Anyone else find it weird, after years of tracking down and collecting rare and unreleased tracks, that now so much of it is so easily available on YouTube? It almost feels as if the cat is out of the bag, this little secret we've all been in on for the last 30 years has now been blown wide open.

In a sense, it's a good thing. While Prince was still alive, you couldn't even watch his released material on YouTube, let alone anything relatively obscure. I always felt as if he was sabotaging his own legacy by taking this stance, preventing future generations of music fans from discovering his genius. There is so much quality stuff that deserves a wider audience, that it can only be a good thing that this material is now more available to the masses.

But the irrational and selfish fan in me feels as if the rug has been pulled from under my feet and is a little miffed, as if the general public are somehow undeserving of this material. If they couldn't get into him through stuff like Sign O The Times and The Beautiful Ones then isn't a song like All My Dreams like casting pearls before the swine, as Prince would say?

[Edited 5/2/16 5:40am]

Yes but it won't last long, most likely.

TheSkinMechanic said:

The general public are "undeserving" of hearing an unreleased prince song? I suggest you have a word with yourself. The vast majority of people have no interest in prince music, those who enjoy the odd prince track may give it a listen, the majority of those who do will think it sounds like shit. Let's face it, unreleased prince tracks are generally only of interest to prince fans.

I said it was irrational.

He just made it hard for people to get bootlegs but people still found them. I think it's good that the concerts from over the past 35 years are out there and a lot of videos fans haven't seen before.

TheSkinMechanic said:

The stuff won't be on YouTube for long, and even if it is, the hype is already dying down (no pun intended).

The general public will gravitate toward the songs from Purple Rain, 1999 and a few singles like Kiss and 7.

jcurley said:

TheSkinMechanic said:

The general public are "undeserving" of hearing an unreleased prince song? I suggest you have a word with yourself. The vast majority of people have no interest in prince music, those who enjoy the odd prince track may give it a listen, the majority of those who do will think it sounds like shit. Let's face it, unreleased prince tracks are generally only of interest to prince fans.

Err no. I think the sentiment is that prince fans know his scope. I get what you're saying but already famous prince songs have gone through the roof on youtube. Without prince it's possible that people may possibly digest this other music on it's own terms. You're right about peoples behaviour but I do share the sentiment that this who hate him should kinda fuck off

AMEM AMEN

dalsh327 said:

He just made it hard for people to get bootlegs but people still found them. I think it's good that the concerts from over the past 35 years are out there and a lot of videos fans haven't seen before.

I'm optimistic about live concert releases in the future. I would pay cash to have a copy of at least the concerts I have personally been to.

I'm loving that so much cool stuff is on youtube again. I have a lot, but much of this stuff is new to me.

I just watched parts of the One Nite Alone show from Tokyo, where he brought Tuna (sp?) on stage. Anyone who went to the Xenophobia Celebration will remember Tuna.

At one point, during How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore, he sticks the mic out in the crowd for someone to sing, "Call me," and it's so absolutely awful. The look on Prince's face had me laughing so hard. Tears!

Seeing all of this stuff on line is weird, just plain weird. I avoided YouTube until today. I haven't watched anything yet, but I probably will later this week. Something about it doesn't feel quite right, but the genie is out of the bottle.

sound quality isn't good. 99% of it isn't mixed. sounds like he gave it a rough mix then put it in the vault and moved on to something else. and its sourced from 2nd and 3rd generation cassette copies.

When It first started coming out, I wasn't feeling it. I remember when his music was on Spotify and he took it off so I got a subscription with Tidal. Now Spotify has the music back up there and in my own little way Im boycotting them because of that. As far as youtube, I remember doing detective work to find concerts but I like that there is so much more content that I had no idea was out there.

I've wanted to see the old Muppets show that he did years ago for a long time, I finally saw it on Youtube recently. I thought him doing the Starfish and Coffee thing was absolutely hilarious, maybe it's because I'm a teacher but I just got a huge laugh out of that and he looked amazing of course. There's something about him holding a muppet and singing that just cracks me up.

MattyJam said:

TheSkinMechanic said:

The general public are "undeserving" of hearing an unreleased prince song? I suggest you have a word with yourself. The vast majority of people have no interest in prince music, those who enjoy the odd prince track may give it a listen, the majority of those who do will think it sounds like shit. Let's face it, unreleased prince tracks are generally only of interest to prince fans.

I said it was irrational.

You did indeed, soz about the "have a word with yourself" bit.