ImYours said:

Buying that album is spoiling enough, because ity's a bad album. It's no pretty hate machine or downward spiral. Hell, it's not even up to par with the fragile.

vainandy said:"....Try having a party with a computer..."


That's what internet porn is all about brother.
[Edited 3/8/06 18:12pm]

newpower99 said:

co-sign...I'm doing the same.....it's so nice 2 jam to 3121 right now, but believe me..I'll be there 2 get the real joint on 3/21/2006

skywalker said:

It's number 2 4 me

vainandy said:

Well, my computer's hooked up to a kick-ass surround sound system (not computer speakers) that blows my old Sony boombox away...
[Edited 3/9/06 11:18am]

Those of us who have had the patience and haven't illegally downloaded it yet have now got the advantage that at this moment in time, our next experience of listening to a bunch of brand new Prince songs, previously unheard by us, is just over a week away.

Those who have already downloaded it won't now have that pleasure for quite some time now.

I think that everybody who's downloaded it in advance knows damn well that they've spoilt their own experience of a new album release day. But they're not big enough to admit it and would rather just crack on that it's not a problem to them. Of course it is! They were impatient and they all know damn well that buying the physical CD is now just a matter of course, rather than a matter of excited urgency. I don't care how much these people deny it, more than anything, music fans love a brand new, official music release - hence why so many fans are still saying that they'll buy it properly on the day. And buying a physical CD is much more satisfying if you've never heard the songs on it before and can't wait to get it home to experience that magical first listen. We all know that, including the impatient fans. It's a shame for them but they won't admit it.

RitaQoS said:

Great logic. So if Prince suddenly delayed the release of the album by a month, you'd be overjoyed, because now you would have the pleasure of waiting an extra 4 weeks. Oh, the joy. Yes, those that have downloaded it have added on almost 2 weeks more to wait for new Prince music than everyone else, the pain, the pain.



So I take it you've never heard Slaughterhouse, Xpectation or The Chocolate Invasion because you are waiting for the day they are released officially on CD so you can experience that magical first listen? Good luck waiting...

Both Musicology and The Rainbow Children were released online before a physical CD was available. To me, that is the official release day. I would hazard a guess that the majority on here arguing against downloading and listening to the new album early are those sorts who never download music either legally or otherwise, in fact just regard the mp3 generation as a fad that will go away.

Well, it's not, it's here to stay, and I dare say the time is coming when all albums are released online first, perhaps even without a physical CD release, like it or not. Hell, I was sad to see the end of vinyl, but time moves on...

I also wanted 2 wait but got them on my computer anyway..
with a great sound,2 little speakers and a subwoofer,good
quality sound.
But I won't put it on a cd,so I still have 2 wait if I want 2 play it in my car
or so,it's my way of keeping hte excitement alive 4 the release.
And don't forget it's still great 2 hold that cd with booklet and all,
it's not the same as a download.

jone70 said:

How can you hold out from listening to the whole thing? Aren't you more excited? If the cd appeared before me right now, I know exactly what I would be doing for the next 45 minutes...

Yep, I want to wait until it's released. Have my pre-orders in at Amazon and NPGMC (2 chances at a purple ticket!), so I'm really looking forward to getting my mail that day. It's tempting to listen to it before then, but this makes it that much better...the anticipation. And I was even one of those kids that peeked at the presents before Santa had a chance to come down the chimney. Wow, have I matured.

Only 11 more days!

BN had it at a real good Price....I was tempted. But, even though
there Shipping is better Priced and Faster, it looked like I won't
get it until after 3-21, as that is there Ship Date, as far as I
understood. So I think I'll just wait and go to the Store, or have
somebody go for me on 3-21.

RitaQoS said:

Whatever!

By that rationale you should buy it and wait another 2 years before opening it, then you will have 2 albums of new music to hear. Think how much more fortunate than us you'd be then.

eugnj420 said:

I still haven't listened to the other songs yet! I know it's a lame excuse but I just got a promotion at work and have been swamped with work day & night...I got home from work tonight (Friday) at 11pm!! And I don't want to listen to the songs at work b/c I'm always getting interupted by phone calls or meetings... Lame, I know. If I had the physical CD I'd probably listen to the whole thing on my stereo blasting while cleaning my room or something; but my laptop speakers aren't loud enough. I could burn the MP3s to a disc, but why do that when I can have a disc with better sound quality in 10 days? Maybe this weekend I can listen...

I'm with Skywalker. I like physically having a CD. Adds to the experience. It's just harder to get into it when I just download it from online.

I was too curious and heard the album. There's another reason why I'll buy it : it's good !!!

I'm curious about the lyrics, and maybe pics in the leaflet.

I remember how magical for me it was to open a new Prince's album, in fact all since Lovesexy.

10 days left !!!

I don't understand this logic. Because I don't have the official cd with artwork in my hand, or a pristine, perfect quality cd recording, my experiance is ruined?


Let's think back in Prince history....


How many times did he release a new single to radio only at first. So those of us who heard songs like Kiss, Sign O The Times, Alphabet St, Batdance, Gett Off, Cream, Sexy MF, My Name Is Prince, I Hate U, (just to name a few) on radio before the were on official vinyl or CD have been ruined for these songs forever. I know for myself, ALL the above songs were heard on radio before the album or CD came out. It didn't bother me any. I didnt have a perfect copy, I didnt have artwork. Big deal.


A friend of mine gave me a burned copy of 3121 a few days ago. It sounds pretty good to me, quality wise. Will I buy the official CD when it comes out? Of course. Prince hasn't lost any money from me or anyone I know of that has the album early. We are all going to buy the cd when it hits the stores. We'll buy all the cd singles, & dvd singles. Hell, I bought Te Amo Corizon like 3 times already (iTunes, CD single, CD/DVD single) and will have payed for it again when I buy the official CD.

I'll give the man my bucks.

This time he truly deserves them.

I can clearly imagine Skywalker's p.o.v.

A sort of same example which i experienced :
Somewhere in a winter-holiday from the early 90's , i've read all the 3 thick books from Tolkien's " Lord Of The Rings " .
I was quite fascinated and hooked by the way it was written .

Now years later , i met a colleage who was approached by Peter Jackson's company for the preparing of the then-coming feature of the book .
This was about 6 years before the eventual release in the theatres .
I was so thrilled that this was finally gonna happen . Another company tried it before with an animation , but without that much exposure or succes .

The next coming years , little by little promotion appeared on internet , and finally a few months before the premiere , the promotion exploded everywhere .
It was hard sometimes to ignore all the posters , books , trailers , etc .
Everytime when a trailer came on tv , i switched to another channel .
I just wanted to experience that thrill in the theatre , with all the adrenaline flowing . I mean , the result was overwhelming , seeing it on the big screen .

_____

What i really pity is that the leakage of 3121 has happened .
Not shure if it's a stunt , but i guess that it wouldn't be problem for to keep the closet closed until the 21st of March .
The waiting after " Musicology " has made the fans hungry enough , and the exploding-effect of the final release might have been bigger .

Another thing that's sad that in this new media-era , the curiosity for having the " actual cd " in your hands seems to fade .
I know it's all about the music , but time and effort has been spend too in the artwork , which i appreciate a lot and think it's underestimated .

But as was mentioned here earlier , 2 each it's own .
.
.
.
[Edited 3/12/06 6:46am]

I agree, I do want to break it in the same way I have broken in every other Prince CD that I have bought (old or new) over the last 4 years. On a scenic train ride through the countryside.

(kind of an odd tradition)

100MPH said:

Let me ask you, by the same token, have you avoided hearing the singles from 3121 or seeing Prince's recent TV performances so that 3121 is entirely new?

It's not entirely equivalent to a film. The best place to see a film for the first time is undoubtedly the cinema, unless your experience is ruined by kids throwing food about and shouting out, and some guy 6 foot tall obscures your view. But the best place to hear a CD for the first time is at home on your stereo system, or for me, through headphones on a mobile device.

What it comes down to is the quality - if the leak was poor quality audio or if I could only hear it through crappy pc speakers, then I too would wait until I could hear it in good quality. However, the mp3s circulating are 320kb which is high quality, on my mp3 player I am happy with the quality of audio at only 128kb. My pc is connected to a stereo system, or I could burn them onto disc, but I prefer simply putting them on my mp3 player. So basically, I have heard the album in the same perfect quality as I would if I was using the released CD (a lot of people like to make out that mp3s are far inferior to CDs - technically this is true, however if the mp3s are encoded at a high-enough quality, I would defy anyone to tell the difference, especially with pop music which lacks the subtle harmonics of orchestrated music - in fact, I saw a tv program in which they played a band their own song via vinyl, CD and mp3 in a studio without them knowing which, and they preferred the sound of the mp3!)

Having the packaging at the same time as the first listen is entirely irrelevent to me. The Chocolate Invasion and other downloads do not have associated packaging but that does not dampen the listening experience. Picking the packaging up for 3121 at a slightly later date is perfectly acceptable to me, as it was with Musicology and TRC which I downloaded well before the CD was available.

But as you say, to each their own.

metalorange said:

As a matter of fact , and no .
I've asked here on the org where the video of Black Sweat was available .
2 Orgers here did a great job to send me the clip .
So i have to admit that i was indeed curious too , but once i received the clip , for which i'm the 2 orgeres very grateful , i decided to keep it in the closet .

Another moment last week i could hear a slice-end of the Black Sweat song .
Again i decided not to hunt for it , although enough cd-single copies are already available .

metalorange said:

I'm not so shure about that .
Maybe it won't be relevant in the country where the movie has it's premiere .
Here in Europe , most of the time is a later release of the feature .
I've experienced that dvd-bootlegs of certain movies were already available way before the actual premiere-date in the theatres .
There is " that " much curiosity or hunger to be able to see the movie , no matter that most of the time the quality of those copies are poor .
That makes it even more sour . The waiting for opening your present seems to fade .

metalorange said:

Guess i'm as much focussed on audio as visual .
Even if the pre-releases sound in high quality , it is irrelevant to me .
I just go for the total package of the album-release .
.
.
.
[Edited 3/12/06 7:55am]

I'm happy to wait another week for 3121 and yet I've been a fan since 1983. Why am I waiting when I could easily have downloaded it any time over the last week and listened to it on the excellent speakers connected to my PC? Simple: I see music as a package. Artists produce music but also spend a lot of time putting sleeve notes and artwork together and I've always liked to have that first listen sitting at home, headphones on, leafing through the booklet and reading the lyrics. Sure, Prince doesn't always do the greatest booklets and doesn't always include the lyrics, but the idea of having this complete package of music, artwork and sleeve notes has always appealed to me. I know I'm probably romanticising the whole thing, but still - how many of you have pored over sleeve notes, studied the cover art of "Around the World in a Day", read along with the lyrics as you hear the song?

Over the last few weeks people have speculated on here about what kind of sleeve notes 3121 will have, what pictures there will be and so on. Not so long ago somebody was talking about the "Ultimate" collection not having sleeve notes and some people immediately came back saying how great it would have been if Alan Leeds had provided some, so obviously I'm not alone in my love of the form.

Do I download music? Yes, I download via iTunes; have used Napster and P-2-P networks in the past, but I always prefer the physical product. I know that the industry will eventually switch to downloads but, while I can, I'm happy to buy CDs. In my opinion downloads - legal and otherwise - cheapen the music experience as you only get a part of the product and if you choose to burn what you have downloaded it just never looks as good as a professionally produced item.

Personally I'll wait until Prince wants me to hear 3121, which is only a week away now. Yes I've heard "Black Sweat", "TAC", "Fury" and "BLB" but only because he's either released the videos or tracks themselves or has performed them on the likes of "The Brits", so he must see them as being ready for release. As for the album though I'll wait, and next Monday will be here in next to no time.

for those of you who did download the album before it's release date - don't you feel even a teeny bit guilty about doing so? i mean technically you stole it off the internet. and what about londell? (or whoever is one prince's legal team this time). you ever wonder if they'll make a list of names up in here of all the folks who are writing early reviews and sue 'em?

just wondering

I'm taking the route that will suit both parties.

I have been listening to the album all week and loving it.

On Saturday, I'm paying to be hypnotised, with all memory of the album erased.

Then, Monday comes, and a get even more excited, because I won't even know that Te Amo was chosen as the lead single!

XxAxX said:

Ummmm, no? Not really.

XxAxX said:

Not if you live in Canada. It's not illegal here.

I'm going straight old school on this one. Cop it at Best Buy, don't even play it in my ride. Come home, put it in the boombox and throw on some headphones while I leaf through the artwork.

Well, I was excited to listen to it and had the anticipation of waiting for it to download. Then I burnt it to CD and played it on my stereo and it was great. I don't regret it, I've been listening to it for nearly 2 weeks and am thoroughly enjoying it. When the CD arrives I might have a quick look at the package but it doesn't concern me greatly. I'm not into how Prince looks, so photos are of no real consequence and I can't think of any lyrics that I need to check out. With most CD's I hardly ever see the book or original disc once I've made a backup.

What matters to me is the music and I'm enjoying that now. Prince will get his money from my sale so no harm is done there. I think it's a shame that it has leaked because there may be some that don't purchase that otherwise would have done. But am I sorry that I listened early? No. Do I feel that I'll be missing out on Monday? No.

roanmairin said:

my last publisher was canadian. copyright laws apply there as well.