Quote:
Originally Posted by
ionian
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On Frank's old website it says, "After going their separate ways in 1991, Cretu and Peterson never talked or met with one another ever again. Michael continued work on his existing projects, including Enigma."
So basically after their most successful album was released they parted ways and never talked. Sounds like de rigueur for anyone who's ever been partners with someone when something blows up and the money starts flowing and then people start fighting on who contributed more and who's worth the bigger share. But that's just speculation lol...
Anyway what I'm saying is that if they parted ways right after their biggest success and never spoke again, then there was probably a huge falling out and he might not even want to talk about the whole thing. Shame, really.
Sounds like you've got the right idea except Peterson speculates it's more about credibility for Cretu than money - since they were both still pretty much unknown at that point.
He talked about his involvement with Enigma in an interview for a book section. (Stars of '90s Dance Pop: 29 Hitmakers Discuss Their Careers, James Arena) Interview wasn't about dishing up the dirt, just discussing his career in general.
Found the relevant section at:
Frank Peterson's Part in Enigma - New Age Music Guide
The story goes, Peterson had come up with the idea of doing something with gregorian chants after watching In the Name of the Rose - which Cretu didn't want a bar of (for about 2 years) because it would be commercialy unviable. The idea of combining it with electronic beats came from Peterson overhearing someone's walkman in a cloister.
At some point Cretu was working in the studio and had gotten a wee bit stuck. Peterson comes in with a bunch of CDs of chant music and gets Cretu to layer them with a drum tape. Michael starts playing chords over the top of it, and they basically create the track Sadeness overnight.
Cretu comes up with the name Enigma (after the german code machine) and Peterson calls the song Sadeness - something to do with the Marquis de Sade. Anyways, the song absolutely blows up. Initially people would congratulate Cretu and he would tell them it was Peterson's idea, but he eventually started taking all the credit. For example, Richard Branson calls from Virgin to congratulate him on the idea (their contract was through Virgin) and nothing is mentioned.
They're under pressure to get the full album done by christmas, Peterson keeps working while Cretu is off doing the video shoot. Cretu comes back and tells Peterson that everything he's done is sh1t, and he should take himself off the album while Cretu finished it. Some of Peterson's ideas were used but that was pretty much the beginning of the end.
Peterson finds out the name Enigma has been registered. He asks Cretu what his share is going to be, because clearly Sadeness would have never happened without him and his weird idea. Cretu offers him (in Peterson's words) "a ridiculous amount" because it was his studio and financial investment. Peterson sticks around to help finish the album, and they settle out of court afterwards.
He doesn't sound particularly bitter about it - money from Enigma went towards funding future projects and he learned a valuable lesson about the music business. (Not to mention he's been pretty effing successful in his own right anyway)
TLDR; Frank Peterson came up with the idea and convinced Michael Cretu to play along. But Cretu then took over the entire thing and tried to screw Peterson over.