Does it bother any of the rest of you that music seems to be the least featured thing at NPGMC? I wish that Prince would realise that what we want, above all else, is the music. Yes, it's nice to have the option to buy the other things offered but the main focus should be the music! Hopefully this will soon change with the release of Musicology. But I'm afraid we are all going to be very disappointed because our expectations have been so high over the last year and Prince seems to be excelling at letting us down.

Let's hold fire for a while and wait to see what the Musicology Store will be offering.

What is considered last year's club was pretty lousy in that regard, but all signs point to something a lot more on-track for this year. I'd wait to see what's going on when the album is out and the tour is full-steam-ahead before ya make a judgment.

The club is growing, and with that, it is going through some growing pains.

Year One was amazing, IMO. New songs every month, videos, Ahdio Transmissions, RAVE In2 . . .

Year Two . . sigh . . . semantics of 4 Albums vs. 4 CD's, but made right (again, IMO) with Xpectation and C-Note . . .

Year Three -- the most disappointing. Almost NO new music! What's up with that?! And there was really only one official download -- Reflection. The other songs had to be fished out of our Temp files, and were lesser quality.

I'm sure Year Four will bring some much-needed music back to the club, and probably some nice new videos too. What bothers me is that all this "NEW" material is simply because he's got a new CD out, and is promoting it through the major channels.

My point: he didn't go ALL OUT for us the past 3 years. He did JUST ENOUGH. Now, because he's playing nice in the media, and resigning with a label, he wants this website to be more accessible to the masses.

That sucks. We've been around now for just over 3 years, most of us have spent our $225 membership fees (not even counting ticket prices) -- and only NOW is he upgrading the club??!!!

I thought for sure that Year Two was going to be all-that-and-a-bag-of-chips, but I was wroing. We die-hards kept him going through the hard years, and now that he's poised to make a "comeback" we're getting left behind.

Oh well -- it IS about the music, and there WILL be more music this year. I guess that's all that matters

i think it is very important for some of you to realize our place in the scheme of things. we are not prince's friends, family or confidants. we are his fans. this closeness that some of you feel towards him is bound to let you down. what prince did was simply smart business. nobody in their right mind (who is just a casual fan) would have paid 100 bucks to access a club. and prince knows this. this time around, prince is lowering his cost to the general public, increasing his chances of getting new members and hopefully more fans. in order to 'rewar' the loyals for sticking around, he's made it free for us this year. now, if you already recognize your place in the big picture, this is cool. prince is taking a cue from other internet pioneers (check out bowie's site) who charge a minimal fee for access but provide cool perks and free gifts. hopefully, prince will have a non members tour (like bowie has) to show guests around and get them to join. will that mean he cares more about the newbies than old heads, just because they got a tour? no. it just makes sense. we're his choir and there is no point in preaching to choir. he needs to worry about the masses if he is to remain financially secure enough to be the prince that we love AND make new music.

i agree that year 3 was just awful. no arguments from me. but whatever. some years ofhis musical career were pretty bad but here i am, waiting on a greatest hits tour and new cd. that's part of what being a prince fan is about. and i'll be glad when these new peeps start sending prince their money because, for a while at least, prince's costs will be down and we can share the load with some new fans...and possibly a few new loyals will come out of this too.

Certainly I have no complaints whatsoever with the direction the club is heading in...and he's been making LOTS of great business and career decisions lately (like...I haven't seen this kinda stuff since ever...er, 1993 at least!!!)

True, we're not his family or friends...that's why I object to the whole fam thing, which somewhat tackily I think was conjured up by the purple posse. If we're family then you ain't got to charge what our market will bear, you know? You could cut us a little break. You could not always give us the bare minimum, every single year in the club (if that, some would argue). But I suppose it could be said that's a good business decision, making people feel like they're giving their money to their favorite family member...kinda like Ma on Futurama...

What was my point? Did I have one? Ah, yes. I think a REALLY good business decision would have been to really cultivate his freakily devoted fanbase's admiration and frankly, NEED for his music. I honestly think that he has no clue how powerful his music is to some of us. It's not because we think you're hot, okay - and at the same time we think you look great, we're not criticizing. Chill. All I wanna look at is your fingers working the guitar or the keys. Okay your facial expressions are to die for, but the point is it's the MUSIC that we care about, that's what keeps us coming on here, as disenchanted as many of us are (to varying degrees) with many of the business practices and false promises (I mean really, there's some pretty shady stuff going on there...if you have a copy of the promo flyer or emails that went out when Club 1 opened, you would see a huuuuuge discrepancy between that description and what Year 1 ended up being...but it's like because they made some really poor decision during Year 1, basically letting us know that they weren't about to give us anything actually from the vault like we originally promised...we're gonna give you newly recorded material instead, and you already paid your $100...and hey, we're gonna throw in a fonky baldhead track...no, not as an addition, SHIT, you only paid $7.77ish for those 3 files...remember we said AT LEAST 3 so it may be 3 some months and more other months although it will always be 3 except for maybe 1 month. I know I'm going off on a craaaaazy tangent, but I had to deal with some Jerry Springer family/roomate collision earlier tonight and so I had to pop a Xanax and a beer and smoke a bowl. Y'know how it is.

Anyhoo, it's like they were so infuriated that we didn't thank them for every Millenia mp3 or Horny Pony (hissy!!!! recorded from a TAPE!!!) mp3 (what the FUCK was that about?) that they decided to make Year 2 even more barebones for our buck...and then finally they apparently released the downloads (selectively and not to all club members, with no explanation) at the end of the year to compensate...which I think it did, overall....although do I think that was a good investment for my dollar? Are you kidding me? I could have bought the ONA piano album off ebay and the ONA set from mostly anywhere online and I could have saved 30 or 40 dollars. That's really kinda sad, isn't it? Why put your fans in that situation when you have literally thousands of hours of music and you could toss any fucking scrap out and half of em would love it and the other half would hate it and the next scrap you threw out they'd switch who loved it and who hated it and it would just be a really kind, swell thing to do.

Okay, I need to stop posting tonight. I apologize profusely to everyone. Burp.

Iv been a prince fan for 21 years & just seen my first prince concert in 2002.I haveint joined the club yet because 100 back then was to high for me to pay.Not saying its not worth it thuo,because it was!.Id pay 200 bucks if he asked & i had it.25 dollors is alot closer to home.What im saying is that i would of joined the first year if i had it to spend...It seems to me that on this site people forget the diehard prince fans that are just as much die hard fans as the ones signed up on NPGMC that could not pay 100 bucks but now can can join for 25.
[This message was edited Wed Mar 3 13:59:57 2004 by MRDREAMFACTORY]