The Untold Story Behind Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” and its Journey to Fame

However, Prince’s friend Jerome Benton had a different story – he said that Prince wrote the song as a tribute to him after Benton broke up with his fiancee. In any case, the musician believed that the song did not correspond to his public image at that time. He decided to give it to The Family, a group he had formed with his then-girlfriend Susan Melvoin and singer Paul Peterson.

Prince removed the vocals, added some orchestrations, and the track ended up being released on The Family’s only album in 1985, which quickly faded into the mainstream pop carousel, and the band broke up soon after.

“Nothing Compares 2 U” was never released as a single and seemed destined to fade into obscurity until, for the sake of thematic coherence, Shaneda O’Connor’s manager Fahtna O’Kelly suggested that the singer include it on her second album, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got”.

According to other industry insiders, O’Connor was introduced to the song by Steve Farnoli, who worked with Prince during the Purple Rain period and took over as O’Connor’s manager around the time of the recording of I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got.

Be that as it may, O’Connor immediately connected to the proposed composition. She and O’Kelley were a couple, but the relationship had begun to visibly falter. Thus, the lyrics of Prince’s song corresponded exactly to her own mood.

“When we recorded ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ they were going through a divorce at the time,” in an interview with the magazine Sound On Sound said Chris Birkett, who co-produced and engineered the song, continuing, “I guess that’s why her vocals were so good. She came into the studio, recorded the song in one go, recorded the backing track straight away, and the result was perfect because she was completely immersed in the song. It reflected her situation.”

“Whatever emotional content Prince put into his song, he did his best to hide it. O’Connor did the opposite,” concludes Mark Savage.

“Apollo.lv” already reported that on July 26, the world was shocked by the news of the death of the 56-year-old Irish singer Sineida O’Connor.

2023-07-28 06:52:56
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