So once again another year has passed another album is coming. HitnRun was announced as a TIDAL exclusive release on Sept 7, with an unkown phsyical release date pending...

As usual PRINCE is doing nothing to promote his new album. There is no buzz around the general public and social media. I'm willing to say no one besides the people here even know or care if there's a new PRINCE album coming.

The only little promotion he's done was release TCBU Remix, two small interviews with Ebony and NY Post, and a very strange #tcbu hashtag that Tidal made on twitter where your twitter profile pic will be apart of the Prince TCBU meme cover...

So when it is released on TIDAL, and a future phsyical release, and the numbers and sales are horendous... Once again not only does it prove the problem with Prince and his promotion but what's even more scary is he will go more into obscurity to the general public wih his constant antics of not being involved with social media, youtube, and the removal of all his music and footage on the net...

Remember what Plectrum Electrum sold WORLWIDE... Under 33,000 copies.

thiscouldbeus.com

stupid promotion...

NorthC said:

Once again, shall we wait until the album is out there before making any judgements?

That's the whole point... The album is coming out in 7 days and there's still no promotion.

Also still no clear announcement on when the phsyical release is. FNAC says Sept 15... But does that mean only for Europe or France?

I have seen mention of it online on most sites. The word is out. Ultimatly it's always about the product. ALWAYS.


Beyonce released her last album with ZERO advance notice. Sold like fuck. I am not a Beyonce fan but I listened to it and it was certainly one of the best albums that year. I loved it and so did a lot of other folks.


Last summer both Prince and Taylor Swift released their first singles at about the same time. Both got equal mention. One had a spectacular first single in Shake it Off that me as a non Taylor fan liked very much despite trepidation and me as a huge fan hated Prince's truly awful Funkandroll. The actual music propelled one to be the biggest album of the year, and the other probably the worst selling of any major artist ever.

The lack of promotion arfument is nonsense of the highest order. Prince is a legend that automatically get's special treatment and attention by the media. The kind of preferential treatment any new artist world die for.

V10LETBLUES said:

I have seen mention of it online on most sites. The word is out. Ultimatly it's always about the product. ALWAYS.


Beyonce released her last album with ZERO advance notice. Sold like fuck. I am not a Beyonce fan but I listened to it and it was certainly one of the best albums that year. I loved it and so did a lot of other folks.


Last summer both Prince and Taylor Swift released their first singles at about the same time. Both got equal mention. One had a spectacular first single in Shake it Off that me as a non Taylor fan liked very much despite trepidation and me as a huge fan hated Prince's truly awful Funkandroll. The actual music propelled one to be the biggest album of the year, and the other probably the worst selling of any major artist ever.

The lack of promotion arfument is nonsense of the highest order. Prince is a legend that automatically get's special treatment and attention by the media. The kind of preferential treatment any new artist world die for.

The word is out... Who's talking about it?? 7 days before it's released... Ebony and NY Post??

There's no anticipation for this album, the general public has no clue.

KingSausage said:

Prince could release his best album since Lovesexy and it would still sell like shit. He's never going to be a big seller again. Ever. The sooner Prince and his fans forget about album sales and just focus on QUALITY, the better. This obsession over sales is ridiculous.

I agree with the bolded part. Yet I aslo believe a truly great record can also generate sales and fill seats at his concerts.

KingSausage said:

Prince could release his best album since Lovesexy and it would still sell like shit. He's never going to be a big seller again. Ever. The sooner Prince and his fans forget about album sales and just focus on QUALITY, the better. This obsession over sales is ridiculous.

Agreed, 100%. To me, all that matter is that if Prince puts out something new, I can get it.

That's why I was so disappointed in the Tidal announcement, because I don't have Tidal and don't plan to join it. But then a physical release was announced, so it's all good.

I don't need anyone else's validation or purchase to make me feel good about buying the album. And Prince will tour when he feels like it, so album sales aren't going to drive a tour.

Looking back, I believe that the entire "Musicology" experience was designed to take advantage of Prince's RRHOF induction and to generate the most revenue possible. The goal was for Prince to make enough money off that to do whatever he wanted, however he wanted, for the rest of his life.

And apparently that is exactly what happened. So unless Prince goes broke, what we've been seeing from Prince is what we should expect to continue to receive.

V10LETBLUES said:

KingSausage said:

Prince could release his best album since Lovesexy and it would still sell like shit. He's never going to be a big seller again. Ever. The sooner Prince and his fans forget about album sales and just focus on QUALITY, the better. This obsession over sales is ridiculous.

I agree with the bolded part. Yet I aslo believe a truly great record can also generate sales and fill seats at his concerts.

Agree to a certain extent... Musicology wasn't a great record, nor Diamonds & Pearls IMO... But it was marketed properly and both resulted in multiplatnium sales and sucessfull tours.

feeluupp said:

feeluupp said:

V10LETBLUES said:

I agree with the bolded part. Yet I aslo believe a truly great record can also generate sales and fill seats at his concerts.

Agree to a certain extent... Musicology wasn't a great record, nor Diamonds & Pearls IMO... But it was marketed properly and both resulted in multiplatnium sales and sucessfull tours.

I agree that the media swooned for Prince with Musicology and that it was not a great record. It is part of why I say Prince gets prefferential treatment via his legendary status. Why I mentioned the patronizing and codecending articles (to both Prince and readers) when a new product is out.

Lets also not forget that Prince had a good gimick for his record sales on Musicology by giving them away at his concert. Which me and my friends simply threw away after the show.

Great show by the way!

KingSausage said:

I hope there's another MASTERPIECE live stream event!

i just watched a promo clip for that. it has a girl walking down the hallway

in paisley saying "i love prince's soundtrack for the movie Bad Men, that

was my jam!!!!"

prince also does not promote his concerts, yet sometimes they sell out in minutes.

.

miley cyrus dropped a 'surprise' album last night for her fans. no promotion

.

maybe the 'old ways' of promotion are becoming, well, the old ways...

I really don't care about the promotion and don't know why it bothers people on here. All I care about is getting the new music

Why does everybody wanna be record executives??

It seems people are always acting like they're A&R at record labels.

What happened to just being a music fan??

Who the hell cares about someone's promotion and sales??

Prince is rich as phunk, yet people are concerned about his marketing strategy. Why??

Either you like his stuff or you don't. Plain and simple.

You can either rock with it, or throw a rock at it. Either way, the brotha is "PAYD AND FREE". If he wants to make shitty music, that's his choice. YOU can choose not to buy it, or in this case, stream it.

Simple.

feeluupp said:

So once again another year has passed another album is coming. HitnRun was announced as a TIDAL exclusive release on Sept 7, with an unkown phsyical release date pending...

As usual PRINCE is doing nothing to promote his new album. There is no buzz around the general public and social media. I'm willing to say no one besides the people here even know or care if there's a new PRINCE album coming.

The only little promotion he's done was release TCBU Remix, two small interviews with Ebony and NY Post, and a very strange #tcbu hashtag that Tidal made on twitter where your twitter profile pic will be apart of the Prince TCBU meme cover...

So when it is released on TIDAL, and a future phsyical release, and the numbers and sales are horendous... Once again not only does it prove the problem with Prince and his promotion but what's even more scary is he will go more into obscurity to the general public wih his constant antics of not being involved with social media, youtube, and the removal of all his music and footage on the net...

I'm not sure what else you would have him do? I agree he's clueless with promotion, but this seems pretty reasonable. A song, some interviews... rather than just blindly hyping an album thats only going to see a limited release initially.

Remember what Plectrum Electrum sold WORLWIDE... Under 33,000 copies.

Are you sure? I only ask because in this thread http://prince.org/msg/7/411060?pr you claim PlectrumElectrum sold 89,000 copies woldwide in it's first week.

Now you're claiming two thirds of those sales never happened?

Tidal has 500,000 members. If only half listen to H&R he's still doubled the number of people hearing his new record.

Maybe he feels Tidal is the way to promote it.

[Edited 8/31/15 11:14am]

Like others have said - the album announcement and the single release have been picked up by most major publications, and I'm sure they will review the album as well. There have already been two interviews published, and I think we can expect something from Entertainment Weekly soon.

The thing is - unlike past albums, there's very little reason for advance promo. You can't pre-order the album, so why bother?

Of course chances are good that there won't be a whole lot of effort on Prince's part on the other sie of the release date either, but at this point its too soon to say.

[Edited 8/31/15 11:57am]

Noodled24 said:

feeluupp said:

So once again another year has passed another album is coming. HitnRun was announced as a TIDAL exclusive release on Sept 7, with an unkown phsyical release date pending...

As usual PRINCE is doing nothing to promote his new album. There is no buzz around the general public and social media. I'm willing to say no one besides the people here even know or care if there's a new PRINCE album coming.

I'm not sure what else you would have him do? I agree he's clueless with promotion, but this seems pretty reasonable. A song, some interviews... rather than just blindly hyping an album thats only going to see a limited release initially.

Remember what Plectrum Electrum sold WORLWIDE... Under 33,000 copies.

Are you sure? I only ask because in this thread http://prince.org/msg/7/411060?pr you claim PlectrumElectrum sold 89,000 copies woldwide in it's first week.

Now you're claiming two thirds of those sales never happened?

Tidal has 500,000 members. If only half listen to H&R he's still doubled the number of people hearing his new record.

Sorry I meant 33,000 in the U.S. as stated by Wikipedia

That entry with the dubious source?

A) Wiki says 33,000.
B) Checking the source the figure is actually 26,000\26,360.
C) HipHipDX doesn't actually cite their source, but gives exact numbers.

D) Why would HipHopDX have access to sales numbers other sites don't?

Having said all that, it's probably not far off. + another 10,000 or so, who likely purchased/pre-ordered via 3rdeyetunes or whatever that site I haven't visited for over a year is called.

^^ Wikipedia is not a very reliable source and can be susceptible to having errors and lies because literally anyone can edit an article on the site.

well dang, once plectrum electrum goes out of print it's going to be more rare than an original black album