| Corporate World is an unreleased studio album by The Time, recorded in Summer 1989. Like previous albums by The Time, all tracks featured Prince as a writer and musician, with Morris Day adding vocals as the only member of the band to actually appear on the album. The title track was written and mostly performed by Morris Day’s bassist Ricky 'Freeze' Smith. The album was submitted to Warner Bros., and planned for release on 14 November 1989, with Nine Lives planned as the first single. Warner Bros. stopped the release, however, wanting the other members of the band brought in to contribute to the album.
Following a meeting with Prince, original the Time members Jesse Johnson, Monte Moir, Terry Lewis and Jimmy Jam began contributing songs to the album without input by Prince, as well as revising Chocolate and Jerk Out; the resulting album became The Time’s fourth album Pandemonium (see that album’s entry for details).
Of the tracks included on Corporate World, three tracks were kept for Pandemonium: Donald Trump (Black Version), Data Bank and My Summertime Thang. Four other tracks were kept as The Time’s contribution to Prince’s twelfth album Graffiti Bridge (the soundtrack album to the movie Graffiti Bridge): Love Machine, Shake!, The Latest Fashion and Release It. Murph Drag was included on NPG Ahdio Show # 3 in 2001, but was not available as a separate track. Rollerskate is an unreleased 6-minute instrumental continuation of My Summertime Thang. Only Nine Lives and Corporate World have not been released in any form.
An incomplete tracklist for the album shows that Dream Factory, Miss Thang and The Sex Of It were considered for the album. Data Bank is listed as (I’m feeling like I wanna put ya in my) Data Bank and Murph Drag as Murph Drag (Part 1 and 2). The tracklist is included below as an early configuration.
Another early configuration, closer to the final version but with some slightly different edits and including an extra portion of My Summertime Thang (as a separate track called Rollerskate), omitted from the final configuration was compiled on 1 October 1989.
|
Untitled Cat album ◄
