Prince is caught between a rock and a hard place in getting a new album to sell multimillion copies. Discounting loyal fans:

1. The masses that know him and appreciated his music in the 80s/90s aren't big on buying music now: their kids are!

2. Adult masses have more 'adult contemporary'tastes but Prince is still making challenging 'non adult contemporary' music.

3. Kids today don't know much about Prince and his new music (since he went into obscurity and weirdness for many years) so are unlikely to buy his albums.

4.Prince's music is challenging but sounds much more like his 80s stuff than current urban or pop trends so kids are unlikely to buy new Prince albums en masse.


1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + lack of continual high impact exposure to the biggest music buying markets = Solid but unspectacular sales!

Thoughts? Comments?

Well, Musicology and 3121 have sold very well. Musicology was his biggest selling record since Diamonds & Pearls and 3121 was his first album to debut at no.1 since Batman. It would be hard for anybody over 40 these days to sell over a million records. It just doesn't happen. Apart from Madonna (who I don't consider a real artist anyway ), when was the last time any of his '80s rivals sold over a million records for a new album (not including "best of" compilations)?

That's why I think he's not promoting 3121 as much as he did for Emancipation, Rave and Musicology. He promoted the shit out of those three albums and only Musicology did any well (most probably due to the concert ticket promotion rather than any tv stuff he did).

toejam said:

That's a good point but I can name a few actually especially if you don't just consider 80s rivals but 70s rivals as well: U2, Sting, LL Cool J, Aerosmith, Morissey and I am sure there are others. Sure it is hard but the best who manage to stick at it can do it....
[Edited 4/30/06 5:05am]

Record sales is all for show...

Prince is still getting paid. Let's do the math...Prince has about 150,000
hardcore fans (people who will buy EVERY release). Multiply that by his
LARGE chunk of the pie (undoubtedly larger than the pennies-on-the-dollar
that most artists on record labels get)...let's say $6.

That's almost a million just to release the record...add concert merchandise,
catalogue sales and casual fans sales...and it all adds up to a nice take...EVERY YEAR!

The fact is that Prince doesn't HAVE to have the sales anymore...and that's
because he has put HIMSELF in that position.

Any kind of promotion is bonus money.

Revolution said:

Yeah that's wonderful and all...wow he's rich...great but still charts are like a popularity contest...you don't think he feel a little annoyed that 3121 isn't at number one anymore...I mean great if he doesn't but gee...why even try...why even try to promote anything if you just don't care. Why even sign with Universal? Why not just put it on NPG music club? Maybe he really doesn't care...goodie for him...but he's a human being come on...everyone wants to be appreciated and recognized.

I don't think he really cares much about album sales, but it is nice that he wants to get his music out to as many people as possible as fast as possible.

For example... U2

toejam said:

To be in the game for 30 years and have an album debut at #1 is an incredible feat.

The music business is ALL about "who's the next hot thing?" Always has been, always will be. To have staying power in this business is rare; to chart a #1 album like Prince did is phenomenal.

His career - like EVERY musician's career - has run in cycles. He was underground, then up-and-coming, then the "it" act, then a legend, then a where-is-he-now", then an enigma, then a comeback, then the "it" act again, and now a legend with high expectations.

There aren't many entertainers in the world who wouldn't trade their career for Prince's.

Of course there will always be exceptions to the rule, like U2, Madonna, etc. I don't know about LL. His latest album debuted with less albums sold than Prince. And Madonna's American Life flopped, so even she isn't guaranteed success with every album.

I really don't consider 3121 a flop because P hasn't done any promotion since it was released. If he was everywhere promoting the album and the sales were what they are now, then I could see if being considered a flop.

P is doing just fine for an artist that has been in the game as long as he had, especially with all the bridges he burned in the 90's.
[Edited 4/30/06 10:03am]