Hi guys,

I was just curious, I know Prince urged fans not to pick up a copy of "The Very Best of Prince." (Which, I really admired.)

However, I was curious, did he stand behind the release of "Ultimate Prince?" Whats the skinny on this situation? Please clue me in. Thanks.

JasonStar said:

It's my understanding he was the cause of it's release being held up but did approve certain tracks to be included.

As an aside, Prince signed the contract that allowed WB to release The Very Best Of... so, imo, that was fairly un-professional of him to talk badly about the release after the fact. He certainly made money off of it.

jtfolden said:

I always thought he had no part in this deal

veronikka said:

No part in which one?

There's only one way to fix the problem: release a 7 disc boxset!

It worked, I never bought it, and never will!

JasonStar said:

He definitely had input on what was included - there were several different tracklistings before the final one. The version that was released meets Prince's criteria for not including curse words.

He (or WB respecting his request) had Ultimate pulled from shelves when 3121 came out. Prince didn't want 3121 sales to suffer by offering 2 releases at the same tim (if casual fans only had money for one CD that day, they'd probably buy Ultimate).

I remember going to Best Buy that day, and the guy told me they actually had them in the back but couldn't sell them. They got a corporate memo saying the release date had been changed and were instructed to NOT sell them. Some other stores had already put them out, and surely missed a few here and there ... if Ultimate had been cancelled, those would've been super-collectable.


[Edited 5/12/07 4:48am]

JasonStar said:

ha what a hypocrite, one of the reasons for his fall out with WB was that he wanted to release as many albums as possible and WB didnt want to flood the market

Prince made money from the album and he pretty much had his way with that project. Every from changing the tracklist to changing the release date of that album. He made money off both 'Ultimate Prince' and 'The Very Best Of Prince'. Now that this specific deal/contract with Warner Bros. is over, Warner Bros. can't release any future Prince compilations (like a new greatest hits package) unless a new deal is reached between Prince and Warner Bros. So Prince did support the project in his own way, his way.

JasonStar said: