51 Albums, Prince, The Dream Factory~ Thank You Vibe Magazine

I just had to post this. The Dream Factory album is the BOMB!!!

This is the 4Th installment of 51 Albums that never were.

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You, VIBE Magazine!!!!

Enjoy!!! I know I did !

PRINCE AND THE REVOLUTION Dream Factory (Paisley Park, 1986)

“Writing a song for Prince is like brushing his teeth,” keyboardist Lisa Coleman says, laughing. “He’s that guy.” But for much of 1986, the prolific artist whose albums often bore the tag, “Written, arranged, produced, and performed by Prince,” was in a collaborative mood. The outcome? The stunning 18-track Dream Factory.

During Prince’s Hit & Run tour, he entered the studio for a series of dates with his longtime backing band The Revolution. Two members of the classic lineup would have the most artistic impact on those sessions: Coleman and guitarist Wendy Melvoin. That was the relationship he, Lisa, and myself had,” Melvoin recalls of the duo’s close musical bond with the infamously independent Purple One. “We were in studios all over the world, writing and finishing tracks that were all incredibly diverse and odd.

”Following Around the World in a Day (Paisley Park, 1985) and Parade (Paisley Park, 1986), Dream Factory was a showcase for Prince at his most avant-garde. What other multiplatinum superstar would open up an album with a melancholy instrumental piano piece like “Visions”? But it only gets deeper—and weirder. Witness the dark funk title track, which rails against the crippling illusion of celebrity; “Crystal Ball,” a relentless 10-minute epic about war; and “Train,” a soulful rocker that uses train-track sound effects as a backbeat. The centerpiece is “All My Dreams,” a whimsical number straight out of a 1930s jazz musical, featuring Prince singing into a megaphone.

But Dream Factory was never officially released. After abruptly disbanding the Revolution, Minnesota’s native son included Dream Factory solo standouts like “Ballad of Dorothy Parker,” “Strange Relationship,” and “Sign O’ the Times” on his acclaimed 1987 album of the same name, erasing any trace of Wendy and Lisa. “We wanted to be Prince’s muses,” she says, “but he felt like he needed to take back the initial thing that got him to where he was at, which was, ‘I need to do this on my own,’” Melvoin says. Yet Wendy and Lisa have thrived, releasing several albums and scoring films like Soul Food (20th Century Fox, 1997) and television shows like NBC’s Heroes, as well as working with the Edith Funker supergroup with Erykah Badu, ?uestlove, James Poyser, and DJ Jazzy Jeff. But looking back, Wendy says of the time: “We are extremely proud of that period.

”Go to http://www.vibe.com/ for the complete story, pics, and music