Now that Prince is finally free of CONtracts, with a technically-hip music site of his own, then why doesn't he practice what he preached all throughout the '90s and finally free the music?? I mean, he's got hundreds of unreleased tunes, right?

Thoughts, anyone? And whatever happened to that Crystal Ball 2 release (or whatever it was called)? Why is Prince holding back? Isn't he a hypocrite now? Can he be forgiven?

This is all in fun, really. Don't give me none of that "Prince don't owe you nothing!" bizness. Anyway, he started it. Had us all hating WB -- even some signing petitions and sending letters. What makes Prince any different from WB these days? "If the bra fits..."

no idea. the only things i can think of is that

1. he still considers it best to have music released on actual cd's in stores

because look at the stuff he released as monthly downloads? he backpeddled on
it and was about to release that "Chocolate Invasion" 7 cd box set which fcuz
never saw the light of day.
still the music ended up being roughly spread over 2 "albums" that are now in
the download store, for sale.


2. he doesn't have enough club members to hand out the "cool outtakes stuff".

look at what the club offered in monthly downloads in the end. there were only
2 old tracks released: Splash and the rehearsal version of Rebirth o/t Flesh.
pretty slim imo. all we really got were recent outtakes and a few well spread
bootlegs like Mad & Funky Design (the reason for those 2 i could go into in a
little more depth but i won't lol).
obviously he does not want to share his prime period (81-88) material through
the online media. which is only fair, i guess.


3. i have absolutely no idea



it would be so easy to release some concerts and stuff that would never get a
official release otherwise (not even if someone kept releasing vault tracks a
dozen a month after his death).
what would be the harm in that? most of the npgmc members are the ones that r
gonna buy most things he releases anyway, especially "old" stuff like some or
many aftershows, concerts, rehearsals, jamsessions, improvs, alternates etc..

why he doesn't release ANY of that, i don't understand either. 95% of what he
offered through the club until now has been NEW or very RECENT material.
which is cool cuz as an artist, understandably you want people to hear what u
are doing now and don't want to dwell on past success (altho over 75% of them
do nothing but that).

but still, he knows that people are pining for that kinda stuff and he knows
that he's got so much that he could give us something he might not even think
very good and we would still go nuts cuz it was a 1986 studio improv or what
have you not.

the first few years of the club i kept my hopes up that it would still happen
but now i don't think there's a chance in hell that he will ever start with
the release of vault tracks through any online outlet.

if anything, we'll have to wait until he's dead for someone else to go through
his stuff and give it a well deserved release.

Snap said:

i will gladly forgive him if he decides to release
Crystal Ball II and the "Roadhouse Garden" cd.

CB2 should be a reality. Just for fans only, through the club or website only. Thats the gift of his quirky, experimental, left over, outtake stuff. Fine by me. Just like the first set, I don't view it as a collective whole (CB1) but as individual tracks. You take what you can get and as a fan piece, i really think you get a slice of his masterful best.

bring it on.

IstenSzek said:

Isten, can you explain what you mean here?

booyah said:

what i mean is that he put them in there on purpose. he knew at least
50% of the npgmc members are people who own bootlegs.

it was his first teasing in the realm of

"won't you feel bad if you spent your money on the celebration bootleg
and i decide to then release a 7 disc set covering the entire event"..

from the moment i saw those two songs in the monthly downloads, i knew
that it was simply to say "that's what you get for bootlegging. you're
gonna pay me for it afterall".

after that there was little to no bootlegged material available, xcept
for the two Undertaker songs. but those might have been more of a F*U*
to warners, since he released m on the club as part of the SALES DEAL!

but yeah, concerning Mad & Funky design, i'm convinced they were there
for no other reason than the fact that they were very well known boots
that were available on almost every other bootleg from 1994-1999.

If someone can find it they really should sticky the interview where he talks about this. He says basically, that one of the things that he's learnt post-WB is the price of freedom (paraphrasing here but anyway). Basically he's learnt that you can't give fans too much freedom and you have to limit yourself in what you put out, hence not flooding the market.

Pretty ironic thing for prince to learn really and he put it differently to how I put it, if someone can find it and post it that would clear it up. But basically now he's free he doesn't want to just let everything out in a flood.

That, combined with the fact he likes to look forward all the time etc probably means, like Istenszek says, its doubtful we'll ever hear much prime stuff, unless perhaps he goes back with the people he made it with...:S y'think? maybe?

softandwet said:

perhaps it's our own view on things. some people might say 'great to see
that wendy and lisa and prince are speaking again. perhaps they will get
together in a studio and record some songs'.

me, on the other hand, still a firm 84/87 believer, immediately think to
myself "oh god i hope this means they will work on roadhouse garden and,
hopefully, prince will finally release it".

softandwet said:

'learned'

Prince talks in riddles and contradicts himself from one interview to the next.

I think he just likes to concentrate on the 'now', when it comes to music. You can look at it more deeply if you want and psycho-analyse it, but then the fammy-fams might come for your blood
[Edited 4/13/06 1:42am]