I couldn't see any other reference to this posted already?

With Charles Koppelman and Londell McMillan now ensconced as the musical advisers to Bremer Trust, the temporary administrator of the Prince estate, the two are now reviewing a flood of opportunities from major labels, major publishers, and performance rights organizations, sources say.

While the two assess the Prince assets for long-term exploitation, the easiest deals to be made now include what Prince music to released duing the holiday shopping season; pacting a global deal to serve as administrator to the publishing catalog, which is owned outright by the Prince estate; possibly issuing a comprehensive greatest hits album for the fall; cutting a deal with a performance rights organization; and possibly making the Prince catalog available to all streaming services, not just Jay Z's Tidal. Koppelman declined to comment and McMillan couldn't be reached for comment.

http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/7487785/prince-estate-publishers-pros-labels-catalog-greatest-hits

It seems to be mostly speculation, however with the estate's planned concert, and leading into the Christmas period it makes sense to have an album available.

Disappointing if their choice is indeed another repackaging of the same songs. I mean who's it for? Hopefully if it is a collection of hits they'll be taken from the Piano & Mic tour. Time will tell.

I'm actually just going to post the whole article below because it's from billboard and they don't deserve the clicks. [No coz that is copy right infringement. Just post the first paragraph and the link - luv4u]

Noodled24 said:

I couldn't see any other reference to this posted already?

With Charles Koppelman and Londell McMillan now ensconced as the musical advisers to Bremer Trust, the temporary administrator of the Prince estate, the two are now reviewing a flood of opportunities from major labels, major publishers, and performance rights organizations, sources say.

While the two assess the Prince assets for long-term exploitation, the easiest deals to be made now include what Prince music to released duing the holiday shopping season; pacting a global deal to serve as administrator to the publishing catalog, which is owned outright by the Prince estate; possibly issuing a comprehensive greatest hits album for the fall; cutting a deal with a performance rights organization; and possibly making the Prince catalog available to all streaming services, not just Jay Z's Tidal. Koppelman declined to comment and McMillan couldn't be reached for comment.

http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/7487785/prince-estate-publishers-pros-labels-catalog-greatest-hits

It seems to be mostly speculation, however with the estate's planned concert, and leading into the Christmas period it makes sense to have an album available.

Disappointing if their choice is indeed another repackaging of the same songs. I mean who's it for? Hopefully if it is a collection of hits they'll be taken from the Piano & Mic tour. Time will tell.

I'm actually just going to post the whole article below because it's from billboard and they don't deserve the clicks. [No coz that is copy right infringement. Just post the first paragraph and the link - luv4u]

Hopefully I am being cynicial, but I will be pleasantly surprised if they release something creative like a live piano and mic album rather than another greatest hits package as the first posthumous release. If so that would be a promising signfor the future in terms of releases. If they do release a greatest hits of mostly the same old songs, we are in trouble!

gandorb said:

Hopefully I am being cynicial, but I will be pleasantly surprised if they release something creative like a live piano and mic album rather than another greatest hits package as the first posthumous release. If so that would be a promising signfor the future in terms of releases. If they do release a greatest hits of mostly the same old songs, we are in trouble!

Piano and a Microphone CD first, please, yes.

Not fond of typical "Hits" collections. Live stuff is more attractive. Unreleased, unleaked, unheard stuff is best.

Yes please,


I need a good hits compilation --- on vinyl please...

(before this gets answered yes, I own The Hits 1 + 2 on vinyl.. )

blackwell1 said:

surely to God the estate cant be daft enough to be making this mistake? All the GT packages out there cover all bases very well indeed. What do I know?! maybe a new package, extensive notes etc might shift a tonne of units BUT I cant help feel its an opportunity missed...dare I say P.Rain expanded/remastered would be a better move?

^ I don't think it bodes well at all.

Assuming it's just another collection of his top 10 singles compiled from already released albums.

That's not something for the fans - there are already multiple hit collections. It's not for the general public because they're not going to go and buy a CD that essentially contains the same songs as on the CD they bought a few months ago...

If they do add a couple of bonus (unreleased) songs - that's surely of interest to fans... but it's clearly just a tactic. It's something they HAVE to do otherrwise fans will just ignore it.

Noodled24 said:

I couldn't see any other reference to this posted already?

With Charles Koppelman and Londell McMillan now ensconced as the musical advisers to Bremer Trust, the temporary administrator of the Prince estate, the two are now reviewing a flood of opportunities from major labels, major publishers, and performance rights organizations, sources say.

While the two assess the Prince assets for long-term exploitation, the easiest deals to be made now include what Prince music to released duing the holiday shopping season; pacting a global deal to serve as administrator to the publishing catalog, which is owned outright by the Prince estate; possibly issuing a comprehensive greatest hits album for the fall; cutting a deal with a performance rights organization; and possibly making the Prince catalog available to all streaming services, not just Jay Z's Tidal. Koppelman declined to comment and McMillan couldn't be reached for comment.

http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/7487785/prince-estate-publishers-pros-labels-catalog-greatest-hits

It seems to be mostly speculation, however with the estate's planned concert, and leading into the Christmas period it makes sense to have an album available.

Disappointing if their choice is indeed another repackaging of the same songs. I mean who's it for? Hopefully if it is a collection of hits they'll be taken from the Piano & Mic tour. Time will tell.

I'm actually just going to post the whole article below because it's from billboard and they don't deserve the clicks. [No coz that is copy right infringement. Just post the first paragraph and the link - luv4u]

Yeah there was actually some interesting info on the Deal with WB which I highlighted - that's why I posted the whole article... Which I've done before and had no issues.

[Edited 8/28/16 7:41am]

If you read the article it states things aren't together enough yet for a vault release, they have not adequately gone through it all. A vault release will follow a greatest hits package something in 2017. They also said the greatest hits package will most likely have 2 unreleased songs on it, and will contain some hits that have previously not been on other hits packages.

All sounds good to me, the machine is starting to roll, thats all I care about.

If anyone from the estate reads this, all I can say to you is, there are 2000+ songs and other goodies in the vault, which is an incredibly overwhelming task to sort through, don't get in a situation where it becomes paralysis by analysis, just start relesing stuff, the analysis will surely be ongoing for years if not decades.

[Edited 8/28/16 10:38am]

TwiliteKid said:

Why doesn't Billboard deserve traffic? [Edited 8/27/16 17:30pm]

They're a faceless, souless corporate entity who's talons are deeply embedded in the music scene despite having contributed nothing, with the exception of taking it upon themselves to declare what is and isn't popular each week.

songs like anna stesia, joy in repetition, the cross, sometimes it snows... would be great songs to put on a new 'hits' album, rather than the same old stuff - would b nice for the 'new' listeners to hear the slightly deeper cuts - also i can see the most beautiful girl in the world making the album.

what if it were a collection post 94. that could work. most of those albums are going for silly money on amazon.

Assuming they have access to what they did not before and assuming they also include an unreleased song or 2 for the fans AND it's all remastered and it's just a single disc (for maximum sales) they could make a worthy disc.

Include Batdance, Most Beautiful Girl, maybe 1000 X and O's, or something recent, and they'd have a broad appeal best-selling disc.

leadline said:

If you read the article it states things aren't together enough yet for a vault release, they have not adequately gone through it all. A vault release will follow a greatest hits package something in 2017. They also said the greatest hits package will most likely have 2 unreleased songs on it, and will contain some hits that have previously not been on other hits packages.

All sounds good to me, the machine is starting to roll, thats all I care about.

If anyone from the estate reads this, all I can say to you is, there are 2000+ songs and other goodies in the vault, which is an incredibly overwhelming task to sort through, don't get in a situation where it becomes paralysis by analysis, just start relesing stuff, the analysis will surely be ongoing for years if not decades.

Yeah, but reading between the lines when they talk about a "Complete hits package" - what they're really saying is "This one will contain TMBGITW - That one hit Prince would never let us rehash for a compilation". Let's be real Prince was never big on greatest hits compilations.

They were pretty quick to announce they'd got into the vault. That wasn't for nothing. They were taking stock. I'm sure they've not been though everything yet, but a fair amount of work must have been done. That aside we know Prince always had at least one project on the go. Black is the new Black for example.

Please not just a hit compilation, but if they have to, I would like a singles box with all released singles.

So for example incl the edits of Automatic, Let's Pretend and the Batman singles that aren't available yet digital or on cd.

gandorb said:

Hopefully I am being cynicial, but I will be pleasantly surprised if they release something creative like a live piano and mic album rather than another greatest hits package as the first posthumous release. If so that would be a promising signfor the future in terms of releases. If they do release a greatest hits of mostly the same old songs, we are in trouble!

They aren't trying to be creative, they're trying to pay the bills. They are smart enough to know that a new greatest hits package would sell fairly well because of his recent newsworthiness, but they're also smart enough to know that it will HAVE to have at least a couple of songs from the vault to get the hardcore peeps like me to pay for it.

steakfinger said:

They need to get the first release right if they wanna pay the bills, the first release will have marketing appeal to the masses, but sadly, the masses interest will wane over time, and it's the hardcore fanbase that will be scooping up all the future vault releases.

BlackCandle said:

Hadn't Prince been talking about releasing a new Best-Of album himself? I'm sure the estate would have considered releasing one anyway (simply to have Batdance & TMBGITW on it), but it would be nice if perhaps they followed a tracklisting Prince had already prepared. Prince doesn't strike me as likely to have mentioned the release of such an album if he hadn't got as far as already compiling it in some way. I'm being over-optimistic, of course...

I don't think so... I mean few years back there was talk of a "Very best of " but nothing ever came of it.

When WB released The hits/b-sides Prince said greatest hits albums were for artists at the end of their career - or something to that effect, and urged fans not to buy it.

leadline said:

They need to get the first release right if they wanna pay the bills, the first release will have marketing appeal to the masses, but sadly, the masses interest will wane over time, and it's the hardcore fanbase that will be scooping up all the future vault releases.

That's the thing though.

Let's say they go ahead and release a standard hits compilation (this time inc TMBGITW) - who's it for? Everyone who bought a Prince compilation 6 months ago? - Who likey also bought TMBGITW as an MP3?

If there are bonus tracks that's a huge positive... but also sort of an admission from the estate that they know FANS aren't interested in a hits compilation so they add a couple of unreleased songs to appeal to them.

In a way they're giving the middle finger to fans because they're chasing the money of the general public with a hits compilation. But when Londell wants to know who's selling bootlegs - he asks the fans.

Should that compilation fail to sell big numbers (because of the fans lack of interest and the general public who wanted a Prince album having bought one when he passed away)... future vault releases would be seen as risky, because if the hits don't sell...

Noodled24 said:

leadline said:

They need to get the first release right if they wanna pay the bills, the first release will have marketing appeal to the masses, but sadly, the masses interest will wane over time, and it's the hardcore fanbase that will be scooping up all the future vault releases.

That's the thing though.

Let's say they go ahead and release a standard hits compilation (this time inc TMBGITW) - who's it for? Everyone who bought a Prince compilation 6 months ago? - Who likey also bought TMBGITW as an MP3?

If there are bonus tracks that's a huge positive... but also sort of an admission from the estate that they know FANS aren't interested in a hits compilation so they add a couple of unreleased songs to appeal to them.

In a way they're giving the middle finger to fans because they're chasing the money of the general public with a hits compilation. But when Londell wants to know who's selling bootlegs - he asks the fans.

Should that compilation fail to sell big numbers (because of the fans lack of interest and the general public who wanted a Prince album having bought one when he passed away)... future vault releases would be seen as risky, because if the hits don't sell...

That is capitalism, and their only option, of course they don't care about the fans, their goal is to maximize profits any way they can. Perhaps in the future when mass appeal is gone, they will consider the real fans.

You can bet there will be 1-2 unreleased tracks on the hits compilation, not because they love us, but because they want us to buy the hits compilation.

[Edited 8/29/16 7:58am]

I highly doubt about the commercial potential of this compilation...4 months after his death, TVBO sold "only" 1 million worldwide, at a really low price...So what's the point in releasing a new one ? The only answer is if there is huge promotion. maybe the two unreleased songs will benefit from heavy rotation but I highly doubt it...

.

There still won't be BATMAN, PARTYMAN, TMNGITW, HOLY RIVER, etc.

RODSERLING said:

I highly doubt about the commercial potential of this compilation...4 months after his death, TVBO sold "only" 1 million worldwide, at a really low price...So what's the point in releasing a new one ? The only answer is if there is huge promotion. maybe the two unreleased songs will benefit from heavy rotation but I highly doubt it...

.

There still won't be BATMAN, PARTYMAN, TMNGITW, HOLY RIVER, etc.

The only rotation the unreleased tracks will get is by the DJ's in minneapolis who are giant Prince fans, aside from that, it will be a non event.

I think it's fairly safe to say that "Extralovable" will be one of the bonus tracks. Since Prince shot a video for the song, making an obvious choice for a single to support the album.

Noodled24 said:

I think it's fairly safe to say that "Extralovable" will be one of the bonus tracks. Since Prince shot a video for the song, making an obvious choice for a single to support the album.

Disagree, Prince already released that song, the fact that he did a video for it, which he did for many songs released and unreleased, does not mean anything imo.