Did Prince steal his first UK number one single?
The late artist Prince was one of the most significant musicians of all time. The Minnesota native was a taboo-busting iconoclast who helped to make the world a better place by combining pioneering music with stark aesthetics, not too dissimilar from his contemporary, David Bowie. Via his songs – efforts that dug into gender politics, racism and sexual relations – Prince showed us the future, augmented by his genius pairing of the guitar and synthesiser.
The diminutive legend penned countless iconic tracks over his long and eminent career ranging from the timeless ‘Purple Rain’ to ‘Controversy’ and ‘I Wanna Be Your Lover’. He was a rare artist in the sense that he just kept getting better, pushing himself to the creative limits, which is often the reverse for artists of his tenure. It is a fact that only compounded his tragic death in 2016.
One of Prince’s stand-out cuts is the 1994 effort ‘The Most Beautiful Girl In The World’. A soulful piece, it is arguably the best chorus Prince ever produced, coming complete with his classic falsetto and textured electronics. The song was so successful that it became Prince’s one and only number one hit in the UK. Interestingly, his 37th single release made him the artist with the most attempts to achieve the top spot on the UK chart.
Adding to the remarkable essence of this case is that Prince had already scored two number one’s as a songwriter with Chaka Khan’s 1984 piece ‘I Feel For You’ and the indomitable Sinead O’ Connor anthem ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’.
The story goes that Prince wrote ‘The Most Beautiful Girl In The World’ after an executive at Warner Bros told him that he didn’t have another hit in his locker. With the consent of Warner Bros, his usual distributor, Prince released the song through his NPG label, and it was the first under his new stage name, the iconic yet unpronounceable symbol.
To promote the single, Prince undertook one of his sharpest publicity campaigns. A string of the most prominent American publications used his face’s silhouette with the message: “Eligible bachelor seeks the most beautiful girl in the world to spend holidays with,” which created a tremendous wave of interest. Then, in February 1994, Prince launched the track on CBS’s Miss America Pageant.
However, the song is not without its hiccups. In 2003, an Italian court ruled that it was plagiarised by Prince from the Bruno Bergonzi and Michele Vicino effort ‘Takin’ Me to Paradise’. The pair won the case on appeal in 2007, and in May 2015, the third and final hearing was given at the Rome Court of Cassation. Now, the Italian colletor SIAE recognises the duo as the authors of the song’s music.
Bergonzi told Billboard after the original ruling was reported: “Our song was first released in 1983, at the height of the Italian dance boom and it appeared on assorted compilations that were distributed internationally. When we first heard Prince’s song we immediately took action, but this case has been dragging on for 15 years and it isn’t over yet, such is the slowness of the Italian legal system. We only decided to go public with our story now.”
