Prince has hundreds of unreleased material,downloads and unreleased albums. So, which album do u think could be a hit if Prince were to release one.


1.The Black Album

2.The Vault

3.The Crystal Ball

4.TRC

5.Slaughter House

6.The ChocolateFactory

7.NPS

8.The Truth

9.Camile

My choice is in bold letters,some songs on this album could be a commercial success.

BELL6983 said:

Most of these have already been released... EITHER via WARNER or PRINCE himself..and none of them were hits

isthisdadawn said:[quote]

BELL6983 said:

Most of these have already been released... EITHER via WARNER or PRINCE himself..and none of them were hits[/quo These albums were never release commercially and that's what i am talking about which album would have been a hit if it was released commercially?

No bootleg release will be a hit. Nobody but maybe 50,000 net fans. Which may be a hit in some form I guess. But even rematsers at this late date wont make a nudge in any huge success besides with the die hard net fans.

Nobody cares 20 years plus years later.

DiamondGirl said:

Unfortunately, I agree. Although Crystal Ball was more profitable then PURPLE RAIN for PRINCE as he retained most of the profit from the 50 000 in sales. I would love for some of the albums to be remastered but nothing mentioned would been a hit.

BELL6983 said:

I thought thes were all release commercially

I got the Vault ,TRC, NPS, Black Album all at Tower records
There was Videos & a Single released for N.P.S album
I Even Recorded a TV Promo 4 The Crystal Ball Cds on VH-1
If i remember right BestBuy had an End cap display 4 T.R.C
The Black album was bearley promoted in some mags..basicly a black page,with peach writing....as it was limited
The Vault was hardly promoted....But there was ad's and junk for it to

Mabye im not sure what u mean by....release commercially

No, all these albums were independent. Prince had a personal agreement with these major outlets.

BELL6983 said:

Black Album , The Vault...my cds say Warner Brothers

R U saying there still independent?

Or Mabye u have bootleg'd copy's..

Because WB's decided to release these albums dont make them a commercial release. The Vault was released without Prince permission and the Black album was a bootleg and much later released noncommercially. The question was if these albums were legitimately released as an album which one do u think would be a hit?

BELL6983 said:

Ermm, they were legitimate commercial releases. A one-off deal was done with Warners to release (in limited numbers) The Black Album in the mid-90s (which did not actually count towards his contractual album obligations). The Vault - Old Friends 4 Sale was given to Warners along with Chaos & Disorder to fullfill his contract, way back in '95 I think? With tracklist and artwork fully formed. Warners decided to step the releases of these albums rather than releasing them as one.

TRC was released as an official CD through a relatively small independent distributor. NPS was released commercially by Prince. The original Crystal Ball has never been released, but since it contained a lot of material that ended up on SOTT it would be a bit pointless now. Camille was never released but only one track, Rebirth Of The Flesh, intended for that album remains unreleased in its studio form. The Truth is obviously available with the widely released Crystal Ball compilation of outtakes.

Obviously The Slaughterhouse and The Chocolate Invasion are available online but have not been released on CD.

I guess the original question is, what if these were released with a full advertising campaign and big record company backing them and promoting them properly, which certainly didn't really happen with any of them. Personally, I don't see any of them being massive hits even if that was the case, apart from Camille if it had been released before SOTT.

I think BELL6983 is a little confused on what a bootleg actually is.

All the above albums were released commercially, with the sole exception of 'Camille'.

They might not have received the marketing and promotional push of, say, 3121 or Musicology, for a variety of reasons, but they are still freely available to all to purchase.

The Vault was not released without Prince's consent, it was handed to Warners, by Prince, along with Chaos & Disorder, as a complete package - finalised tracklist, artwork and all, with C&D to be released then, and The Vault to be released some time in the future, as it happened, that was 1999.


Or: see what metalorange said!
[Edited 6/5/06 2:50am]

BELL6983 said:

an independent release is still a commercial release, not to mention, as has been clearly pointed out, some of these were not independent releases. why you are arguing this point when you are wrong is beyond me?

BELL6983, are you on crack? More like BELLEND

Mong said:

Cruel!

I think had the Truth been release properly, it might have been a hit. Certainly keeping it all bundled up with CB pretty much makes it a fan album.

I also think that TCI and Slaughterhouse should have had proper releases or been a double album or something.

The rest of the lot has been pretty much been released (save Camille) commercially (If you can get it in a store...then it's released commercially).

All that said. I do think a proper release of The Dream Factory could be viable and marketable...I'd say in the same way as Brian Wilson's Smile album, even though Prince is still very well in the music market place. Not sure a "shelved" album by Prince would be marketable at this time. Then again, if it was touted as the "Lost Prince and the Revolution" album it would have high marketability.

A commercial release is simply a release of an album with a promotional campaign, single, video, airplay ect.. none of this albums were commercially released.independent albums are not commercial and WB releasing albums to make money off a commercial released album by Prince (Rave) do not qualify.

I'm confused.

BELL6983 said:

Dude, aside from the "it's released for commercial digestion but not commercially released" semantics (frankly i think you're wrong, but hey), the title of your thread says bootleg.

BELL6983 said:

Bootleg = Produce or distribute illegally

BELL6983 said:

I know what you're trying to say, but your own definitions of what makes an album a 'commercial release' is not what 99% of people would use. To most people, a commercial release is any album which has been officially released on CD and can be bought from somewhere.

All an 'independent' record label is, is a record label operating without the funding of one of the "major" record labels, which are generally defined as the handful of media corporations which have recently dominated the recorded music industry in the west. The boundaries between major and independent labels are quite blurred in practice. ...

And as it happens, NPS was released through Prince's own 'independent' label NPG records, had videos and singles (The One, Come On) and a promotional campaign (Prince and/or Mayte appearing on various tv shows at the time). That in itself proves that you can have an independent release and still satisfy all the rest of your commercial criteria.
[Edited 6/5/06 9:58am]
[Edited 6/5/06 10:01am]

BELL6983 said:

Sometimes, you just have to admit that it isn't everyone else who is wrong.

All of those albums have been commercially released. What you're thinking of doesn't necessarily have a one-word description.

Would any of those albums have been successful if they had been given a promotional push by a record label? Probably not, but that's just my opinion. Prince isn't relevant anymore and it takes huge efforts or tricky exploitation of the Soundscan methods in order to get his albums over the 400k mark these days. Which is, of course, better than when he was selling around 100k (Chaos and Disorder, etc).

BELL6983 said:

Oh and by the way, he never had an album called "The Chocolate Factory".

BELL6983 said:

I think you have that a bit confused. A commercial release doesn't necessarily mean there are singles, airplay or videos. It means that they are released to the general public for sale. This includes "independent" releases distributed by a record label be it WB, NPG, Universal or whatever.

Just because it's a "commercial" release doen't mean it will be marketed as such.