Howdy, I figured this might be a decent enough resource after Google failed me to see if anyone knows--or has even noticed--that every single release by Prince, at least up through Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic, is currently unavailable unless you find it in stores.

Amazon is out of stock on everything--even Purple Rain says "Ships in 3 to 6 Weeks" (usually meaning "we have no idea when this will ship," when it comes to Amazon). BestBuy.com is a mass of "BACKORDERED" in red text. DeepDiscount doesn't even list Around the World in a Day, Lovesexy, Purple Rain, Emancipation, Controversy, Prince, 1999...etc, etc.

Was there some reissue/re-release announcement I missed? If not, does anyone know what the heck is going on? I'd been planning on leisurely filling some gaps and now that appears it will be somewhat difficult if I don't get on it immediately. Weird, eh?

(I also work in a retail environment and found out the third party distributors my company uses are out of stock too!)

Suppose he's planning on REALLY cleaning up his back catalog?

What a way to bring me down...

I'm expecting Emancipation for Christmas

Being a little overdramatic? Fine...

but I'm gonna be havin' a Lonely Christmas if Emancipation isn't underneath our tree...

I've had my heart set on it and it'll be broken if I'm unable to get it for xmas.

Well, a fair number of these are still hanging around on store shelves--so as long as you are near a fairly metropolitan area, you ought to be all right, and luckily collectors don't appear to have noticed JUST yet, so there are at least used copies around...

FangsFirst said:

My family lives in isolation in the Poconos... we're part of a Toll Bros gated community... and we just got a Best Buy near us... so hopefully they have a copy, if not...



I just gotta start praying, I guess. Praying that my dad can bring home for Christmas (and I'm still talking about the album here, haha).

I've waited this long for Emancipation (9 months)... I can wait another couple of months if I have to..

In this case, I'm not gonna settle for less than the true article, packaging & all, new/used, whatever it takes.
[Edited 12/7/07 21:16pm]

DreamyPopRoyalty said:

most of the cds are out of stock, Try EBAY, emancipation should be on there

its best to look at www.Cduniverse.com

but they only have these availabe

The Hits/B-Sides
3121
Planet Earth
Musicology
Ultimate
Love Symbol Album
Come

Prince CDs out of stock at Amazon? How come???
I've been ordering or re-ordering tons of Prince CDs on Amazon this past year and they had everything from 'For You' 'til 'Planet Earth" available and everything shipped within days. The most recent CD I ordered was the tracked version of Lovesexy from England. That one shipped also within days.
What's going on? I can understand that they're pretty busy around the holidays, but that doesn't explain that they're out of stock.
Could it be, that they're hesitant to stock more Prince items because our man is threatening to sue everbody under the sun, who sells anything with the name Prince attached.
Just a thought...

Strange, I ordered the N.E.W.S album from Amazon as a Christmas gift for my violonist non-English speaking brother on Nov. 15, and it reached the delivery address in Belgium in barely 10 days.
Admittedly, it's not an album that's selling like hot cakes...

FangsFirst said:

Wow. I was able to find every one of his albums (save a couple choice rarities like One Nite Alone) on amazon (some of the out of print ones I bought used though).

Glad I found them when I did Good luck all.

Flo6 said:

Yeah, plenty of the less popular albums still seem to be hanging around, can't really tell if that's because they're ACTUALLY hanging around, or if they're just selling slower so no one is actually *out* yet.

This is very strange indeed...perhaps they fear being sued for carrying his likeness on album covers

Well, I've got For You, Dirty Mind, Controversy, Purple Rain, 1999, Emancipation, Diamonds and Pearls, Around the World in a Day, Sign O' the Times, Love Symbol and for fun picked up the New Power Generation single cause it was still floating around. (and Planet Earth because new releases are easy to get a hold of!)
Any album (or other release) anyone's gonna say I'd better jump on NOW?
I've been listening to the man for years but never got around to buying any till my ex (a monstrous Prince fan--I tracked down the 5 disc Crystal Ball for her for her birthday this year--shockingly cheap, complete with 'petri dish') came into my life, and now I've been devouring things like mad...

DreamyPopRoyalty said:

They have it in a wrecka stow where I live.

This was all discussed not that long ago. It's just a change of distribution, that's all.
(nothing very exciting or sinister)

It's a good thing I have them all already! Wow.

BorisFishpaw said:

I was digging around to see if I could find anything on the subject and couldn't--apologies for any confusion, etc.

its really annoying as a relatively new fan i cant find quite a few albums which i would love to hear

BorisFishpaw said:

Also, do you have a link to the thread or news item discussing it? I've tried a few searches and have come up with nothing, tried some more googling with the new key concept of distribution/distributor...still not getting much :\
\

FangsFirst said:

Ah! Dug around for quite a while and finally found it:

http://velvetrope.com/for...w/1#UNREAD

http://prince.org/msg/7/247535

http://prince.org/msg/7/242392