ‘3121’ he is actually referencing a song from that same session that would not be out for years.
On March 19, 2005 (a year before the album would be released) Prince performed at the 36th NAACP Image Awards, wearing a custom made ‘3121’ jacket. The picture that would become the album cover was shot in the green room, while waiting to go on stage.
Here’s photographer @Afshin Shahidi explaining how that ‘3121’ cover photo came about:
If you don’t already own it, go check out @Afshin’s book Prince: A Private View. It is packed with beautiful pictures and great stories. Both the pictures and the stories give great insight in the ‘3121’ era. https://www.amazon.com/Prince-Private-View-Afshin-Shahidi/dp/1250134439
The photo’s used in the ‘3121’ artwork are all by Afshin Shahidi. The design of the artwork was done by @samjennings. Within the artwork the house Prince was living in at the time is leading. More info on Sam Jennings’s website: https://samjennings.com/work/portfolio/3121-cd/
If you open the cd packaging, you’ll see a picture of the mansion. This is not the aforementioned house that gave the album its title though. This is the house Prince rented from basketball player Charles Boozer, from September 2005 to May 2006.
The house pictured in the ‘3121’ artwork was (is) located at 1235 Sierra Alta Way, Los Angeles. Prince renamed it ‘3121’ anyway. More on these ‘3121’ mansions in upcoming threads. But definitely check out the artwork and see how each song is visually tied to a room.
One more thing about the numbers, as we know Prince was a numbers guy. Numerologists would say that the album title (and the original house) is the equivalent of the number 7 (3 + 1 + 2 + 1 = 7)
If you look at the album label, it says ‘3121 – The Music’. This could be an indication that there were bigger plans. We know Prince had been working on ‘3121 – The Movie’ as well. Here is the ‘making of’ trailer, that leaked in 2011:
Apart from that there also was a never published ‘3121’ magazine planned (to be seen in the ‘Black Sweat’ video) and a ‘3121 Radio Show’ with @djrashida had been in the works. The latter surfaced earlier this year on SiriusXM.
Also at the same time, Prince was working with Támar Davis on an album. That’s a story on its own, which we will leave for now. Needless to say, Támar features heavily on ‘3121’. More on her in threads by others the upcoming days.
After the after the successful ‘Musicology’ era, Prince struck a one-album deal with Universal Music for distribution and promotion of the ‘3121’ album.
When Prince performed at the BRIT Awards on February 16, 2006, Universal Music had gathered all (mainland) European product managers in Paris. They were informed about the album plans, while looking at a live stream of the BRIT performance.
It is a great performance, featuring Wendy and Lisa on stage with Prince for the first time since the Revolution disbanded two decades earlier. Check it out here:
The Universal promo machine worked well for Prince in his home country. ‘3121’ debuted at number 1 in the Billboard 200 album chart, which was a first for Prince.
‘3121’ also went number 1 in the Billboard Top R&B/Hip Hop Albums chart. Eventually this number 1-album (Prince’s first since 1989’s ‘Batman’) was certified Gold in the US.
What did help was the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-like promotion. In some copies of the album ‘purple tickets’ were hidden. The lucky winners that found a ticket were invited to a party/concert at 3121 (which was the 1235 Sierra Alta Way house).
In other countries the album fared less well than in the US. In the UK it peaked at number 9, in France it went to number 8 and although it went to number 3 in the Netherlands, the sales plummeted once the one ‘purple ticket’ for the Dutch market had been found.
Three singles were released: ‘Te Amo Corazón’, ‘Black Sweat’ and ‘Fury’. The first one was a US only release, the last one only UK/Europe. ‘Black Sweat’ had ‘Beautiful, Loved and Blessed’ as double A side. The next couple of days you’ll read all about these songs.
Prince stayed at the second Los Angeles ‘3121’ mansion until May 2006. After that the ‘3121 brand’ moved to Las Vegas. In May 2006 Prince played shows at Club 3121 that was located within the Empire Ballroom.
Then, in November 2006, Club 3121 moved to the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino. Prince played a concert residency (normal shows and aftershows) at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino until April 2007.
Around that time the ‘3121 Magazine’ had seemingly morphed into a ‘3121 newsletter’ (designed by @samjennings), which was distributed at the hotel and was more like a leaflet with some editorial content.
In July 2007 ‘Planet Earth’ was released. Normally the release of an album would end the previous era. But look closely at the album cover. It does not mention the album title anywhere, yet it is filled with countless 3121s.
One could argue that Planet Earth is a ‘yang’ to the ‘yin’ that is ‘3121’, just like ‘Around The World In A Day’ and ‘Parade’ are two sides of the same coin, or ‘The Black Album’ and ‘Lovesexy’, or ‘Come’ and ‘The Gold Experience’.
Let’s not go there, otherwise we’ll be here until the middle of next week and that’s when the fun has already started as the series of mega ‘3121’ threads properly kicks off tomorrow. Today is just housewarming.
Prince kept using the http://3121.com website as well in 2007/early 2008 and kept selling ‘3121’ merchandise such as the ‘3121’ fragrance. Here’s some footage from the July 7, 2007 launch event of that perfume at Macy’s New York:
The ‘3121’ fragrance launch was little over a week before ‘Planet Earth’ would be released, and if you look closely on the back of that album you can find the outlines of the ‘3121’ fragrance bottle hidden in those countless 3121s.
Basically the ‘3121’ era in Prince’s career ended with his Coachella 2008 performance. Even though he did not play any songs from the album during that performance. http://3121.com ceased to exist in March 2009, so maybe that is the true cut-off point.
So yes, ‘3121’ was a success (especially in the US). But somehow the album has been overlooked somewhat since Prince’s passing. It is hardly mentioned in articles or books, even the Estate forgot it when they compiled the discography wall for the My Name Is Prince exhibition.
So the next couple of days a series of threads will be posted by eleven different contributors to give the ‘3121’ era some much needed love, depth and insight.
The official start is tomorrow, when @yan_kry will dissect the title track. He will be followed by @darlingnisi, @deejayUMB, @RichardCole_NOW, @PrincesFriendYT, @CaseyRain, @CasciTRitchie, @ehphd, @arrthurr, @pressrewind75 and yours truly.
So these are the basics on '3121'. We hope you'll enjoy the series in the days to come.
