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The Family

Warner Bros. Records

The Family is an ensemble put together in the wake of the disbanding of The Time following the release of Ice Cream Castle. All tracks was co-written with Prince (under the pseudonym of Jamie Starr) except River Run Dry² – written by Bobby Z. Most of the songs were written during the Purple Rain Tour. Even before the album’s release the group had disbanded after Paul Peterson quit due to creative differences with Prince. Thus The Family was the group’s first and only album. The Family is notable in that it contains the original 1984 recording of Nothing Compares 2 U (later given to and famously re-recorded in 1990 by Sinead O’Connor), and for the song Mutiny.

Prince wrote Nothing Compares 2 U about his then fiancée and The Family vocalist Susannah Melvoin. She is also the subject of other notable tracks, Starfish And Coffee and If I Was Your Girlfriend from Sign O The Times.