..i can't figure it out....he delivers 2 great albums yet there are no videos, no TV spots [which always push his sales] etc. Just twitter & press interviews. My reasoning is thus:

1] he got a big up front payment..so just took the $ & ran!

2] the whole point of the project is to create market awareness ahead of a BIG push on the P.Rain reissue therefore it won't cannibalise P.Rain sales

3] he's a pain in the ass whom WB now regret working with!

4] he's bored already & has moved onto the next project.

5] the albums are mere promo tools for the next tour?

6] there just isn't a budget for mass marketing.

Any ideas?....anyone?....it's killing me!!!

Who knows why Prince didn't really support the album. If I had to guess, I think he knew sales projections were soft, and didn't want to look as though he'd given his best, then failed. The good news is that reviews were upbeat, and he's not the only big name act not selling this year.

whatever happened to the FunknRoll video they shot about a month ago?

To be honest, I think the Hit & Run tour was a big part of the Promo (I'd imagine heavily subsidised by Warner, no chance he was playing to 1000-2000 people for what they would have been making after venue hire, AV, Crew, private jet hire plus everything else without getting a nice butty out of it) yeah fair he may have made a bit from the arena shows but before that he wouldnt have gotten out of bed to do the smaller shows for £100k or so, Is clear now he had work to do across Europe to up the sales and get himself out there. The American market is way too big for him to make the impact on the Charts like he can across Europe IMO.

Probably see's that as full-filling his part of the deal, I wouldnt say its damaged his sales too much, the people who want the albums will know about them and thats the vast majority of the sales.

Its s shame but I would say they have probabaly done way better than they expected in the currently state of the industry where sales are concerned.

[Edited 10/6/14 16:00pm]

[Edited 10/6/14 16:07pm]

It's Prince. If he came right out desperately promoting himself like Gaga, we wouldn't like it.

I dont believe in a lot of hype. Let the music speak for itself. We have good music again and hopefully a tour.

With a few notable exceptions like Emancipation (first album after leaving WB) and Rave (Clive's idea to follow the Santana Supernatural template)....... Prince has rarely ever done the kind of promotion that other artists do. It's just not his style.

There's still a few things coming though, so don't get too antsy...... video should drop soon....and the "October surprise"

We had a full year of promotion for the albums. Tours, videos, TV appearances - I just wish the release wasn't the END of the cycle. Oh well, at least we still have the music!

KingSausage said:

Reasons? Prince.

same as it ever was

Militant said:

With a few notable exceptions like Emancipation (first album after leaving WB) and Rave (Clive's idea to follow the Santana Supernatural template)....... Prince has rarely ever done the kind of promotion that other artists do. It's just not his style.

There's still a few things coming though, so don't get too antsy...... video should drop soon....and the "October surprise"

Musicology...

3121....

LotusFlow3r....


He promoted these quite a bit with awards show, talk show and other appearances.

Askani said:

Militant said:

With a few notable exceptions like Emancipation (first album after leaving WB) and Rave (Clive's idea to follow the Santana Supernatural template)....... Prince has rarely ever done the kind of promotion that other artists do. It's just not his style.

There's still a few things coming though, so don't get too antsy...... video should drop soon....and the "October surprise"

Musicology...

3121....

LotusFlow3r....


He promoted these quite a bit with awards show, talk show and other appearances.

Yea he did promote those quite well for his standards.

Those albums didn't sell bad at all either.

Musicology sold over 2m world wide

3121 sold over 1m world wide, going Gold in the U.S.

LotusFlow3r went Gold in the U.S. for just being sold at Target...

I've been wondering this for weeks. Every time thinking something would be announced. Didn't they state that in their press release? Prince disappeared for 30 days only to show up and play three crappy songs. No Bueno ese.

[Edited 10/6/14 18:24pm]

I wouldn't be surprised if Prince's attitude is..... "Why should I promote these records?!...they're on a major label and I don't wanna make those guys richer"

funkyhead said:

..i can't figure it out....he delivers 2 great albums yet there are no videos, no TV spots [which always push his sales] etc. Just twitter & press interviews. My reasoning is thus:

1] he got a big up front payment..so just took the $ & ran!

2] the whole point of the project is to create market awareness ahead of a BIG push on the P.Rain reissue therefore it won't cannibalise P.Rain sales

3] he's a pain in the ass whom WB now regret working with!

4] he's bored already & has moved onto the next project.

5] the albums are mere promo tools for the next tour?

6] there just isn't a budget for mass marketing.

Any ideas?....anyone?....it's killing me!!!

You do not get it.

These two albums will not be known to the general public.

They only know PR. So the big push is for PR. There is no connection.

P probably got a cheap contract and thus they will not relaly promote the new albums; but wthey will promote the PR thing.

So please stop acting upset and relax while you wait for the PR rmaster that will have a jewel case, will have a booklet, will have a track listing, will have credits, etc.

[Edited 10/6/14 21:07pm]

Militant said:

With a few notable exceptions like Emancipation (first album after leaving WB) and Rave (Clive's idea to follow the Santana Supernatural template)....... Prince has rarely ever done the kind of promotion that other artists do. It's just not his style.

There's still a few things coming though, so don't get too antsy...... video should drop soon....and the "October surprise"

October surprise? The surprise being we have already had it... The Live Nation sneek peek behind the Paisley Park scenes.

I suspect there was never really any intention to push AOA. Look at how cheap the packaging is. It was meant to be released on the cheap... just for the fans perhaps. PE on the other hand has actually had much more love from Prince. 3rdeyegirl got more exposure during the Live Nation thing and the only song from either album played was Pretzel... Plus we saw the video for the song PE. There was a "tour" earlier in the year, and TV appearances. They all just happened way too early.

I think PE was really Prince's baby and AOA was some kind of experiment for the fans. He is probably pissed off that PE isn't getting as much love as AOA. Probably taken WB by surprise too. Im sure Prince loathes WB and blames them for everything.

Jst to add...

It kind of makes sense the timeline for PE. Prince must have thought it was going to be released earlier than it was due to the timing of the touring and TV stuff. He had the Kobalt thing lined up afterall. But then along came WB with a very large carrot and the chance to get back his masters. So he signed with WB who in turn very quickly said P couldnt release anything on another label.

Prince went ape shit for a while and then managed to persuade WB to take PE under their wing instead of Kobalt. WB being the slow moving corporate that they are couldnt get the album released quick enough, hence Prince's complaints about it all being too slow. Then AOA rears itself and Prince throws his toys out of the pram insisting WB release that too. WB, scratching their heads wondering why the fuck they got involved with Prince again, reluctantly agree but offer very limited resources for packaging and promotion. Time moves on, Prince moves on, the albums sell pretty poorly, all is forgotten. Now WB can move onto their original game plan of reissuing PR.

Speculation obviously....

funkyhead said:

1] he got a big up front payment..so just took the $ & ran!

I often think music and money are the only friends he has

Askani said:

Militant said:

With a few notable exceptions like Emancipation (first album after leaving WB) and Rave (Clive's idea to follow the Santana Supernatural template)....... Prince has rarely ever done the kind of promotion that other artists do. It's just not his style.

There's still a few things coming though, so don't get too antsy...... video should drop soon....and the "October surprise"

Musicology...

3121....

LotusFlow3r....


He promoted these quite a bit with awards show, talk show and other appearances.

Exactly!

And he went to the late night shows quite many times the last years...or SNL for 3121....

So right now nothing except this strange live stream, which was funny but for a casual listener not

the best promotion, imo

I think not to release a song to radio was a big mistake....

billymeade said:

We had a full year of promotion for the albums. Tours, videos, TV appearances - I just wish the release wasn't the END of the cycle. Oh well, at least we still have the music!

He'll start a new cycle, touring to promote the next records that will be released in 2 years time now

WB put online WBH yesterday...It's some kind of promo. It's all that they can do now, because Prince doesn't want to promote his shits.

WB can't do anything without him. They could push FNR on the airwaves, but there would be no return in investment if Prince doesn't move his ass to perform the song on TV, or to play in the video.

Rebeljuice said:

Jst to add...

It kind of makes sense the timeline for PE. Prince must have thought it was going to be released earlier than it was due to the timing of the touring and TV stuff. He had the Kobalt thing lined up afterall. But then along came WB with a very large carrot and the chance to get back his masters. So he signed with WB who in turn very quickly said P couldnt release anything on another label.

Prince went ape shit for a while and then managed to persuade WB to take PE under their wing instead of Kobalt. WB being the slow moving corporate that they are couldnt get the album released quick enough, hence Prince's complaints about it all being too slow. Then AOA rears itself and Prince throws his toys out of the pram insisting WB release that too. WB, scratching their heads wondering why the fuck they got involved with Prince again, reluctantly agree but offer very limited resources for packaging and promotion. Time moves on, Prince moves on, the albums sell pretty poorly, all is forgotten. Now WB can move onto their original game plan of reissuing PR.

Speculation obviously....

I think I would agree with that... As you said, speculation obviously... But seems to make sence.

SoulAlive said:

I wouldn't be surprised if Prince's attitude is..... "Why should I promote these records?!...they're on a major label and I don't wanna make those guys richer"

This is highly likely.

We all know he's always done things his own back to front way but surely he wanted these 2 albums to be a succes so why not at least do a bit of promotion and go on a couple of TV shows etc. Or is his ego so big he thinks its beneath him

billymeade said:

We had a full year of promotion for the albums. Tours, videos, TV appearances - I just wish the release wasn't the END of the cycle. Oh well, at least we still have the music!

Is all that promo for the albums or promo to keep his face and name out there? I guess the 3EG tours can be considered promo for that album even though for a long time it didn't look like PE was going to amount to more than a few twitter posts. But AOA wasn't even announced up until a month before release, so no promo done before that was for that specific release.

.

It's not really rocket science to get a promo video or two out there and a few TV appearances in the week before/of/after release. Then a couple of follow up ones for the next "singles". It's just another "it's not my job" situation, which again shows a lack of confidence in his own product.

Don't forget the BCW video ! 3.6 millions of views on youtube

RODSERLING said:

Don't forget the BCW video ! 3.6 millions of views on youtube

Again, only kinda promo for the album since it was an entirely standalone single until we saw the album tracklist a month before the album. In hindesight, we hope someone might remember the tiny blip of media attention the Dave Chappelle single cover got and they might remember the song title if they see it on the album tracklist. A stretch, but that's about as far as I could say BCW as a standalone single was promo for the album.

.

To me, promo for the album is promotional activities tied directly to the albums (pre- and post-)release. General TV apperances and such months or years before the album is even mentioned and he's not actually promoting anything, just appearing, aren't really servicing this album other than keeping his face out there. Going on a talkshow, having the host hold up a copy of the album and announce it's title and release date, then Prince performing a song from that record - that's promotion. Releasing and promoting a single from the album shortly ahead or after the album drops is promoting the album. A tour called "Art Official Age Tour" or whatever is promoting the album.

.

As it stands there's been some posters, bullboards and magazine ads? Probably all thanks to Warners. Prince has done... an embarassingly amateurish yahoo stream seen by a handful of diehard fans who most likely already pre-ordered the album or had fully intended to buy it regardless of quality. And he thinks that's job done?