XxAxX said:

Lighten up and get over yourself!

billyjackbitch said:[quote]

XxAxX said:

With all due respect: I think that we "the fans" play that role in his music-industry. So we show up at the gig...and help him up the charts and get a free CD while doing it. If he hadn't done that he wouldn't have "sold" that much,..because we'd be downloading it for free. Who are the cheap bastids here? And we attended his shows, because he is WORTH it... just like he is worth buying the CD... but like I said: we have the Internet now..and prince is already using that as a means to GIVE us as much free music as possible.

I'm in Marketing and I think it is one of the best Marketing techniques I ever seen.

Right on, man. These other crap acts that come out today and go gold in two weeks and hit #1 their first week on the charts get more help than Prince could ever have gotten with this one little thing. All you people who disagree need to get over yourself (let's play a game called 'you agree', cuz nothin' was created in disagreement, see...)

moonshine said:

You're so right, moonshine. I have at least five different Prince albums on more than one format. But these people will p*ss and moan, "But I don't want to have the music forced on me...(whine, whine, whine). Can somebody say victim mentality?

At the least, what all you people who complain about this could do is to give each extra copy you get to a friend, and spread the love, not whine about being forced to receive copies. Why must people always look a gift horse in the mouth?

I think many "casual fans" have bought CD's of Prince in the past based on his reputation and then felt disappointed because this CD is one that Prince decided to experiment with his music and go in a totally different direction. I know it happened to me with ATWIAD and UTCM albums. I will not pay 12 - $15 for a CD that I only like one or 2 songs. (althought I just bought Grafitti Bridge and.... there is only one or 2 songs I like )[/quote]

See, this is a classic example of what happens when a person is raised on radio - they don't understand what it is to READ THE WHOLE BOOK. You have to listen to the whole thing, FROM START TO FINISH, to get the effect of the whole album.

Would you buy a novel, and just read chapter four or chapter eight? No! You would read the book from start to finish EVERY FREAKIN' TIME, if you wanted to get the full effect of what the writer was conveying. And as for ATWIAD AND UTCM, I think you're missing the point - those two albums contain MANY of Prince and the Revolution's great moments - Paisley Park, Condition Of the Heart, Tamborine, The Ladder, Temptation, New Position, I Wonder U, Life Can Be So Nice, Venus De Milo, Mountains, Anotherlover..., Sometimes It Snows In April - and the B-sides are exquisite.

poetbear68 said:

right back atcha. opinions opinions opinions.

bkw said:

- True
As a fan, I am pretty happy to see Prince in the spotlight in 2004. But to be happier, I wish it happened with a true hit.

[i][b]I think Prince was wise in doing what he did this past tour.
The reason is "nobody else has had the guts 2 do anything like it.We fans of
Prince R dedicated and would come 2 his show anyway, so what's the big deal?
I feel 2004 was definitely Prince's year and I'm proud of my brotha!!!

XxAxX said:

I certainly hope you are the only one with this ridculous, and flat out stupid perspective. When you say Prince "forced" multiple sales upon people who attended multiple concerts...what the fuck are you talking about? First of all, where does the term "forced" come from? Would this be force by gun point, coersion, knife point...? The fact of the matter is that all who attended multiple concerts (including myself, and probably U2) knew what the deal was before we bought the tickets. I don't know about you, but I particularly recall making a concious decision to attend each on of the 4 shows that I attended. If you were forced, I feel for you. Perhaps the next time this happens, you shouch consider calling your local authorities and pressing charges

to those of you who have attacked me on this thread for expressing my opinion WHICH IS, BTW, AN OPINION I AM ENTITLED TO EXPRESS AND WHICH ALSO HAPPENS TO BE AN OPINION THAT IS NOT FLATTERING TO PRINCE how about if YOU develop perspective on the issue? instead of parroting PRINCE IS GREAT PRINCE IS GOOD over and over and over and over and over try looking around at the real world

I WILL TYPE IN ALL-CAPS FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE INTELLIGENCE CHALLENGED: THERE IS A REASON WHY THE MUSIC INDUSTRY SHUT PRINCE'S MARKETING 'TACTIC' DOWN. THERE WERE MANY OTHER PEOPLE (NOT JUST ME) WHO CHALLENGED HIS METHOD OF BOOSTING ALBGUM 'SALES'. I FEEL AND HAVE ALWAYS FELT THAT PRINCE SHOULD HAVE OFFERED HIS FANS THE CHOICE TO 'NOT' BUY THE ALBUM. PERIOD. THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN ANOTHER OPTION TO BUY TICKETS WITH THE ALBUM PRICE NOT AUTOMATICALLY BUILT-IN. THE ALBUM WAS NOT 'FREE', WHEN IT COUNTED TOWARD ALBUMS SOLD. DO YOU EVEN GRASP THIS CONCEPT?

I DOUBT YOU WUOLD TOLERATE THE GAS COMPANY SENDING YOU A BILL FOR YOUR GAS USAGE AND ALSO FOR A PAIR OF SOCKS THEY JUST 'ADDED ON' SEEING AS HOW THE WEATHER IS GETTING COLDER. YOU WOULD PREFER THE OPTION OF BUYING MAYBE ONE PAIR OF SOCKS, THEN NO MORE, RIGHT? UNDERSTAND?

god spare me from stupid, mindless fans
[Edited 10/27/04 4:49am]

XxAxX said:

-----
You have a right to your opinion but accept that vast majority of people on this board as well as EW don't agree with you. It was a great marketing move and I think you just don't want to give credit were credit is due.

laurarichardson said:

i don't care if people disagree, and i don't mind being a pariah here. i am NOT a 'fam'. i repeat - it's okay with me if other people disagree with what i say because that's what the discussion forum is for. what disgusts me is the level of 'famminess' here - the fact that people take shots at others who disagree in a 'how dare you speak ill of prince' kind of way.

have all of you been on the same planet with me for the past few years? yes? then how have you failed to notice that prince doesn't seem to care much about his fans? from the recent 'camera incident' to NPGMC's questionable marketing and delivery tactics to this latest marketing ploy wherein people who attend more than one concert end up with - i repeat- forced sales of the album?

yeah i heard the argument - a copy for the bathroom, a copy for the kitchen a copy for the bedroom.....pshaw. i've never come across an artist who did this to his supporters in my life. imo it ain't exactly cool.

again, like i said above, more power to prince for finding a way to reach the top again. but imo it's too bad he did so using this tactic.

I'm still with ya, XxAxX. I'm baffled why no one else seems to see anything wrong with the way Prince gouged his fans on this tour. I'm supposed to be grateful I had to buy duplicate CDs to attend more than one show? WTF-ever. And yeah, I do own some of his albums in multiple formats and versions, but you know what? I chose to buy those- nobody manipulated me into it.

But then Prince has a long history of screwing his fans over, and the hive-mind fams are still falling over each other to be apologists for him. There will always be those who think he can do no wrong, and that no one expressing anything remotely negative about him can possibly be right. Keep expressing your opinions, though. It's nice to know everybody didn't drink the purple Kool-Aid.

freakebear said:

well thanks for voicing your opinion. i really did mean that i'm glad prince is back in the spotlight again - i'm still a firm believer in his gifts and i think he deserves a lot of credit for his accomplishments. but sometimes it seems he doesn't always think about things from our perspective. i just feel kinda disappointed that he'd do the ticket bundling thing without offering the option to not purchase another album. tastes a bit like Xploitation to me.

XxAxX said:

The only thing that makes me disagree with you on this is I really feel the CD was free considering this was a PRINCE concert, and my ticket was 75 dollars. Subtract $15 for the CD (or if you must be picky, $10, because it lacked the liners etc), that would still put the tickets between 60 - 65 dollars to see PRINCE!!! Now I know that Madonna and others toured this past summer and charged a helluva lot more than $60 for tickets. And it is not like Prince is in the company of Britney Spears and 98 degrees... who may only be worth $60.
I feel I got my CD in that "buy 1 get 1 free" spirit. And in this case, the price was NOT inflated (say $100) to cover the cost of the CD.
How many would have paid $75 and NO CD to see the concert of the year?
Obviously you would xxaxx have since you went to multiple shows.(for the record, I am certainly no fam... I went to one concert and therefore got my ONLY copy of Musicology from the concert give-away.

Heck I paid more to see the Lion King play ($115), and Dora the Explorer ($85 even for my 3 year old's ticket). So $75 AND a CD... that the bargain of the century for the concert of the year!

prodigalfan said:

i went to the simulcast and to one live concert. i have two copies of the album.

look, you're still not listening. i'm objecting to the spirit of the thing, not the money. the idea of counting forced sales as sales.

XxAxX said:

Well in that case we agree. I also think it was a brillant plan, but not exactly fair. If Britney Spears did this and her album was charting higher than P's, we would all be crying foul.

laurarichardson said:

You right you do have a right to your opinion, you also got the right to go take some spelling and punctuation classes like me. I thought I could mess up some words and do alot of misspelling. Both of us need spellcheck. If you think you are intelligent. Wrong!

I thought that was the smartest thing Prince did with giving his CD's away along with the ticket price. I figured that I was paying for the CD in a way, but it was better than the last time when I saw in one the ONA tour. I payed $85 dollars for my tickets cuz he pulled this stuff with the NPG club where the $50 and the $100 tickets was already gone before tickets even went on sale. I really wanted the $50 tickets, plus I didn't buy the Rainbow Children CD. It would've been nice if he had've thrown a little somethin' somethin' in there for the price I had to pay.

So yes it was a smart move and as you can see and will keep seeing others will be trying to follow the same strategy. But you remember he started it first. If anybody else started it first, please correct me. All I know is that the concert have been to in my lifetime I have never gotten a free CD, T-shirt or nothin.

Just wanted to add. I wish these entertaiment stories would stop putting his name next to Usher like Usher is really all of that. At least not in my opinion. So what about his Confessions album being the biggest album this year, there are plenty of artist like Ursher that have the biggest selling CD to date and the very next year are gone and forgotten. Remember Ricky Martin. (I'll stop cuz I was feenin over some Ricky). Let's just see if Usher will have the longevity or if people will even be interested in him in six months to a year.

By then we'll see if that big head of his will get busted like a full-aired balloon and see if his ego will be super-sized or down-sized.

This had nothing to do with Usher--
Cd giveaway was good-- i play musicology too much and who can deal w/a scratchy cd-- THANK HIM>
It was a genius marketing plan-- the worst you can do w/giving albums out to a stadium full of people that already own it is create more prince fans-- giving it away to someone that might not have necessarily bought it----->

Everyone here knows that Prince albums are highly addictive, they'll probably go out an buy something else in the catalogue-- more $$ in the end...
The billboard fiasco was a problem of their own making, not his...Unless he demanded they be counted, i dont see the big damn deal.
[Edited 11/1/04 15:00pm]

Do we really care about Billboard record sales? Do we need Prince's name to be amongst the Ushers and Britneys. No.

I look at it as good for him if that's what he wants. We all know that he didn't actually sell these cds in the spirit of the Billboards and to his defense, that wasn't his (only) goal when starting this because he didn't know they'd be counted.