Post Description

The Beautiful Experience is a 1994 TV-special that features concert footage, music videos and segues that loosely tell the story of a girl called Jan (Nona Gaye) who sits home alone and questions her self confidence. After seeing an ad in a copy of 10,000 magazine (an ad that is not in the actual 10,000 magazine) she calls 1-800 NEW FUNK hoping to find a guy at the other end of the line. Instead she is connected with the NPG Operator (Rain Ivana). After paying $19.99, her computer gets access to a series of videos through to boost her self-confidence. After spending an hour watching these videos, she eventually realizes that she is 'The Most Beautiful Girl In The World'.

Through her computer screen Jan is watching live-videos of (Interactive, Days Of Wild, The Jam, Shhh, and Now), which were recorded at Paisley Park Studios on 13 February 1994 (a.m.). The footage for Loose! and Papa was shot somewhere in 1993. Snippets of footage from the Glam Slam Ulysses project are also used. Come is featured in a different version than the one that was eventually released on the Come album.

Between all songs, except between The Jam and Shhh, there are shorter or longer segues connecting the songs.

The Beautiful Experience contains videos for several songs that were included on Come released four months after its first airing (Come, Race, Pheromone, Loose! and Papa). But none of them were issued as a commercial single or promotional tool for the album.

The TV-special (sometimes called A Night In Erotic City) first aired in the UK on 3 April 1994 on Sky One. Later it was also broadcast in Canada (MuchMusic, 11 April 1994), Spain, Holland and Germany (on 18 April 1994), France (Canal+ on 18 June 1994), Japan (WowWow) and again in the UK in December 1994, this time on Channel 4. The latter three broadcasts omit the post credits video for Beautiful that was in the original broadcast and some scenes with Nona Gaye have a slightly different edit.

The Japanese broadcast of The Beautiful Experience (65:15 minutes) was released as a white label VHS in a plain white sleeve through Prince’s 1-800 New Funk website, along with a white label VHS of The Sacrifice Of Victor, which was also the Japanese version as broadcast by the WowWow channel.


Track listing
Intro
Interactive
Days Of Wild
Come
Race
All Blues1
Acknowledge Me
Pheromone
The Jam
Shhh
Interlude
Loose!
Papa
The Most Beautiful Girl In The World
Now
Poem (during end credits)
Beautiful (omitted on later broadcasts)