This is a hilarious and totally expected and anticipated thread

IstenSzek said:

what are you saying? That Prince's love interests are/have been running the office?

are you serious? please tell me your joking.

what the hell would either one them know about management?

office management or any other kind for that matter?

mani was mean. mean spirited. imo. not someone that should ever be handling anything to do with fans or customer service. and she see's this and don't like it. dont give a damn.

I don't like being mistreated... esp. by someone else falsely stating their Prince himself and doing it on His name. Not their own. too much weirdness ... just like that... has been going on.

And for the record, there's a world of difference between tough and mean.
mean people are just greedy. it's just an aspect of a covetess heart. Tough as in a tough boss... means I'd jump their case if they didn't do their job. I didn't beat around the bush or mince words or leave them in confusion...but I'd cared about all my crew and looked after them before I looked after myself.
And if they didn't do their job right ... I'd give my own time ...on my time off to train them further so they could succeed in their job and do it well.

For the good of the crew and the good of the company. World of difference between tough and just plain mean. Also, I never hid behind somoene else's name to talk smack at anybody. If I had a problem ... I told them myself straight up. And I didn't go about slandering a person behind the scene's to
get other people to jump onto that person i thought I had a problem with. Taht's just plain gutless and pathetic and I have no respect for it.
[Edited 3/23/10 23:09pm]

FunkyStrange said:

AMEN!!!!!

BartVanHemelen said:

Yeah, it was one of his best. Actually, The Conga Room show was the only one that night that did not have sound problems. He took the time at the beginning of that one to get the sound right.

rmartin70 said:

And you could have seen it without a lotusflower membership. I remember, I wanted to go to the main show at 8pm, not any of the late night shows because I had a pregnant wife who wanted to go but didn't want to stay out late. But the site said that we can ask for presale tix at a discount but were not guaranteed which show we can see, it was pretty much a crap shoot. So despite paying 77 bux, because I wanted to see a specific show, I still had to go to ticketmaster like everyone else because Prince was being his usual cryptic self. Thanks, Prince! You rock!

Great show too, except that the sound was shitty and half the show he was throwing the techs under the bus because of it. Such class, Prince. Do they teach respecting hard working techies at the Watchtower? Or do they just tell you not to say "damn" and "shit" and "Fuck" in your songs?

Prince, JW's don't believe in using modern medicine and cussing so don't cuss or sings songs like "Head" and "Darling Nikki" anymore and don't let a doctor with God given ability fix that hip, cause then you're going to hell. But, go ahead and divorce Mayte and Mani, and fuck 1000 women outside of marriage and then make hard working sound guys feel like absolute shit during your concert--you're still tops in the lords eyes.

Preach the Good News, Prince. But don't go back on the word of God and expect us to believe you are for real.

"The opposite of Nato is Otan?" No it's easier than that. "Love one another as I have loved you."

A rich man came to Jesus and asked, "I have kept all of the commandments my whole life. What more can I do to get into heaven?" Jesus said, "Go and sell all of your possessions and give the money to the poor and follow me." The rich man wept and ran off unable to do what Jesus asked of him. And with that Jesus said to his followers, "Verily I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the gates of heaven."

Sad but true guys!! listen to feel better feel good and no more candy!! It says it all....

So whatever 'big' is brewing?
I mean,we hear or see nothing from the P camp the past few months.
Nothing about the site.
Nothing about the new band, whatever they are doing.
Not even en glimps like "yeah, we might tour USA this fall..".

Again I see signs of poor marketing.

So how would we decide if he has changed or at least learned from the previous year?

OTOH: whenever he does play NOBODY holds the lotusflow3r membership thingie against him during a show.


And it could all be so much simpler if he would just sell us some CD's.

BTW:

THANKS a lot for investigating the lotusflow3r situation and reporting about it.

Does the BBB situation allow for some 'class action' (group) approach?
So that we could get a bit more attention?

laurarichardson said:

I bought my lotusflow3r t-shirt on eBay, from a very serious seller, This saved me a lot of trouble, getting it from Prince's site

I am sure Dr Funkenberry will be the FIRST to let us know if Lotusflow3r is going to continue for another year.

The Crystal Ball fiasco...

The NPGMC Year 2 "4 CDs" spin...

The sudden and without-warning closure of npgmc.com in 2006...

Lotusfailur3.con ...

Just a little bit of history repeating

from the terms & condition from lotusflow3r

"Lotusflow3r memberships are valid for one calendar year from date of purchase, and are non-refundable. Membership includes access to restricted areas of Lotusflow3r, access to pre-sale concert tickets, and the ability to download music and videos from Lotusflow3r"

was there ever 1 single video we were allowed to download?

if there was I may have forgotten as I was too busy checking my mail box for the founding members tshirt that has still not shown up and with only 1 automatically generated reply to numerous emails for the 1st time in my "prince life" of over 30 years I am genuinely a bit pissed.

At least we got cause and effect which I do like - if we only could have had a jam of the week like we did on (the free) 3121.com I think we all would have been happy enough with the site. How hard is to upload a song on a website that your most loyal fans paid a very large amount to join?

timmie said:

That depends.
`wget` always worked very well for me.
Also the 'stream' content was merely a download away.

Prince's muse these days is the almighty dolla!

I got my shirt, and trust me.. it was of very poor quality. The logo and all was extremely small. Worrying about the shirt is not worth the time. Love, Light and Peace(+>

ladyleap2u said:

I'm pleased that you got what you wanted, but I really don't understand your "I'm alright Jack" attitude.


Why aren't you outraged when an online business to which you have given your money and credit card details does not have the common courtesy to respond to customers enquiries/complaints?


It's not 'dwelling on negativity' to complain about not receiving what you have paid for.


You must see that the site has problems even though they did not affect you. You must also see that fixing/addressing these problems are also in your own interest, after all, you may not be so lucky next time.


Try putting yourself in other peoples shoes.

TheSkinMechanic said:

The other day, I bought a dinner for 3 that cost about $60 plus tip. It wasn't really that good. It wasn't completely horrible, but it wasn't as good as it was before, and I never got the free ice cream that was promoted. I've had good dinners there before. If you were in my shoes, how would you proceed?

Dauphin said:

Did you explain the situation to the staff? They could have made it right, except of course if they all left halfway through your meal.

Mars23 said:

To me, THAT was the big problem with the Lotusflow3r site. The Customer Service took a huge nosedive.

Dauphin said:

I would complain about the ice-cream I didn't get and not leave until I got it. If they have any kind of customer service policy in place, they will offer a profuse apology - they may even agree to give me some kind discount by way of making up for the mistake in the hope that I will continue to be a regular customer of theirs and not stop praising their culinary delights to all my friends.

If one particular meal wasn't quite up to scratch, I may offer a comment to the staff, if the meals are usually better I would hope to see/taste an improvement next time I visited.






**Of course this hypothetical situation all hinges on the point made by Mars23 two posts up.**
[Edited 3/24/10 9:02am]

Fuck Prince.


Seriously.


Yes, year in and year out, I become increasingly aware that I'm toally his bitch. And I admit that freely. I love him. But I hate him. Or I hate what he does, anyway. Which is ironic because I'm in the middle of a pretty hardcore Prince-listening phase at the moment and really enjoying listening to him.

When people say "you should have known better by now" in reference to lotusflow3r.com, it really doesn't mean anything. Yes, perhaps we should know better by now. But Prince should know better by now too. There were actually signs with NPGMC that he had learned. Year one was a pretty decent set-up. Year two... well, it seems like they learned by the end of that year with the last-minute C-NOTE and Xpectation and it turned into a pay-per-download system after that. And aside from the bullshit with the DRM license no longer working, it was probably the best model. From the Collective bullshit and the Crystal Ball fiasco in 1997 to the complaints and the end of NPGMC year 2, etc., you would think it would be PRINCE and HIS TEAM that would have learned by now how to do this. How to get it right.

When it came time to sign up for lotusflow3r.com, I had the extra money available. I'd worked myself up into a frenzy about hearing the new albums (and love them), I fell for the mention of 10 albums worth of unreleased material, the possibility of streaming concerts. All of it. Because I thought, surely if they're talking about this, they've worked it out. And it can't be any worse than the previous versions of the same thing. There has been a learning curve.

Apparently not.

Is there another artist out there with such a hostile relationship with his/her fans? Is there any fanbase out there ready and willing to rip their idol to shreds? If so, who? If not, is it because he gives us so many reasons to do it? Between the promises of things that never come, the legal attacks on fansites and fanzines, the micro-management of his image, videos and work online, the repeated rip-offs.

Yeah, maybe we go overboard. And by now, maybe we do expect too much, based on past repeated history.

But it's his fault too. To blame the buyer for not getting what they paid for is completely useless. Yes, maybe we should know better by now. But Prince should too. Moreso. In both cases it's pretty pathetic that this keeps happening. It's pathetic that we keep falling for it. It's pathetic that he continues to bite the hand that feeds him.

I'm not going to say he'd be nothing without us. But how many more idiotic stunts, especially ones aimed directly at his fans, is it going to take before he doesn't have anyone left to buy his music. Because fans are the only ones buying it any more. He may have the adulation of the rock press and his peers, and I guess he's happy for that. Everyone respects his talents now and views him as a living legend. But from what we've seen, that doesn't really translate into album sales if the last few are any indication.

IstenSzek said:

If I gave you the impression that you should never listen to his music anymmore, then I am sorry I did that.

I really don't mean that. What I am trying to convey is that it is obvious that the vast majority of his fans is extremely disapointed and pissed off by a decade of questionable to outright bad business practices. Yet, what do all these fans do, besides complaining their asses off on an unoffical fansite?
NOTHING, I tell you.

Sriously, 10 years of shit and bitterness and still nothing has changed. Why doesn't Prince take so many of those loyal, hardworking, well paying fans, who are his basic bread and butter, his most loyal customers, not serious? Worse yet, why when they bitch and complain, does he seem to get only MORE beliggerent? Because he wants to be boss over everybody and do whatever HE likes! Because he is Prince! Because he has been fighting with people all his life; family, friends, lovers, wifes, bandmembers, business associates, record companies and a shitload of fans including.

It's not that hard. Either you go with his flow, pay for and enjoy his music but also risk feeling ipped off and bamboozled after your experience, or you don't, but you can still enjoy the music. Just not by supporting him anymore and just not by accepting yet another unreasonable or broken agreement anymore.

As far that year 2 by the way. I swear that if fans wouldn't have pressured him with BBB action, there wouldn't have been no xpectations or c-note. It would have just been ONA piano and ONA live for 100$, which no matter how you look at it, would have always been a very steep price, ESPECIALLY when all "the middlemen" are supposed to be cut out. Then it becomes down right greedy and am obvious case of false advertising. After all, most fans only joined after the promotion for those 4 new albums was made. Providing those fans with nothing more than ONA piano for almost a year and then finish it up with a live CD that was not agreed upon, was reason enough for the BBB to make it hard on them. With those downloads he managed to get the bulk of complaints of his back, but it were still downloads, not CD's and the change of title from 'xenophobia' to 'xpectations'and 'c-note' was very telling of what he really felt.

In one word: Bitterness. But what does Prince 'xpect' when he promises 4 new albums and even mentions their names? He STILL expects you to expect nothing. After that stunt, I decided to never join ANY of his websites anymore. But most fans weren't that smart and kept on paying him their hard earned money, while he kept on engaging in bad business practices. "Lifetime memberships and files" that are suddenly cancelled and not playable anymore, "exclusive" releases that end up much cheaper in stores, $ 77 for a T-shirt that may or may not be the right size and that may or may not be delivered, or perhabs after a year or so. And a download of his new CD you could buy for $ 4,99 at target 6 months later. But most precious of all a lot of silence in that 'interactive' Purple universe, while in the real world law suits over bad business practices are fying over his head.

To be clear tho'. I don't think it would be such a good idea for fans to file a class action law suit over lotusflower. But I do think that they either need to do that ánd boycot his websites, or quit the bitching, because truly, Prince does not listen to any other language than that of money and fans really should know better by now.

This says it all right here...

ladyleap2u said:


Prince doesn't need us anymore. Before anyone fixes their pea brain to dare say he's never needed us, I'd advise rethinking that because he HAS...A WHOLE HELL OF A LOT! But not anymore. He's where he wants to be, he flat out said so in the opening line of C&E "I am here...where are you?" and that's good for him. But for those of us that don't like being treated with mediocrity, I think the time has come that we finally get it though our thick purple music loving skulls that the party is over and let him continue to be the talented one, WITHOUT US!

I'd like to extend thanks to all who have put in the effort behind this thread.

I've left the money available to sign up for year 2. I'll see what happens. What saddens me most about this whole affair is the sheer gloating nature of many on here with their "I never signed up - told ya! Haha!" style posts.

I don't see the utility behind that at all, personally.

Dauphin said:

The main problem is that once again Prince "hired" a bunch of hacks to run his website. They haven't done a single thing right since then.

For fuck's sake, when the site went live one of the zip files which contained music to download was corrupt. The create account screen accepted all kinds of characters for your password, but in reality it rejected most of them -- and cut the length of your password. Etcetera etcetera.

toy4him said:

While it does say the highlighted.... this is supposed to be an emergency chute if all things go to shit... say like the internet blows up, Prince dies, he goes bankrupt, the anti Christ makes you take the mark before you can get your product.... it is not suppose to be the expectation, and many people felt that this sort of was going to be an expectation early on. These people felt they had been treated quite shabby with past deals.

Mars23 said:

Filing complaints with the Better Business Bureau about Prince or whatever name the website was created under isn't really going to change anything. Everyone knows Prince is a crap businessman. What needs to happen is a class-action lawsuit; but that would require everyone who wants to participate to actually pay for an attorney; and there's no guarentee of a payout.

jone70 said:

Count me in.

Lotus2unfld said:

stuff ran all right with Mani in charge. Seriously.

Thanks for attempting all the stuff you did, Mars.