soladeo1 said:

How can one of the world's biggest and most influencial music labels, a label that launched the careers of Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Van Morrison, Madonna, etc., COMPLETELY MISSHANDLE THE RELAUNCHING OF THE BIGGEST ALBUM OF ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENCIAL ARTISTS, THE SAME ARTIST WHO WAS 2016'S BIGGEST SELLING ARTIST WORLDWIDE???!!!!!!

They can't even do basic PR right anymore.

It boogles the mind...

Also, not sure about the others, but Bob Dylan never had anything to do with Warner Bros. Records, directly. He was signed to Columbia Records by John Hammond, and has stayed there, but for two albums in the 70s, ever since.

Columbia may be - or may at some point have been - a subsidiary of Time Warner, I'm not sure, but Warner Bros. as a label never had anything to do with launching Dylan.

A side note, but worth mentioning.

Also, the rest of your rant is kind of silly.

Rimshottbob said:

soladeo1 said:

How can one of the world's biggest and most influencial music labels, a label that launched the careers of Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Van Morrison, Madonna, etc., COMPLETELY MISSHANDLE THE RELAUNCHING OF THE BIGGEST ALBUM OF ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENCIAL ARTISTS, THE SAME ARTIST WHO WAS 2016'S BIGGEST SELLING ARTIST WORLDWIDE???!!!!!!

They can't even do basic PR right anymore.

It boogles the mind...

Also, not sure about the others, but Bob Dylan never had anything to do with Warner Bros. Records, directly. He was signed to Columbia Records by John Hammond, and has stayed there, but for two albums in the 70s, ever since.

Columbia may be - or may at some point have been - a subsidiary of Time Warner, I'm not sure, but Warner Bros. as a label never had anything to do with launching Dylan.

A side note, but worth mentioning.

Also, the rest of your rant is kind of silly.

.
I agree.

Columbia never belonged to Time Warner, they were bought by Sony.
Hendrix's career wasn't launched by Warners. His first albums came out in the UK on an indie label (Track) – they were just distributed by Sire (Warners) in the US.
Van Morrison's career also wasn't launched by Warners.

So yeah, the whole rant is silly.

Strive said:

Warner has done a horrible job with this.

- Sent a press release with misleading information.

.

Plans change. Things that seemed doable at the time turned out to be a logistical nightmare.

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There's a short snippet of a "remastered" video of the legendary August 1983 concert circulating on Twitter. No idea if this is real, but it is accompanied by the claim Warners couldn't finish this up in time for the release. Again: no idea if that's real.

.

Restoring and remastering video is hard and expensive and I can perfectly imagine them working on this and realising the source tape is in a worse condition than expected and nowhere near release-ready.

.

Also: where have you lot been for the past 20 years?

TrivialPursuit said:

Again, you're incorrect. If you check threads for the Prince4ever release, people posted left and right when they saw billboards around their town. Not just some side of the road billboard, but huge Times Square-worthy billboards. iTunes, Amazon, and Spotify all had banners across the front of their apps/sites (I saved a couple of them). Every retail outlet that had it pushed it to the front of their sales that week. Best Buy here ran out (I literally got the last one listed for that location), and Target had signs in-store for it. I remember one person on here even questioned what why the billboard had a pound sign next to the title of the album. It was a "DUH, it's a hashtag" moment.

That's marketing.

If you're expecting to see advertisements on TV 24/7 or radio ads, you might be disappointed. I mean, I never see an ad for an album on TV. It's all big pharma and lawyers. AOA & PE were in the news because "Prince returns to WB!" was all over media outlets (print, online, social media).

The problem here is that that billboard campaign with the hashtag didn't come from Warner Bros. It was not part of their marketing campaign.

It came from Twitter. Twitter ran a huge campaign with different billboards regarding the most talked about topics of the year on Twitter, so the billboard was to acknowledge Prince's passing. The fact that it used the 4ever cover artwork was simply that they knew a release was forthcoming and felt they might as well use the same art.

Art Official Age was promoted better. I saw video adverts all over the underground in London at one point.

Militant said:

Strive said:

Warner has done a horrible job with this. - Sent a press release with misleading information. - Missed the Celebration event. - Missed the anniversary of Prince's death. - Staying completely quiet while information flooded out from their leaky ship. - Insanely poor roll out of preorder options. When you compare that to what an indie record company was able to kick up with 15 minute EP that Prince either completely forgot about recording or didn't deem it important enough to try to get back the masters, it's absoluetly disgraceful.

Indeed.

A flurry of missed opportunities and confusion that could have easily been avoided with a proper plan.

The website that is up now should have been up a month ago - with an accompanying Twitter page for updates. The graphic I made with the tracklist should have been made by them before the tracks were registered anywhere, and posted out on Twitter - it would have gone viral amongst the fanbase in a matter of minutes, just as my leaked graphic did.

It's not a lot of work - most of the work happens organically by fans sharing it.

This is all aside from the fact that the package itself leaves a lot to be desired.

They should have taken a cue from Michael Jackson's "Bad 25" deluxe edition that came in suitcase packaging. Whilst that package wasn't perfect either, it did contain:

The remastered CD and DVD package (similar to this : remastered album, disc of outtakes, and live DVD)

A separate CD of the live audio from the DVD
A replica ticket stub from the Bad Tour
A limited edition individually numbered 7" vinyl

A replica tour programme from the Bad Tour
Branded Bad 25 earphones (A bit of a crap idea, but I'm sure something similar and cooler could be done for the same price)

I started following you on FB for that reason.

Thanks for putting it out there!

BartVanHemelen said:

Strive said:

- Sent a press release with misleading information.

.

Plans change.

That's rich, Bart. You're usually the first in line to point out what Prince or Warner does wrong before they even take a breath to make a correction. Now you're making excuses and giving some pseudo-inside scoop on all things remastered.

TrivialPursuit said:

BartVanHemelen said:

.

Plans change.

That's rich, Bart. You're usually the first in line to point out what Prince or Warner does wrong before they even take a breath to make a correction. Now you're making excuses and giving some pseudo-inside scoop on all things remastered.

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I don't give some pseudo-inside scoop and I'm not making excuses. I point out that this is par for the course WRT record companies. Obviously that press release was too optimistic; and I've put plenty of water on that fire back then WRT its promised contents.

.

But treating it as some unbreakable contract is ridiculous. Warners have made plenty of blunders, but the overreaction of fans is just ridiculous. Especially when those fans didn't utter a peep for two years while Prince was stalling and sabotaging this package.

BartVanHemelen said:

But treating it as some unbreakable contract is ridiculous. Warners have made plenty of blunders, but the overreaction of fans is just ridiculous. Especially when those fans didn't utter a peep for two years while Prince was stalling and sabotaging this package.

We don't disagree on that.

BartVanHemelen said:

BartVanHemelen said:

Strive said:

- Sent a press release with misleading information.

.

Plans change. Things that seemed doable at the time turned out to be a logistical nightmare.

.

There's a short snippet of a "remastered" video of the legendary August 1983 concert circulating on Twitter. No idea if this is real, but it is accompanied by the claim Warners couldn't finish this up in time for the release. Again: no idea if that's real.

.

Restoring and remastering video is hard and expensive and I can perfectly imagine them working on this and realising the source tape is in a worse condition than expected and nowhere near release-ready.

.

Also: where have you lot been for the past 20 years?

"Plans change." LOL." If this were an NPG campaign organized by Prince, of course, you'd be saying that he doesn't know his elbows from his a-hole right now, and you know this. You are a funny guy.

>

Sorry-- after this, I'm gonna try my best not to troll.

if "they" dont cater to "us" ...the vault marketing will be a disaster and the next genration will get to hear his treasures

someone tweet this thread to WB

luvsexy4all said:

someone tweet this thread to WB

I really don't see why anyone would want to waste their life saying bad things about Warner Brothers!

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Sure everone has their own opinion of what, how, why, when, but without Warners we would have nothing!!!.

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We get an album of unreleased tracks and people complain.

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We get an awesome concert on DVD fo the first time and people complain.

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Personally I'm thankful they have worked hard to bring this to us.

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THANK YOU WARNERS!!!!!

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Germanegro said:

"Plans change." LOL." If this were an NPG campaign organized by Prince, of course, you'd be saying that he doesn't know his elbows from his a-hole right now, and you know this.

.

Are you seriously comparing a situation where Prince has COMPLETE CONTROL over all aspects of the project with one where an outside company has to work in an environment that is almost hostile?

darkroman said:

BartVanHemelen said:

Germanegro said:

"Plans change." LOL." If this were an NPG campaign organized by Prince, of course, you'd be saying that he doesn't know his elbows from his a-hole right now, and you know this.

.

Are you seriously comparing a situation where Prince has COMPLETE CONTROL over all aspects of the project with one where an outside company has to work in an environment that is almost hostile?

News Flash x 10^2 repeat--Prince is gone --from all dealings as of 21 April 2016. So you can drop the "Prince's control" shtick at any time--why the lag, man? And didn't Prince prepare the remastered material that WB was looking for--perhaps not deliverd outright, for reasons of control that you care not to acknowlege or appreciate--but he nevertheless prepared for the company after they made their final contract agreement? The company made their project announcements, not Prince, so....

>

I'll remind you about what else Prince had complete control over--ultimately, all of the musical stuff that we are now looking at. Prince created and recorded that awesome audio and AV shiz--I don't believe that the record company supported much of that extra effort way back in the 80s when it was done, either--it was too much for them, they'd say. These crafts are his doing alone; he invested in their creation, and we should be appreciative of that undertaking. The company that you look so favorably upon that would discourage the man from creating while they had the control, over contract, why not bitch-rant about that scenario? The narrative you choose to spew on these occurances is so skewed.

>

These creations by Prince now have their moment to be revealed, the delivery of this PR deluxe package is resting in the hands of the supposedly-efficicient Lords of the Industry, and the've hit their own stumbling block. Bah. Prince is dead and they are still scrambling to catch up with his productivity of decades ago.

Germanegro said:

BartVanHemelen said:

.

Are you seriously comparing a situation where Prince has COMPLETE CONTROL over all aspects of the project with one where an outside company has to work in an environment that is almost hostile?

News Flash x 10^2 repeat--Prince is gone --from all dealings as of 21 April 2016. So you can drop the "Prince's control" shtick at any time--why the lag, man? And didn't Prince prepare the remastered material that WB was looking for--perhaps not deliverd outright, for reasons of control that you care not to acknowlege or appreciate--but he nevertheless prepared for the company after they made their final contract agreement? The company made their project announcements, not Prince, so....

>

I'll remind you about what else Prince had complete control over--ultimately, all of the musical stuff that we are now looking at. Prince created and recorded that awesome audio and AV shiz--I don't believe that the record company supported much of that extra effort way back in the 80s when it was done, either--it was too much for them, they'd say. These crafts are his doing alone; he invested in their creation, and we should be appreciative of that undertaking. The company that you look so favorably upon that would discourage the man from creating while they had the control, over contract, why not bitch-rant about that scenario? The narrative you choose to spew on these occurances is so skewed.

>

These creations by Prince now have their moment to be revealed, the delivery of this PR deluxe package is resting in the hands of the supposedly-efficicient Lords of the Industry, and the've hit their own stumbling block. Bah. Prince is dead and they are still scrambling to catch up with his productivity of decades ago.

Co-Sign. It is funny that money is going to made off the vault material that the old WB did not even want back in the day.

Germanegro said:

BartVanHemelen said:

.

Are you seriously comparing a situation where Prince has COMPLETE CONTROL over all aspects of the project with one where an outside company has to work in an environment that is almost hostile?

News Flash x 10^2 repeat--Prince is gone --from all dealings as of 21 April 2016. So you can drop the "Prince's control" shtick at any time--why the lag, man?

.

You lot seriously need to get a grip. Prince's death has got zilch to do with him fucking up projects from 1996-2016.

.

And didn't Prince prepare the remastered material that WB was looking for--perhaps not deliverd outright, for reasons of control that you care not to acknowlege or appreciate--but he nevertheless prepared for the company after they made their final contract agreement?

.

Nope. Press release from May 2014 clearly mentions unreleased music; whatever few communications Prince did afterwards only mentioned him remastering the existing album.

.

I don't believe that the record company supported much of that extra effort way back in the 80s when it was done, either

.

Prince spent the budget for THREE albums on his debut, and yet Warners didn't shut him down. Want to try again with that "didn't support him " BS? Oh, and let's throw him them financing Purple Rain (the movie) and also UTCM, financing endless recording sessions in expensive, top of the line recording studios, releasing numerous side projects (none of which made much money), etc. etc. etc.

.

The company that you look so favorably upon

.

Oh look, some BS you invented.

.

These creations by Prince now have their moment to be revealed

.

No they're not. The estate is still fighting among themselves, and the only reason we're getting PR Deluxe is because it is part of a contract signed in. We're a year on, and the only deal WRT unreleased music is the Universal one -- and guess what, that one is going south fast, because it looks like it wasn't acquired fairly and/or because it doesn't contain all of the music Universal thought it would. So hey guess what? MORE LAWSUITS! Meanwhile the vault is still a mess, and it will require millions of dollars to get a significant amount of it release-ready.

.

Oh, and I notice you didn't say anything about Prince failing to have kept his post-WBR releases in print, or even for them to get released world-wide. Must be those evil corporations getting in Princey's way, right? Can't have anything to do with him running some amateur shop where in the end they were selling albums via fan-run amateur web shops.

Prince announced projects all the time that never saw the light of day -- at one point during the NPGMC, even including distinct names of 4 albums to entice memberships, only to be replaced by legal-ese and some last minute MP3 compilations to smooth things over a bit.

Nevermind the Roadhouse Garden. Or the Sampler Series. Etc. Etc. Somehow, when Prince renegged on things it was OK.

So why when WB announce a slight change to product content do people lose their minds?

Se7en said:

Prince announced projects all the time that never saw the light of day -- at one point during the NPGMC, even including distinct names of 4 albums to entice memberships, only to be replaced by legal-ese and some last minute MP3 compilations to smooth things over a bit.

Nevermind the Roadhouse Garden. Or the Sampler Series. Etc. Etc. Somehow, when Prince renegged on things it was OK.

So why when WB announce a slight change to product content do people lose their minds?

The best thing in this whole thread.

TrivialPursuit said:

Se7en said:

Prince announced projects all the time that never saw the light of day -- at one point during the NPGMC, even including distinct names of 4 albums to entice memberships, only to be replaced by legal-ese and some last minute MP3 compilations to smooth things over a bit.

Nevermind the Roadhouse Garden. Or the Sampler Series. Etc. Etc. Somehow, when Prince renegged on things it was OK.

So why when WB announce a slight change to product content do people lose their minds?

The best thing in this whole thread.

true ...but they lose their minds because they dont expect an entity besides Prince to shelve things

Se7en said:

Prince announced projects all the time that never saw the light of day -- at one point during the NPGMC, even including distinct names of 4 albums to entice memberships, only to be replaced by legal-ese and some last minute MP3 compilations to smooth things over a bit.

Nevermind the Roadhouse Garden. Or the Sampler Series. Etc. Etc. Somehow, when Prince renegged on things it was OK.

So why when WB announce a slight change to product content do people lose their minds?

I remember hearing about some of those projects that were mentioned, and been slightly flummoxed by their lack of materialization but something else always materialized, however. Regardless of those abandoned pathways, he never kept folks waiting very long for a new project.

>

I'm not fazed at all by the Warner Brothers' current PF Deluxe project delay--its preparation is taking a bit more time and so what of it. The corparation's delay is pretty much set toward production delays. I mean, they're paying artists for their work, then packaging and selling the stuff. Prince's announcements were relative to his creative processes and internal decision-making which took different turns and as such is a different creature, so I'd tend to view those changeups differently, as in, we get what we get 'cause that was what he ultimately decided to create. I'll always give the artist some slack along those lines.

Well--let me lead-off to say that some folks have an axe to grind in order to split an apple:

>

Germanegro said:

BartVanHemelen said:

.

Are you seriously comparing a situation where Prince has COMPLETE CONTROL over all aspects of the project with one where an outside company has to work in an environment that is almost hostile?

News Flash x 10^2 repeat--Prince is gone --from all dealings as of 21 April 2016. So you can drop the "Prince's control" shtick at any time--why the lag, man?

.

You lot seriously need to get a grip. Prince's death has got zilch to do with him fucking up projects from 1996-2016.

>

You're injecting another whole thread-worthy topic into the discussion, but OK, I see where you're going. Every point you make about the guy seems to start with him "fucking something up." Did he do your sister, too? Again, fix your narrative. He was an independent artist 1996-2016 (actually even a while before that with his first independent single production), and not a corporation-suit. Experimentation to find the right balance between his cottage efforts and achieving a broader distribution was to be the norm, not a success with every swing--not all entrepreneurs get it that good. That's really not so peculiar--being a corporation-sychophant should at least place the point within your grasp conceptually, if not the actual execution thereof.

.

G:

And didn't Prince prepare the remastered material that WB was looking for--perhaps not deliverd outright, for reasons of control that you care not to acknowlege or appreciate--but he nevertheless prepared for the company after they made their final contract agreement?

.

Nope. Press release from May 2014 clearly mentions unreleased music; whatever few communications Prince did afterwards only mentioned him remastering the existing album.

.

G:

I don't believe that the record company supported much of that extra effort way back in the 80s when it was done, either

.

Prince spent the budget for THREE albums on his debut, and yet Warners didn't shut him down. Want to try again with that "didn't support him " BS? Oh, and let's throw him them financing Purple Rain (the movie) and also UTCM, financing endless recording sessions in expensive, top of the line recording studios, releasing numerous side projects (none of which made much money), etc. etc. etc.

>

Dude, you're such a loaded gun--put it in the holster for a sec--I mention the fact that Prince independently recorded his live concert performances that wouldn't otherwise exist beyond bootlegs, so that we now come to year 2017 with an expanded Purple Rain remaster to get "you lot" wringing yourselves over.

One of Warner Bros. major functions is to issue loans to talent to enable them to create the products that the company NEEDS to peddle, and they let Prince do his own thing in the studio as he had stipulated in their agreement. They certainly saw the major potential in the new talent, so it happened. Prince paid them back every time, movie financing and all, and secured those new contracts with WB over the years.

When Warners started the Paisley Park imprint where Prince's side projects didn't pan out and they hemmoraged cash, they ended the venture. Prince just wasn't the corporation man that they wanted him to be. Just an explanation--it was a venture that went bad for Warners and Prince--famously, or infamously, depending on your perspective--moved on as well.

Of course Warners spent money supporting Prince. They also reaped vast profits beyond that initial-3-album-production-cost + all film financing that was spent, so your point toward mentioning this--other than trying to make the man look wasteful during his major-production-studio start is--what?

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G:

The company that you look so favorably upon

One of the copmanies that you look so favorably upon

.

Oh look, some BS you invented.

Sorry, BVH--fixed!

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G:

These creations by Prince now have their moment to be revealed

.

No they're not. The estate is still fighting among themselves, and the only reason we're getting PR Deluxe is because it is part of a contract signed in. We're a year on, and the only deal WRT unreleased music is the Universal one -- and guess what, that one is going south fast, because it looks like it wasn't acquired fairly and/or because it doesn't contain all of the music Universal thought it would. So hey guess what? MORE LAWSUITS! Meanwhile the vault is still a mess, and it will require millions of dollars to get a significant amount of it release-ready.

.

Oh, and I notice you didn't say anything about Prince failing to have kept his post-WBR releases in print, or even for them to get released world-wide. Must be those evil corporations getting in Princey's way, right? Can't have anything to do with him running some amateur shop where in the end they were selling albums via fan-run amateur web shops.

>

Gee, BVH--yet another pair of thread-worthy topics interjected here--you've really thrown in the kitchen sink. That's okay, let the angst out--it's therapeutic for some, however, in your case I imagine that it only gets you lathered. Of course the PR Deluxe package is about to be revealed--and yes, Prince agreed to this, otherwise it wouldn't be happening right now (duh).

Once again--narrative control--I like the experimentation that Prince was willing to try with his distribution management, an appreciation of which may be beyond the grasp of a corporate-sychophant such as yourself, but different strokes....
The "evil corporations" will see to the publication of post-WBR releases, or they won't. Maybe they'll be published by an NPG/Paisley park endeavor or a smaller record company/companies, which would be nice. If the corporations are going to be involved in selling those creations it will depend on the attorneys' negotiation skills, and how much money the companies will be willing to pay for the rights to do so.

Y'know, I'm starting to get the feeling that Prince was maybe just a bit too much of a hippy-dippy artist for you, who was just too interested in making new music with his time while he was around. Why don't you just stop pressing play?