The Most Beautiful Girl in the World
| The Most Beautiful Girl in the World | |
|---|---|
| Prince | |
| publication | February 14, 1994 |
| length | 4:07 |
| Genre (s) | pop music |
| Author (s) | Prince |
| text | Prince |
| music | Prince |
| Publisher (s) | Bellmark Records |
| Label | NPG Records |
| album |
The Beautiful Experience EP (1994) The Gold Experience (1995) |
| Cover versions | |
| 1994 | Mayte Garcia |
| 1994 | Eric Leeds |
| 1994 | Leone di Lernia |
| 1995 | Kahoru Kohiruimaki |
| 2003 | Alex Bugnon |
| 2006 | Martini Lizards |
The Most Beautiful Girl in the World ( English for the most beautiful girl in the world ) is a 1994 song published by the US musician Prince , he wrote , composed , arranged and produced has. The song was released on February 14, 1994 as a single on his then newly founded music label NPG Records . In May of the same year the song was also released on the EP The Beautiful Experience and in September 1995 on Prince's 17th studio album The Gold Experience .
Due to differences with Warner Bros. Records , Prince dropped his stage name on June 7, 1993 and instead carried an unpronounceable symbol as a pseudonym . The Most Beautiful Girl in the World is the first single under Prince's symbol and was very successful internationally; for example, it is his first number one single hit in England. In addition, the song could be number one in Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, Australia and New Zealand.
The Most Beautiful Girl in the World comes from the genre of pop music and the single version is 4:07. The lyrics are, among other things, that especially "Inner Beauty" was important.
Emergence
In the period from 1993 to 2000 Prince no longer wanted to work with the record company Warner Bros. Records , as he was of the opinion, among other things, that Warner did not market his phonograms professionally enough. So he didn't want to send the record company any more new songs, even though he was still under contract with them.
The Most Beautiful Girl in the World recorded Prince on September 20, 1993. He then turned to the American music producer Al Bell (* 1940), who bought the music label Stax Records in 1970 and founded the independent label Bellmark Records in the late 1980s . Bell and Prince had known each other since Bell was working in Prince's Paisley Park studio in Chanhassen , Minneapolis, on Mavis Staple's then-album The Voice in 1993 . Prince reached an agreement with Bell and had The Most Beautiful Girl in the World distributed through Bellmark Records. Outside the USA, the song was distributed by independent labels such as the Edel Company in Germany.
Warner Bros. Records only agreed on the condition that Prince took over all advance payments and music promotion for the single himself. He invested two million US dollars in marketing it, and on December 10, 1993, he placed an advertisement in the American newspapers Entertainment Weekly , The Village Voice and New York Magazine with the following content: “Bachelor is looking for the most beautiful girl in the world to spend the vacation with her ”. The same advertisement appeared in the Dutch daily Algemeen Dagblad and in the Spanish daily El País . Interested parties should send videos and / or pictures of themselves to the Paisley Park Studio address provided. The submitted material was used to market the single The Most Beautiful Girl in the World . Over 50,000 young women worldwide responded to the said advertisement. Seven of them were selected to appear in the song's music video and 30 more were featured on the cover of the single.
On February 13, 1994, Prince had a The Most Beautiful Girl in the World - Release party for in Chanhassen at Paisley Park Studio. He played a concert in front of 1,300 spectators with his backing band The New Power Generation , which was filmed. Guests present included Bernie Mac , Magic Johnson and Tevin Campbell . At this concert, the seven winners were announced, who can ultimately be seen in the music video. This was followed by the premiere of the music video. On March 6th, Prince played The Most Beautiful Girl in the World for the first time live; the two-hour concert also took place in the Paisley Park Studio.
On March 11th, Prince Warner Bros. Records presented the album Come , omitting the song The Most Beautiful Girl in the World . Warner asked if he could add it to the tracklist , which Prince agreed to. On May 19, 1994, he released a final version of Come , but again refused to have The Most Beautiful Girl in the World on the tracklist. As a reason, he stated that Come 's songs were Prince songs, but since his name is currently not so, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World is not a Prince song. Marylou Badeaux, then Vice President of Warner Bros. Records, said: “Mo and Lenny were shocked that 'Beautiful Girl' [sic] was not on the record. It was believed that now he [Prince] was just throwing something at the label to fulfill his contract. ” Mo Ostin and Lenny Waronker were former CEOs of Warner Bros. Records.
When reporters asked for Warner Bros. Records' views on Prince's approach, then Warner spokesman Bob Merlis replied, “He can do it because he has our approval. He's still a Warner Bros. artist and if he releases an album, it will be for us. ”Prince's then spokesman Chris Poole, whose company Poole Edwards was responsible for the Tin Machine advertising campaign , said: “I think this is what happened: Warner was like, 'Oh yeah, we'll show him. We'll let him release his own record and then he'll see how difficult this will be '”.
Warner Bros. Records was surprised at the single's commercial success and didn't expect The Most Beautiful Girl in the World to become Prince's most successful single since Batdance in 1989. The record company had only agreed to the single release, in the belief that Prince would then return to the label.
Design of the cover
JC Munson and Levi Seacer Jr., then rhythm guitarist in Prince's backing band The New Power Generation , were responsible for the cover design . The front cover shows the faces of young women who answered Prince's ad on December 10, 1993. Most of these faces are covered by a kind of orange speech bubble . In this speech bubble is written in purple “the Most Beautiful Girl in the World”. In the lower center, the unpronounceable symbol of Prince is shown in yellow and a kissable mouth in the same color. At the top of the cover you can read “Beauty Inside” in mirror writing. On the inside cover you can see other faces of the winners of the advertisement and the lyrics of the song are printed. The name "Prince" is nowhere to be read.
music
Musical style
Prince wrote , composed , arranged and produced the song The Most Beautiful Girl in the World . He also played all the instruments himself. The musician Ricky Peterson was co-producer and co-arranger of the piece, and Tom Tucker mixed it. After Prince recorded the song, songwriter Jimi Behringer also played guitar. Peterson and Behringer, like Prince, are both from Minneapolis.
The Most Beautiful Girl in the World is a song from the pop music genre . The piece begins with the sound of a harp , which slowly gets louder in its dynamics - the opposite effect of the fadeout . During the songs sound effects such as birds singing to hear and dripping raindrops. The melody and music production of the title are sometimes reminiscent of Phillysound , a style of soul from the 1970s.
Singing and lyrics
Prince sings the lyrics mainly in his typical falsetto . Only after 3:16 minutes does he briefly use low voices when he sings the refrain with the second voice . His girlfriend at the time, Mayte Garcia , whom he married in 1996, inspired Prince to write the lyrics. The song begins with the chorus , which is atypical for Prince songs, which is:
|
|
The lyrics of the song, written by Prince, sometimes take on spiritual traits. In the end, Prince comes to the realization that inner beauty is more important than an outer appearance.
|
|
In 1997, Prince said in an interview with US fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar that he had written various ballads for Mayte Garcia, such as The Most Beautiful Girl in the World . Among other things, Garcia makes it easier for him to talk about God. Prince also said of his wife at the time: “She's not trying to change me, but she makes me more aware of certain things.” But in 2017 Garcia wrote in her book The Most Beautiful: My Life with Prince : “I know that besides me at least three other women are convinced that Prince wrote this song for them. "
Publications
The Most Beautiful Girl in the World was published on 14 February 1994 as Vinyl - Single , MC and CD single. The song was also released as a 4U Gift Box Edition, a CD single that was only temporarily available as a special edition . The song is 4:07 minutes long on the aforementioned sound carriers and the B-side is Beautiful , a 3:55 minute remix - dance version of the single. The same versions are also included on the vinyl maxi single , with the remixes Beautiful Extended Club Version (6:25) and Beautiful Beats (3:30) also appearing on the B-side . Furthermore, on March 4th, the Dutch radio stations Veronica and TROS played a ten-minute compilation of The Most Beautiful Girl in the World remixes, which are not available on phonograms.
The song was released in May 1994 on the EP The Beautiful Experience and in September 1995 on the album The Gold Experience , which is 4:25 minutes long in a slightly modified version. Further, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World also on the Japanese edition of the album 1-800 New Funk published a published in August 1994 Sampler Prince ' compositions .
Music video
On January 29, 1994, Prince shot a music video for the song in his hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Originally the shooting was supposed to take place in Los Angeles City Hall , but due to an earthquake at the time, the shooting was moved to Minneapolis. The music video was recorded in a film studio and shows Prince standing on a kind of pedestal and singing the song with his backing band The New Power Generation .
Prince portrays himself in the music video as an admirer of beautiful women, but his girlfriend at the time, Mayte Garcia, cannot be seen; instead women of different ages, origins and stature appear in the video. In addition, several film scenes of a young couple are inserted in which they marry and the woman goes into labor . The seven winners who responded to the December 10, 1993 advertisement also appear. The music video praises the beauty of female empowerment, the first black female president - portrayed by Nona Gaye - and the educational advancement for children. Career women can also be seen. The American educator Marva Collins (born August 31, 1936 - June 24, 2015) made a cameo towards the end of the song . The video was directed by Prince and Antoine Fuqua .
Cover versions (selection)
Various musicians from different genres recorded cover versions of The Most Beautiful Girl in the World . Prince's girlfriend and future wife Mayte Garcia recorded the song as The Most Beautiful Boy in the World in 1994 and describes the lyrics from a female perspective. She also sings with ¿Quieres ser el mas bello de este mundo? a Spanish version of their interpretation. Saxophonist Eric Leeds, who played repeatedly with Prince in the band from 1983, also recorded an instrumental version in 1994 with Beautiful Girl . The Italian comedian , singer and presenter Leone di Lernia (* 1938; † 2017) published Concettina, a parody of The Most Beautiful Girl in the World in 1994 and brought it out on his album Leonemania .
The Japanese singer Kahoru Kohiruimaki (born March 16, 1967) recorded a version in her native language in 1995 and the music production team Absolute featuring Slim Chance covered The Most Beautiful Girl in the World in 1999 . In 2002 the piece was interpreted by both the American riot-Grrrl band Rizzo and the Swiss jazz pianist Alex Bugnon. The Swedish jazz band Martini Lizards covered the song in 2006.
In addition, various measures Pop - Orchestra The Most Beautiful Girl in the World re-up, such as: The Pop du Monde Orchestra in 1997, The SongRise Orchestra in 1999 and The Orchestra of Dreams in 2006. In addition, the song appeared on various Karaoke -CDs. The French singer Ophélie Winter recorded a version in her national language with Le Garçon le plus beau dans l'univers in 1994 , but it was not published.
Allegations of plagiarism
It was not until 2009 that it became known that the two Italian songwriters Bruno Bergonzi and Michele Vicino had already filed a lawsuit against Prince in the competent court in Italy in 1995. The Most Beautiful Girl in the World reached number 9 on the Italian singles chart. Bergonzi and Vicino believe the song is a plagiarism of their 1983 Italo disco song Takin 'Me to Paradise , sung by the Italian Jay Rolandi under his pseudonym Raynard J. After the lawsuit was dismissed in 2003, the Songwriter objection . In 2007 an Italian court ruled in the second instance that The Most Beautiful Girl in the World did indeed contain elements of Takin 'Me to Paradise . “The process has already taken 15 years. When we noticed the match, we immediately sued. But the mills of the Italian judiciary grind slowly, ”said the songwriters. Because of this, Bergonzi and Vicino decided to turn to the mass media .
In July 2016, Bruno Bergonzi told the US magazine Billboard that the Corte Suprema di Cassazione - the highest court in the ordinary jurisdiction of Italy - had already decided in 2015 to recognize him and Michele Vicino as authors of The Most Beautiful Girl in the World . The verdict still has to be published, at Prince's expense, in two Italian daily newspapers and in two music magazines, but this did not happen. US judicial authorities have tried several times to get Prince the final judgment in his Paisley Park studio in Chanhassen , Minnesota, but each time no one has been reached. While the two Italian songwriters have already received royalties for The Most Beautiful Girl in the World , Bergonzi added: “The court also ruled that we should get compensation for“ moral rights ”, although that doesn't mean a lot of money under Italian law. “ Billboard magazine suspects the final state of affairs will last longer because Prince died on April 21, 2016.
In July 2019 Italian ranged Group Warner Chappell Music Italiana, publisher of Takin 'Me to Paradise , (The Princeton dt .: a lawsuit against The Prince Estate estate ) amounting to 1,924,995 euros one. The group is represented by the Australian law firm Mills Oakley and the lawsuit is based on damages and ongoing royalties for The Most Beautiful Girl in the World . The lawsuit also includes ongoing royalties for the song played in Australia , where it reached number 1 on the singles chart in 1994 .
The Beautiful Experience
| The Beautiful Experience EP (Japan Edition) | |
|---|---|
|
|
| Prince is the author of all songs |
On April 3, 1994, the British television station Sky One showed the film The Beautiful Experience . It is 70 minutes long and consists, among other things, of live footage of the Paisley Park concert on February 13, 1994 in Chanhassen and music videos of songs that were still unreleased at the time. For example, music videos from the songs Pheromones , Loose! , Papa and Race , which were then released on the album Come in August 1994 . The video also includes a ten minute music video of The Most Beautiful Girl in the World . Since Prince was in a dispute with the then record company Warner Bros. Records in 1994 , he released productions that he - under his pseudonym at the time - concluded with other companies in parallel to the current Warner Bros. contract.
The main actress in the video is Nona Gaye , the daughter of the American musician Marvin Gaye . The Beautiful Experience tells the story of a woman who initially had a negative self-image . In the further course she develops into a self-confident person who is aware of her beauty . The sometimes complex and demanding plot is represented by a narrative and Prince live performances.
The Beautiful Experience ( English for the beautiful experience ) is also the 12th EP Prince and appeared on 17 May 1994 under the label NPG Records / Bell Mark Records. The EP contains a 30 seconds longer version of the single The Most Beautiful Girl in the World as well as a longer version of the B-side Beautiful . There are also five other remixes on The Beautiful Experience , and two additional versions on the Japanese edition with Beautiful Extended Club Version and Sax Mix . The version Sax Mix is an instrumental version of the Prince single played by tenor saxophonist Brian Gallagher (born November 23, 1963 - March 3, 2016) , which was also released as Brian's Mix and Saxophone Version . Brian Gallagher released his version as a single in the summer of 1994. The EP The Beautiful Experience was listed in the international charts either in the single hit parade or in the album hit parade, but gold status was not achieved.
Two singles were released from The Beautiful Experience : Staxowax was released in a radio edit version on MC and CD, which is 5:00 minutes long. The song Sexy Staxophone and Guitar is available as the B-side in a version shortened to 3:36 minutes. Furthermore, a vinyl appeared Promo - maxi-single of Staxowax . In addition, the Mustang Mix (6:19) with the B-side Mustang Instrumental (3:26) was released on MC and CD. In 1996 Prince recorded a revised version and named it Mustang Mix '96 , which he did not release.
Two music videos were also released from the EP The Beautiful Experience ; Prince shot the music video for Mustang Mix in January 1994 in Chanhassen's Paisley Park studio. He reworked the video on March 17th in Los Angeles , California at the Gregory McClatchy Film Studio. It shows a performance by him and his companion band The New Power Generation . Prince sings live in the video and his girlfriend at the time, Mayte Garcia, is dancing on a piano. Among other things, she wears a blue mini dress and black boots .
The music video for Beautiful is taken directly from the video film The Beautiful Experience and shows Prince posing surrounded by beautiful women.
Charts and awards
| year | Title album |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 DE
|
 AT
|
 CH
|
 UK
|
 US
|
|||
| 1994 | The Most Beautiful Girl in the World |
DE9 (23 weeks) DE |
AT5 (12 weeks) AT |
CH1 (2) (22 weeks) CH |
UK1 (2)  (14 weeks)UK |
US3  (26 weeks)US |
• UK: April 1, 1994: Silver (200,000+)
• US: May 26, 1994: Gold (500,000+) |
| The Beautiful Experience |
DE29¹ (9 weeks) DE |
AT16 (3 weeks) AT |
CH4 (1 week) CH |
UK18 (5 weeks) UK |
US92¹ (12 weeks) US |
• ¹ The EP was featured in the respective album hit parade
|
|
The Most Beautiful Girl in the World has sold over 700,000 copies in the United States. It was also the first and only number one single hit in Spain and the UK during Prince's lifetime; There he was able to reach number one on the British single hit parade in 1984 as a songwriter for I Feel for You by Chaka Khan and in 1990 for Nothing Compares 2 U by Sinéad O'Connor , but as an interpreter he did not succeed in this until then. In addition to the UK and USA, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World has been recognized in the following countries:
- Australia platinum for 70,000 copies sold
- New Zealand Gold for 5,000 copies sold on June 5, 1994
literature
- Jason Draper: Chaos, Disorder, And Revolution. Backbeat Books, New York 2011, ISBN 978-0-87930-961-9 , OCLC 664668943 .
- Mayte Garcia : The Most Beautiful Girl: My Life With Prince. mvg Verlag, Munich 2018, ISBN 978-3-86882-897-9 , OCLC 1014191154 .
- Ben Greenman: Dig If You Will the Picture - Funk, Sex and God in the Music of Prince. Faber & Faber Ltd, London 2017, ISBN 978-0-571-33326-4 , OCLC 985601816 .
- Alex Hahn: Obsessed - Prince's turbulent life. Hannibal, Höfen 2006, ISBN 3-85445-262-4 , OCLC 163398818 .
- Ronin Ro: Prince - Inside The Music And The Masks. St. Martin's Press, New York 2011, ISBN 978-0-312-38300-8 , OCLC 428027211 .
- Matt Thorne: Prince. Faber and Faber, London 2012, ISBN 978-0-571-27349-2 , OCLC 794814748 .
- Uptown: The Vault - The Definitive Guide to the Musical World of Prince. Nilsen Publishing, Linköping 2004, ISBN 91-631-5482-X , OCLC 186521364 .
Web links
- Princevault , information on the song The Most Beautiful Girl in the World
Individual evidence
- ^ Ro (2011), p. 252.
- ↑ Hahn (2006), p. 226.
- ↑ Uptown (2004), p. 154.
- ↑ a b c Ro (2011), p. 249.
- ↑ Draper (2011), p. 130.
- ↑ a b Uptown (2004), p. 155.
- ^ Uptown (2004), p. 157.
- ^ One-Off Performance, March 6, 1994 (am). In: Princevault.com. December 20, 2016, accessed March 16, 2017 .
- ↑ Uptown (2004), pp. 158-159.
- ↑ a b c Hahn (2006), p. 255.
- ^ Ro (2011), p. 250.
- ↑ Thorne (2012), p. 277.
- ↑ Thorne (2012), p. 307.
- ↑ a b c Draper (2011), p. 131.
- ↑ a b c d Cover of the CD single The Most Beautiful Girl in the World by Prince, NPG Records / Bellmark Records, 1994
- ^ Homepage of Ricky Peterson. In: RickyPeterson.com. 2016, accessed on March 16, 2017 .
- ↑ Uptown (2004), p. 398.
- ↑ a b Uptown (2004), p. 399.
- ↑ Draper (2011), p. 163.
- ↑ a b Garcia (2017), p. 221.
- ↑ a b c Uptown (2004), p. 158.
- ↑ The Most Beautiful Girl In The World. In: Princevault.com. February 27, 2016, accessed March 16, 2017 .
- ^ Uptown (2004), p. 156.
- ↑ Garcia (2017), p. 222.
- ↑ Greenman (2017), p. 161.
- ↑ a b Uptown (2004), p. 628.
- ↑ Discover the Original. In: Coverinfo.de. 2017, accessed on October 8, 2017 ( Enter Prince in "Search" ).
- ↑ SecondHandSongs. 2017, accessed on October 8, 2017 .
- ↑ 小 比 類 巻 か ほ る - White / Kohhy Best '89 ~ '95. In: Discogs.com. 2017, accessed on October 8, 2017 .
- ↑ Le Garçon Le Plus Beau Dans L'Univers. In: Princevault.com. May 6, 2015, accessed October 8, 2017 .
- ^ Prince - Plagiarism Trial. In: Archive.is. January 12, 2009, archived from the original on November 12, 2013 ; accessed on March 16, 2017 .
- ↑ a b Mark Worden: Prince's Italian Plagiarism Case Drags On. In: Billboard.com. July 20, 2016, accessed March 16, 2017 .
- ↑ Mark Worden: Prince's Italian Plagiarism Case Drags On. In: Billboard.com. July 20, 2016, accessed March 16, 2017 .
- ↑ Lifestyle Team: Exclusive: Prince's estate sued for $ 3 million. In: au.lifestyle.yahoo.com. September 24, 2019, accessed October 3, 2019 .
- ^ Back of the cover of Prince's CD The Beautiful Experience , Avex Trax / Bellmark Records / NPG Records, 1994
- ↑ Uptown: The Vault. 2004, p. 618.
- ↑ a b Uptown (2004), p. 159.
- ^ Uptown (2004), p. 162.
- ↑ Uptown (2004), p. 493.
- ↑ Brian Gallagher. In: Princevault.com. March 5, 2016, accessed March 16, 2017 .
- ↑ The Most Beautiful Girl In The World (Played by Brian Gallagher). In: Princevault.com. August 21, 2016, accessed March 16, 2017 .
- ↑ The Most Beautiful Girl In The World (Mustang Mix '96). In: Princevault.com. November 18, 2016, accessed March 16, 2017 .
- ↑ Chart sources: DE AT CH UK US
- ^ BPI - Certified Awards Search. 2017, accessed on March 16, 2017 .
- ↑ ARIA charts. 2017, accessed March 16, 2017 .
- ^ The Official NZ Music Charts. June 5, 1994, accessed February 21, 2019 .