Just read a thread from one of P's most ardent critics that 3121 has 'tanked big time'. Question , this release has had minimal PR [excluding AI] , next to nothing airplay and lets face it minimal interest from P. Yet it still sold 1m+. Kind a makes a mockery of the 'rise and FALL' of Prince book and its supporters. Who else could put out the volume he does and still sell 1m, if Prince has fallen so much down the pecking order how the f@&k can he appear on AI in the slot of his choosing and on his terms?.

Lets have some positive spin for once!

errr, since when did 3121 sell 1 million copies?



(although, I agree it wouldn't necessarily call it a failure considering the promotion this time around...)
[Edited 6/6/06 9:00am]

its actually sold 1.2million copies

oops, .....copies of 3121 + = a failure!.[carry on, debate away!]

FunkyBrotha said:

worldwide?

basically the story is, prince has a large fanbase! doesnt need to promote, cant b bothered doin it now he's older!

FunkyBrotha said:

Last week there was a thread that stated that 3121 has barely sold 500,000 in the USA. Did it sell 500,000 more copies since last week or are you speaking of 1.2 million copies worldwide? If the 1.2 copies million total is worldwide, then YES that IS a failure for someone of Prince's stature.

skyecute said:

Someone of Prince's stature? C'mon, he ain't that tall

.

skyecute said:

Maybe so, but Prince has had many failures, it has sold more than Emancipation The Hits/The B-sides Come For You The Gold Experience Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic The Black Album Chaos & Disorder The Rainbow Children Newpower Soul Crystal Ball The Vault at least on the basis of the best estimated world figures, which I reckon are the only figures that should really matter to an international star.

http://www.ukmix.org/foru...hp?t=34161

Commercially released CDs (best estimate) in order of largest world wide sales to date:

Purple Rain - 19.88m
Diamonds & Pearls - 6.45m
1999 - 6.075m
Batman - 4.79m
Around The World In A Day - 4.585m
Parade - 4.155m
Sign O The Times - 4.025m
Lovesexy - 2.825m
The Hits 1 - 2.75m
The Hits 2 - 2.25m
Symbol - 2.7m
Controversy - 2.65m
Graffiti Bridge - 2.300m
Dirty Mind - 2.015m
The Very Best Of Prince - 2m
Prince - 1.95m
Musicology - 1.5m (not including concert giveaways)
3121 - 1.2m
Emancipation - 1.2m
The Hits/The B-sides - 1m
Come - 1m
For You - 930k
The Gold Experience - 900k
Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic - 750k
The Black Album - 575k
Chaos & Disorder - 350k
The Rainbow Children - 300k
Newpower Soul - 425k
Crystal Ball - 275k
The Vault - 250k
[Edited 6/6/06 10:11am]

metalorange said:

A lot of those (e.g. D&P, Symbol) look way short of the worldwide total and look closer to the US total - they were big sellers in Europe.

metalorange said:

:confused: what constitutes as a "failure"?

leecaldon said:

It's very easy to say that, but incredibly hard to prove it. The person researching it has scoured resources and scraps of information to come to the estimates - the link to their detailed research is included with my above post, and if you can find factual information or find fault with their logic, you're welcome to challenge them.

They estimated that D&P achieved figures of 2.78m in the US and 3.67m worldwide = 6.45m which certainly ties in with even what Uptown said; that D&P was only certified RIAA 2million with 4 million sales worldwide.

Prince largely achieved what he wanted to do with Diamonds And Pearls. The album became a significant commercial recovery for him. It doubled the sales of Graffiti Bridge and reached number three on Billboard’s Pop Chart and number one on the R&B Chart. It sold in excess of 2 million copies in the US and was certified double platinum. Impressively, the album produced four US Top 30 hits, something that Prince hadn’t achieved since Purple Rain. The record was also a large international success, with sales reaching almost 4 million copies outside of the US. In fact, it became Prince’s biggest selling album worldwide with the exception of Purple Rain.

superspaceboy said:

I kind of meant that if you consider 1.2m a failure then Prince has had a lot of failures.

Personally, anything less than a million I would reckon is a failure for Prince, although it depends on whether it was ever intended to be a big seller TRC, for instance, was never gonna sell a million via CD sales (online npgmc figures are obviously not known) so I wouldn't consider that a failure. Actually, in the less than 1m bracket, every album's promotion was screwed up one way or another so they can be forgiven for their relatively poor sales. In that context, you could argue Prince hasn't had any real failures as such.

metalorange said:

OK...I thought that statement from you was a strange one. I get what you mean. I look at the list and there is no way CB or TRI were ever going to reach 1M. Though CB was a huge success for Prince...as he banked most of the buck on that. And it's at the bottom of the list.

Another factor in some of these figures is if one goes to a store and one wants to buy a Prince and an MJ CD for instance. There is a lot to choose from with P and not so much with MJ. So Thriller gets a boost of course...and then so does whatever album they choose for P. Combined the complete total for P is around 84 MM. That's a LOT

Who cares how many copies it sells? There have been some shit records that have sold millions of copies. Doesn't make them good! The charts are meaningless to anyone with a brain. They simply represent the order by qhich the mindless masses must buy CDs, and how much money each record company makes.

*****

[SNIP! Get your whole lotta nothing here bye bye - BananaCologne]

*****

giotto said:

lol! You are correct. I was speaking of his superstar "status".

metalorange said:

Thanks for these stats. They are interesting, to say the least.

superspaceboy said:

That's a good question. According to the media, Michael Jackson is a failure when his album debuts at #1 and sells over 2 million in the USA and 11 million worldwide. I would ALSO like to know the answer to your question>"What constitutes a 'failure'"? How is one artist deemed a failure and others are not? What determines if an artist is a "failure"-critics, media or sales? Does that so-called "failure" diminish a LEGEND'S place in music history?

skyecute said:

ANd Prince's album Debuts at number one...and that's a failure.

Well, I don't think it's so much a failure, as much as it was expected to outsell Musicology. Even Prince said that he wanted this album to sell 30 million copies. The album itself probably would never go beyond platinum in the US, especially with the disappearing act he did after the release. Be that as it may, I think it did do something that all the record sales in the world can't do - it brought the Prince that we all came to know and love in the 80s back into the picture. I'm the last one to pull a nostalgia trip, but songs like Lolita, Black Sweat and Love are classic "early Prince" gems. They sound like they could fit on any of the first 10 Prince albums.

Any album selling 1 million in this era should be considered a hit considering all the file sharing that takes place.

Damn alot of ppl bought Emancipation !

And NPS sold more than the vault ! Interesting

Invicible was a failure that sold 11 million!

fact is that artists of his 'stature' do not shift volume and publicity is absolutley no guarentee of sales. Case in point being Pink who hammered the publicity trail in the U.K. going on Chris Moyles, J. Ross , etc yet the album didn't shift bucketloads.[and no i'm not using her as an example of 'stature!] On a wider scale you only have to loook at the soundscan sales figures to see how the 'ledgends' are selling. Prince is well and truly back ,just the reaction to the Brits performance in the U.K. proved that and more so the ticket sales for the Musicology tour smash to pieces any points around his so called 'downfall'.

Prince will never have MJ or even Madonna type numbers.

His music is too diverse and his volume of recordings is too overwhelming. I don't know of any mega-star as diverse as Prince.I think it's safe to say that the general music public doesn't have diverse musical taste. Just look at the divide amongst us hardcore fans. For example, some fans were lured in by his heavy guitar songs, but are put off by his straight r&b songs. Some don't even like r&b or rap period, so of course they are not going to like it when Prince raps or does r&b. Prince does it all, which attracted a lot of people but it put more people off because you never know what to expect.

I think in the end, Prince's diversity hurt his sales...of course there are other factors. If you are a Bruce Springsteen fan, you pretty much know what you are getting. You don't have to worry about him steering too far away from his roots...like doing rap, jazz, r&b, etc.

Prince may no longer sell millions and millons of record, but he should be proud of the fact that the millions and millions he has sold, most of the credits read, again I said most, not all:

written, produced, arranged, and composed by Prince

Prince has to shoulder all the blame for his failures, so he should be able to take most of the credit for his successes.

PurpleCharm said:

PurpleCharm said:

That's the best thing i've read on this site in ages.
I agree 100%

Controversy said:

funkyhead said:

To echoe that, 1999 originally sold well, levelled off then rebounded over the period of a year, I believe.

Maybe Prince is spreading out the love since he's not releasing albums at the pace we've grown accustomed to. Or maybe he's really really busy working on a bunch of new material

or maybe he's getting hip replacement surgery