RumAndRaisin said:

WOW! You've been workin huh!

T.I. sold 700,000 albums to bottom feeders who don't know real music and next year will buy the latest bottom feeder's creation.

T.I. sold 700,000 albums through a record company, who surely takes their hefty share of the profit. Probably own his master recordings too.

I'd guess that Prince made more with his Daily Mail deal than T.I. will make under a record company contract. Any way you look at it, there are more copies of Planet Earth out there than T.I.'s album.

So what's the problem?

truefunksoldier said:

I disagree with this. Prince already got over 3 million copies of the album out there, got paid for it, and sold over 400,000 tickets to his live shows. How is that being irrelevant? Prince may be irrelevant to record companies, but who cares about that? Of course he's not going to get airplay when he's finding ways to bypass the system altogether. Prince is relevant because he's greater than, and thinks bigger than a corrupt and worthless record industry. Sony obviously can't sell Prince music... Prince sells his music much better without them. Most people don't even buy any music anymore anyway. Music as a whole is irrelevant.

hey, he's huge in BULGARIA!

Diosuni said:

NO 1, WITH A BULL.....OOOPS NO WEAPONS!
HE'S NO5 WITH A SHARD OF BROKEN GLASS!
DC!

blacksweat said:

x3121 x2

Hmmm...

I wonder who really expected this album to have big initial sales...?

I mean come on... he gave away nearly 3 mil copies... if you wanted a copy you could have bought it already... hell, who didn't have a boot of the album weeks prior to release... there's no video... there has been virtually no US promotion...?

Opening at 100,000k is great considering.

mirrorbestfriend said

Comparing Prince to T. I>'s sales ... ridiculous!

And this is the same country which has made top sellers of artist like...
- Britany Spears :Baby One More Time... 14 mil sold
- The Backstreet Boys: The Backstreet Boys.. 14 mil, Millennium... 13 mil
- Whitney Houston: The Bodyguard... 17 mil

Every one of these artist have albums which have out sold even Purple Rain! I'm not even gonna compare the releases to what ever Prince had released at the same time,...cause the differences would be astronomical.

If you compared Prince's album sales to other 'pop' sensations at the time of thier releases as some measure to his career... Prince would have been done after 'Parade'. Since ATWIAD, Prince hasn't outsold anybody... YET... he has remained on of the most influencial, relevant and revered artist in the industry.

Prince has long ago set a different standard for himself to go by. With the exceptions of a hand full of albums... Prince has NEVER sold big numbers. He has only had six multiplatinum albums... of those only TWO were more than 3 mil
- Purple Rain
- 1999

Many... and I mean many so caled artist has done that feat many more times than Prince... but still... who has been doing it for thirty years and still selling out tours..?
The other albums to hit 2 mil were

- ATWIAD
- Batman Soundtrack
- Diamonds & Pearls
- Emancipation

The only reason I didn't count musicolgy is because I'm not sure if it hit 2 mil and some critcize wiether it would have done better than 500,000 if not for the concert give away. Outside of these... Prince has had about 7-8 other albums hit the 1 mil mark... whichis very good... but considering how the market had been.. most artist could trip and sell 1 mil.

When Prince began selling his music and giving some away years ago thru his club (s)... he was also saying at that time big numbers on the charts mean nothing. I remember an interview on Jay Leno in which Prince criticized a contract Mariah Carey had signed. He mentioned how little she made selling multi-platinum vs. how much he made if he just sold 500,000.

Prince is making his money and his fans can get his music by various ways which don't all register on the charts.

No... he's not gonna sell big numbers to a market which caters to artist who make music we will NOT recal five years from now.. hell.. next year from now even. But for those who appreciate a true artist... we get the fruits of his labors.. and he still makes his millions.. in spite of the charts.

So whats the problem.. 100,000 to open on the charts... ehhh.. big deal. The mumbers may increase if singles are released.. or they may go down... but regardless.... I'm happy... I got the music. I don't beat the same drum as the masses anyway so what do I care if T. I. sells 700,000 or 7 mil... he's still only one of many.. a carbon copy of dozens of others the pop music industry keeps pushing out every year.. then they're gone.

We've had Prince for 30 years and counting... if that isn't a Purple Reighn... i don't know what is.

newpower99 said:

PE ????? 300.000 +

Prince may not be doing as well as these newer artist, but do you think they will be selling 20 years from now. By then Prince will still have sold more records his whole career than they have.Real music is not the thing these days.Who cares how much TI has sold. All I know is I did'nt buy it, but I did rush out to buy planet Earth.

Of course, it shows who a real star is, when you stay on top of the
music business for 29 years now. And Prince will probably always sell out
concert arenas and sell many records.
I´m just wondering why he is selling less this time after all the hype.
Also Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney etc had higher first week sales this year and the last year.And it`s true that the sales are in general down right now, but only 15 % and not like in Prince´s case by 90% !
Perhaps the missing of a video and no tv performance around the release date is the reason. Or the big Prince hype in the states is over ?

Prince told many times he doesn`t care about charts anymore.But on the other side he wants to be heard by as many people like every artist.

Ok, before Musicology, Prince could`t even go to the top 10 anymore, but this time Prince could have a Nr1 album very easily and he missed the opportunity...

QuakeXLE said:

just to say....emancipation did not sell 2 million copies in the us.....it sold around 600,000 copies...they tripled the sales because it was a triple album for some daft reason...prince's biggest sellers worldwide have been purple rain...diamonds and pearls.....batman .....and 1999.....they all managed over 5 million worldwide...

linus4000 said:

interesting comments..but is it a drop off of 90%? didn't 3121 reach the top with sales of 125K or something like that?

I like charts

First week sales of 3121:
1 PRINCE 3121 183,436 999 380 183,818
2 HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL SOUNDTRACK 151,750 7 142,272 963,556
3 BLUNT*JAMES BACK TO BEDLAM 111,342 -12 126,150 1,248,590
4 MANILOW*BARRY GREATEST SONGS OF THE FIFTIES 77,730 140 32,371 678,551
5 NE-YO IN MY OWN WORDS 71,588 -7 76,585 563,666
6 B.G. HEART OF THA STREETZ, VOL. 2 ( 62,346 999 695 63,041
7 HARPER*BEN BOTH SIDES OF THE GUN 59,318 999 177 59,522
8 GEIGER*TEDDY UNDERAGE THINKING 56,463 999 115 56,578
9 JACKSON*ALAN PRECIOUS MEMORIES 56,272 31 43,101 252,568
10 CASH*JOHNNY LEGEND OF JOHNNY CASH 53,429 -5 56,153 1,469,242

And Musicology:

In his 28-year recording career, Prince has enjoyed many No. 1 hits, but he has never had an album top the pop charts in its first week. Until now.
The Minneapolis rock legend earned his first No. 1 debut on the Billboard Hot 200 album chart Wednesday, thanks to strong sales of his Universal CD, "3121." The album sold 183,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, beating out the Disney CD "High School Musical."

The last Prince disc to reach Billboard's No. 1 was 1989's "Batman." But "3121" has a long way to go before matching the 14 million sales of 1984's "Purple Rain."

A sign that album sales are down overall right now, Prince's last CD, 2004's "Musicology," sold about 191,000 copies in its first week but only climbed to No. 3. Sales of "Musicology" were buoyed greatly by an unusual and rather ingenious tie-in with his Musicology Tour: Anyone who wanted concert tickets also had to buy the album.

There was no such gimmick behind "3121." In fact, Prince has not done much public promotion of the album, except for his Feb. 4 appearance on "Saturday Night Live" and a few assorted concerts backing his new protege Támar.
[Edited 7/29/07 9:01am]

so we are looking at a 45% drop off then? wow...that is still a lot.

With not much promotion in the US beyond the Verizon commercial.....#2 is pretty good. That NOW compilation has kept many big name stars from reaching #1. Also with no clear single or video....he loses the extra fans that are in that market. Put a video out with a single...and maybe this baby cab get to number 1. Who cares though...I like the new album.Go Prince!!

Yeah, there has been almost zero promotion for PE in the US, other than the Verizon commerical that was on for a hot minute, a few posters in the 'hood and the press from the Mail giveaway.

And as has been previously stated, there's no single, no video, no print or tv interviews, no Leno, Ellen,no US tour, etc...

On the real, there's a lot to shit on Prince about...The somewhat dubious way he has released tickets to his UK shows comes to mind...

But this business of dancing on the man's grave because he's slated to sell 100, 000 copies of an album in which he gave out 3 million copies out to for virtually free is silly...

I think folks with common sense could not see it any other way...

murph said:

He gave those copies away IN ANOTHER COUNTRY.

This is on par with what he sold for Musicology and 3121 in the first week. And just like those albums, watch how far this album drops next week. And in four or five weeks, he'll be lucky if it's in the top 50.

But of course record sales and chart positions don't matter, right? . .. Unless of course, Prince makes any movement on them, then it's a show of how relevant he still is, etc.

#2 is great!! Hope Planet Earth will have longevity especially if he goes on tour this Fall!!

Wall said:

Ok?????

Wall said:

It's not on par at all Wall...dude was close to selling 200, 000 (183, 000 plus) of 3121, which was already pushed by video and high profile television appearances...

As for him giving the copies away IN ANOTHER COUNTRY (I got it Wall...lol) there is something to be said for the impact of the Internet...EBAY was flooded with copies of Planet Earth before its relase...We are no longer seperated from our friends across the pond Wall...But mainly the numbers has a lot to do with the fact that there has been little promotion in the US aside from a Verizon commercial...No Saturday Night Live; no VH1 or MTV pushed videos; no record store performances...

So again, anyone with common sense would not expect Prince to repeat the numbers of 3121...But as I've stated earlier, I think if there is anything that Prince should be criticized on his handling of the UK tickets for his upcoming show...

RumAndRaisin said:

wow that's genius

murph said:

Common sense? Common sense would have dictated that the UK release follow the US release so that it didn't impact the US sales...

maybe its just that prince doesn't care about this cd being heard outside of the UK. that could be it.

sosgemini said:

Give that girl a prize...lol (very true)...BTW, my common sense statement was more about folks making a big deal out of Planet Earth's first week sales than Prince's own reasoning behind releasing the album for free in the Uk before its US debut...That's a whole other discussion and has nothing to do with the latter.....
[Edited 7/29/07 11:40am]

linus4000 said:

100000 copies is not weak.have u seen the sales for the last few years.cd's don't sell like it used to.hell,dreamgirls and daughtery hit number 1 without selling 70,000 copies so #2 at 100,000 is alright.

Wall said:

Record sales and chart positions matter to record company execs and artists who need those sales just to make some money. Prince has obviously found a way to make a lot of money without relying on heavy sales and radio airplay. So no, in the case of Prince, I'd say that those things don't matter.

Well, you cannot say charts don`t matter because they mean actual sales and
people willing to spend money to hear your new music.
Otherwise Prince would not signed a distribution deal with a major label.
And like i said before i`m still dissapointed that it is apparently selling so low.
Dont tell me Prince doesn`t care about charts...
It`s the same with his words that this time he is performing his hits the latest time...

khemseraph said:

And Rhianna recent album moved less than 200,000 in it's first week...that's with tons of promotion, a number 1 single, heavy video rotation, appearances, magazine covers, CoverGirl endorsement, Tote endorsement,etc. If the $20 million promotion figure that lastdecember gave is correct, her record company is going to have a hell of a time trying to recoup that money.

Remember the "old" days when an album would get released, sell only to the artist's hardcore fans in the first few weeks, then slowly rise up the charts IF it had mainstream appeal and have its sales peak about 4 months after its release? Now, Prince drops a new album which has been available for about 3 hours and y'all are pissing on him for "only" being #2 in the nation.

Prince's chart "comeback" since Musicology is very impressive, but this kind of thing has always been on Prince's terms. There was a period there in the mid- to late-90s where I think he was confused about why he couldn't reach a mass audience anymore; this was due to any number of factors from the change in people's tastes to the changes in the industry. Obviously at some point he decided to become relevant in the popular perception again and he has since crafted three tight, economical albums and gone on tour to promote himself.

As far as the chart peak of his latest album, who cares one way or the other? Prince has obviously decided to focus on releasing brief, straighforward albums each year or so, without the promotion and ass-kissing that he hates. He's probably making more money now on 200,000 sales than he used to from 2,000,000, so he's laughing either way. In the US market, chart performance is completely irrelevant, and I doubt Prince is losing any sleep over it.