those songs / albums will be released... but - not untill after Prince has died,

the problem is most of us are dead too at that time, in 2044 or something...

When Warner Bros ceases to exist.

Who knows, but one can only speculate his best material is/was in there.

Never. The market is to small to justify the costs finishing the mixes, mastering, packaging, and releasing. Especially when you consider that Prince already has a huge catalog of excellent B-sides that can be used to pad out remixed/remastered CD reissues. He can make a lot more money just putting his funds and energy into concerts.

thready! what are you doing here??

jpnyc said:

Never. The market is to small to justify the costs finishing the mixes, mastering, packaging, and releasing. Especially when you consider that Prince already has a huge catalog of excellent B-sides that can be used to pad out remixed/remastered CD reissues. He can make a lot more money just putting his funds and energy into concerts.

The market is not too small. The market is a bit unstabile, but would be no problem if it was promoted the right way. Prince has millions of followers and fans of the 80s prince atleast.

I bought one Tom Waits album with a bunch of unreleased songs. I think it actually sold pretty well. Prince with big promotion behind him is bigger than Tom Waits I think, even though I know more people who still is listening to Tom Waits. This is probably because Tom Waits is still releasing material that is worth the money.

I have read somewhere that he plans to release everything on the 32nd of Octember 2099. I'll look forward to it!

Firstly, I don't think Prince will ever release everything - there's too much, and there's lots of alt.takes etc that even if a song did get released, it might not be the version fans want (see CB) and I doubt they would release 7 versions of the same track.

They could always add tracks on remasters etc, but as to some series of CB-like compilations, I think Prince would do that once he tires of, or is no longer able to, tour. ATM, touring is the money maker, so he's sitting on the 80s unreleased material - he can break that piggy bank when the time is right, or he gets a deal he can't refuse.

802 said:

When Warner Bros ceases to exist.

What do you think WB has to do with any of this?

I don't think it's ever gonna happen Hold on to the bootlegs that you already have,there won't ever be an "official" release.

jpnyc said:

Never. The market is to small to justify the costs finishing the mixes, mastering, packaging, and releasing. Especially when you consider that Prince already has a huge catalog of excellent B-sides that can be used to pad out remixed/remastered CD reissues. He can make a lot more money just putting his funds and energy into concerts.

It depends on the quality of it. Adele and Eminem are examples of modern artists that are still doing D&P numbers in 2010. That isnt saying much but it does show that if the material is quality with a number 1 hit (Which arent hard nowadays) it can be very profitable.

ZombieKitten said:

Not in his lifetime because by then everybody will have it in some kind of format or another.

ThreadBare said:

ZombieKitten said:

thready! what are you doing here??

I heard they were giving out some late-model Prince wigs in the P:M&M forum, heard about a dancer's interview getting scrubbed, and here we are.

bigd74 said:

I have read somewhere that he plans to release everything on the 32nd of Octember 2099. I'll look forward to it!

Are we not still waiting for the last 2/3 albums promised last year?

mzsadii said:

bigd74 said:

I have read somewhere that he plans to release everything on the 32nd of Octember 2099. I'll look forward to it!

Are we not still waiting for the last 2/3 albums promised last year?

Prince NEVER promises anything. it comes when it comes if it comes.

He be holding a big red button in his death bed and just befiore the inevitable he'll press it and the park will be rubble, and he'll smil;e and mutter the words fuck you.

ThreadBare said:

What is Prince waiting for?

Maybe he can't simply release any unreleased song when and how he pleases?

Maybe he isn't being offered enough pay and/or control?

Maybe he is waiting for the year 2013 and beyond?

Maybe he don't give a crap? (tho I doubt that).

I wish I could tell what the deal is here really (as with the remasters too), because I dread to think what would happen to all of that material if he never properly released it himself.

But if he would exploit the opportunity himself in his lifetime, he still would have to arrange a lot of things, before he really could. And then WB, associated artists, the internet/download problem, lawyers, accountants, money and legal/control issues come into play and it can all get very complicated.

So I guess for now he is just sticking to doing a lot of concerts. Hey who knows, he might use some of the profits from his tour to do a remaster project with bonus discs full of unreleased gems, concerts, videos etc.

Yeah I love to dream...

[Edited 7/14/11 5:35am]

jpnyc said:

Never. The market is to small to justify the costs finishing the mixes, mastering, packaging, and releasing. Especially when you consider that Prince already has a huge catalog of excellent B-sides that can be used to pad out remixed/remastered CD reissues. He can make a lot more money just putting his funds and energy into concerts.

^ This!

ManlyMoose said:

jpnyc said:

Never. The market is to small to justify the costs finishing the mixes, mastering, packaging, and releasing. Especially when you consider that Prince already has a huge catalog of excellent B-sides that can be used to pad out remixed/remastered CD reissues. He can make a lot more money just putting his funds and energy into concerts.

It depends on the quality of it. Adele and Eminem are examples of modern artists that are still doing D&P numbers in 2010. That isnt saying much but it does show that if the material is quality with a number 1 hit (Which arent hard nowadays) it can be very profitable.

Those are popular artists, Prince isn't popular anymore, so why do you think he'd be able to sell just as well? No matter how great those songs are, people simply aren't looking forward to the new Prince album anymore and a lot of those songs he has in his vault will sound very outdated to them.

Not to mention I don't think he has that many truly great songs in his vault. Lots of mediocre stuff only fans would be interested in.

JowiiCoco said:

jpnyc said:

Never. The market is to small to justify the costs finishing the mixes, mastering, packaging, and releasing. Especially when you consider that Prince already has a huge catalog of excellent B-sides that can be used to pad out remixed/remastered CD reissues. He can make a lot more money just putting his funds and energy into concerts.

^ This!

Sure costs are an issue, but the productions costs are in fact LOWER than with a normal release produced from scratch and I don't think "the market is too small" for remasters, especially not when they are issued together with vault tracks and live material.

The reason? Precisely his succesful touring. Look at how many people still come to see him in the US and Europe. When you have so many people paying for your shows, you sure can make money with remasters, as well as unreleased and live material.

For fuck's sake, except for the necessary legal and financial arrangements that may prove difficult, all he really needs is a good worldwide distributor and a simple website selling all that shit!

JowiiCoco said:

Prince isn't popular anymore

Oh come on. Prince still sells out shows everywhere and everybody came to see him thrice at the NSJ and then on the 26 again (sold out) so he is still popular, even with the youth. No, not with the Justin Bieber and Lady gaga media hyped crowd, but hell is that what you need these days then?

Tremolina said:

JowiiCoco said:

Prince isn't popular anymore

Oh come on. Prince still sells out shows everywhere and everybody came to see him thrice at the NSJ and then on the 26 again (sold out) so he is still popular, even with the youth. No, not with the Justin Bieber and Lady gaga media hyped crowd, but hell is that what you need these days then?

Yes he sells out because people want to relive the 80's and when he doesn't play those songs they bitch and moan about it. It happened in '95 and it happened last weekend.

JowiiCoco said:

Tremolina said:

Oh come on. Prince still sells out shows everywhere and everybody came to see him thrice at the NSJ and then on the 26 again (sold out) so he is still popular, even with the youth. No, not with the Justin Bieber and Lady gaga media hyped crowd, but hell is that what you need these days then?

Yes he sells out because people want to relive the 80's and when he doesn't play those songs they bitch and moan about it. It happened in '95 and it happened last weekend.

For sure, part of the crowd just comes to relive the 80's.

Proves that there's his chance to sell them those 80's masterpieces AGAIN, remastered and all (like any major artist so far has done), PLUS (optional) live shows of the accompanying tours AND the best of the best of his unreleased tracks.

[Edited 7/14/11 5:58am]

Tremolina said:

JowiiCoco said:

^ This!

Sure costs are an issue, but the productions costs are in fact LOWER than with a normal release produced from scratch and I don't think "the market is too small" for remasters, especially not when they are issued together with vault tracks and live material.

The reason? Precisely his succesful touring. Look at how many people still come to see him in the US and Europe. When you have so many people paying for your shows, you sure can make money with remasters, as well as unreleased and live material.

For fuck's sake, except for the necessary legal and financial arrangements that may prove difficult, all he really needs is a good worldwide distributor and a simple website selling all that shit!

Remastered stuff could sell depending on whether or not there's a big Prince revival going on for some reason, but the vault songs are a niche market. I'd say he has about 30-40 great songs in his vault that people on here have heard. That's 30-40 out of how many songs we have on boots?

Also, how many were people lining up to get a copy of CB?

imho...his music and videos are his children. don't all children come from God. children are birthed when the time is right. it doesn't feel 2 me that it is about $$ that is reaped from selling kidz from the vault. when the 'time' is right for ppl to vibe on what is in the vault, then it will be released. imho. they will be re-leased when Spirit wants them released. it is all about Spirit and God and Soul and the jiva honoring the ParaAtman. love1another.

JowiiCoco said:

Tremolina said:

Sure costs are an issue, but the productions costs are in fact LOWER than with a normal release produced from scratch and I don't think "the market is too small" for remasters, especially not when they are issued together with vault tracks and live material.

The reason? Precisely his succesful touring. Look at how many people still come to see him in the US and Europe. When you have so many people paying for your shows, you sure can make money with remasters, as well as unreleased and live material.

For fuck's sake, except for the necessary legal and financial arrangements that may prove difficult, all he really needs is a good worldwide distributor and a simple website selling all that shit!

Remastered stuff could sell depending on whether or not there's a big Prince revival going on for some reason, but the vault songs are a niche market. I'd say he has about 30-40 great songs in his vault that people on here have heard. That's 30-40 out of how many songs we have on boots?

You call hundreds of thousands of people worldwide a niche market when you have the internet at your hands to sell it to them, with practically no production and release costs compared to a normal release? I call that: cha ching!! (provided it is executed the right way of course)

30-40 GREAT songs that WE know of yes. That's still potentially three discs (or more) of extremely worthy material.

And that COULD be issued together with the remasters of 1999, Purple Rain and Sign of the Times.

EASILY, including live material.

Also, how many were people lining up to get a copy of CB?

From what I've gathered on this site, he made SHITLOADS of money with CB.

But it was a distributional DISASTER.

[Edited 7/14/11 6:14am]

raddahone said:

imho...his music and videos are his children. don't all children come from God. children are birthed when the time is right. it doesn't feel 2 me that it is about $$ that is reaped from selling kidz from the vault. when the 'time' is right for ppl to vibe on what is in the vault, then it will be released. imho. they will be re-leased when Spirit wants them released. it is all about Spirit and God and Soul and the jiva honoring the ParaAtman. love1another.

Yo no creo eso. Sí, creo que canciónes son como creaciónes, pero no son como ninos. Son creaciónes del mente del artista, in realidad, no más y no menos.

Sin embargo, sí es verdad que el artista puede tener una relación muy personal con su trabajo, que puede causar que algunas vezes no lo quiere publicar. O que no crea que sea una buena obra.

Además, cuando el artista tiene un espiritu fuerte que le pone en sus obras tambien, sí puede ser, que sus creaciónes influyen sus admiradores en su mente, possiblemente en formas el artista no quisiera. Es possible sí, que crea que el dia de publicar su creaciones, todovía no ha llegado.

Porque es su creación.

[Edited 7/14/11 6:46am]