Imagine you're reading your favorite magazine, you stumble on a black and white picture of an old black woman sitting in a rocking chair with very soulful eyes that seem to tell her whole life story. Or the picture is of two young boys on a raft in what appears to be an Amazonian rainforest, their eyes also telling a story. Or a black and white picture of a western American Blacktop; a road as smooth as Route 66 with a heavenly skyline to match - on the side of the road there's a bent up license plate that reads: "3121". In fact in all of these pictures those numbers are pictured somewhere. Tattooed on the boys hand. Part of a scripture verse on the wall behind the old woman. Your eye travels down to the bottom of the page and you read "The New Album from Prince and The NPG. In Stores Now".

Second scenario, you're walking through your local record store, Walmart, whatever, and an Index card in the P section catches your eye. It's only a picture of one of the three above mentioned pictures; no wording at all on the card. You see a CD in the Prince section, no writing at all on it, just the pictures. You rush to a listening station and scan the CD, but no data comes up.

Wouldn't it be great if Prince just snuck one out? No advanced copies for radio, no interviews. No media coverage. Just a totally underground release. Obscure, released without any fanfare. A CD that allows the music to speak for it's self. Then 30 days later. The CD is everywhere, the media is all over it. There's a single, a video and it's getting much attention. Wouldn't it be great if Prince used the uniqueness of the albums cover to sell the album? I mean look at all of Princes covers throughout the 80's; if you had no idea what the album was or who Prince was, the cover alone intrigued you enough to pick it up and have a look at it ATWIAD, 1999, Parade, Controversy, Dirty Mind, For You; and dare I say it, Lovesexy. All of these albums had covers that really made a statement. Prince tried with TRC, but I don't think too many people were feeling that artist work.

But the whole point of my thread isn't so much about the artwork that's involved in an albums release; my point is: What if he just snuck one out on us ? No media blitz; just let the music speak for it's self. After the whole whirlwind of Musicology; I think an album of good material could carry it's self very well.

I've often had dreams of going into a record store and discovering a new Prince release hidden amongst his old albums - songs I've never heard of, released without any fanfare or hype. I love this idea.

My most recent dream about this was logging on to NPGMC and discovering 4 new albums (of which one was a 3CD vault set like Crystal Ball) available for download - again, song titles I didn't recognize, and again, released without any prior knowledge. The exciting thing about this online world is that this is completely possible (although highly unlikely, given Prince's love of pre-release hype on NPGMC).

I thought that this thread was about farts.

squirrelgrease said:

Haaaaa!!! What if Prince farted?????That's priceless.....the guy's so skinny that there ain't no room for gas.....

FanofDaFascist said:

Totally underground releases just wouldn't be at Walmart though.

cranshaw62 said:

But that's the whole point, he's been kinda over doing it with promotions and Internet pre releases, it would be cool to be "Surprised" again like back in the day before the information highway. Besides, has his over promoting ever really paid off? The only album that has seen any success from this was Musicology. None of his past albums (Since the 0+> album) have really benefited from these over the top promotions. Either you're looking for a new Prince album or you're not.

And I figured a title linked to farts would get more attention

And regarding "Walmart"... that's the whole idea, make the album available everywhere, just don't promote it for 30 days. I really doubt this would make or break the album in the sales area, I just thought it would be cool to have a little less information.
[Edited 8/18/05 10:26am]
[Edited 8/18/05 10:26am]

squirrelgrease said:

Me too. I can relate to that.