mschirmer said:

I saw it for the $4.99 price last week and giggled to myself a bit when I saw it. My roommate was like, "What's funny?" I pointed, and he rolled his eyes. haha

squirrelgrease said:

Add to that that Prince does not have to store the things which I am sure have taken up valuable storage space in Targets all over America. What does he care if Target got stuck holding the hot Potato. "He got paid, Bria got Paid"

I think if Target loaded up truck after truck of those "future collectors items" and headed them up to Minnesota and then poured them all over his fromt lawn maybe he'd care them. As long as he isn't the one holding the short end of the stick; he doesn't care how short the other guys end is or if they even got a piece of the stick at all.


Meanwhile given the fact that Target paid,him, bria, whomever else they needed to to get it recorded. Paid to have it put together, paid to have it shipped. paid to have the commercial made and paid the networks to show it. Paid to have displays made to showcase it in their stores, people to set the whole thing up in the stores , it seems to me there may not have been much of a piece of stick left for them at all.

Had Prince thought beyond the money in the pockets he is presently wearing and down the road aways he may have seen that doing everything that he could to make sure that Target "got paid" would mean that they would be earger to work with him in the future. Not only that, he would not only "get paid" up front, if the profits from Lotusflow3r were good enough he could even bargain for a % of the profit after the sales.

I think that may feel like they got by and I think that Warner is at right now.

Deadflow3r said:

That's all a bit far fetched on a few points.

There is still promotion in the stores for the album. Target hasn't given up on the product. It's even been in their circulars around the holidays, and after. I saw a huge sign up the other day (Sunday) over the DVD section, of Prince, advertising the album.

Everything goes on sale at some point. A Prince album, a t-shirt, or a box of almonds. It doesn't mean it's a shit product (although the album sucks monkey balls), it means that the merchandiser is trying to just move product. You have to entice people with a sale, a coupon, a buy one get one offer, or whatever. It's a constant cat and mouse game. Anyone knows that.

I can see the deal w/ Prince being the same as any other vendor. Target buys a bulk of a product from a vendor, like Prince or Mossimo, and it's up to Target to promote and sell it. Of course the vendor does their part by hopefully providing a good product, and working w/ the merchandiser to create signage and other advertising to entice the consumer to buy it. They also agree to both take a cut in profits, should something go on sale for a week or whatever. Music might be a bit different in that perhaps it's not returned for credit as other unsold merchandise could be (like returns, or out of season product that never sold).

I don't think Warner Bros. gives a shit what Target does, or vice versa. They're not competitors, but rather allies in the distribution of music.

O.K.

It will be interesting to see if Target works with P in the future.

Deadflow3r said:

Oh I totally agree, but that's also Prince's call. He's approached Sony twice, and Universal once, and Arista once, and EMI once. (I think those numbers are right), and then done fully independent releases in between all that. It would seem that with record companies it's a full 50/50 split because of the nature of the company, whereas Target is a retailer, but they also had to print (manufacture) and distribute the CD. Prince said that was acting as a record company in their approach with the product, which makes sense. I'm sure Walmart or Best Buy does the same thing with exclusive deals like this. Prince isn't the first to do this type of deal, and obviously it was attractive enough to both him and Target to do it. Plus Target is a Minneapolis company, so how could they NOT support the home boy?

Prince could decide to just throw out his next disk independently like he did with The Rainbow Children (not ignoring that minor label that imprinted itself on the CD). Who knows.

Oddly through all this, I saw a copy of Lotusflow3r in Record Town the other day. It was used, and priced at about 5.99 I think, IIRC.

lol

i know 1 thing

he'll need SOMEBODY'S help if he releases something else

cuz he sure as hell aint got a cat in hells chance getting folk to sign up to any internet b/s again

mabey he'll do a hymns album n give it away with the next Watchtower

whatever he does do-i for 1 will be torrenting it before-and IF i decide to pay for any future release

ernestsewell said:

To be fair, Target does this with all of their exclusive releases. I've bought several "Target Exclusive" albums that were on clearance. Most times, they are the ep type cds, but nonetheless, they are on sale.

daPrettyman said:

Yep, agreed. I have Tina Turner's All That Glitters Target only CD, (which has the cover of "Baby, I'm A Star" on it). A lot of their holiday CDs are exclusive only releases too, and that list of stars is huge. Barry Manilow, Martina McBride, Lionel Richie, and tons others. Same goes for Walmart with their Kiss, The Eagles, & Garth Brooks releases. I've seen all that shit on sale. One Eagles DVD that was exclusive to Walmart was on sale for like $5....STACKS of them.

cinnamongrl said:

Prince already got paid, you know ...

There are still some obsessed fams that would pay that money, get screwed again, and continue to make excuses for him.

vainandy said:

-sigh- Yep, there are. It's sad.

vainandy said:

That's true. It's the same group that signed up for NPGMC Year One for $100, Year Two for $25, then the general website for $25 to buy things, and now the Lotusflow3r site for $77.

Prince makes a killing off the stupid fans in his fan base. It's the smart ones that still have gas money in their pocket.

I'm still laughing at the "I took it as an insult" statement in the original post. It's time to divest emotionally.

daPrettyman said:

U can't be serious.....

In a few years.....when the public catches up 2 Prince, people will be looking 4 this cd and won't be able 2 find it. Just like Exodus.

Graycap23 said:

Graycap23 said:

On the site that produced the cds, 1000 trifold cds is $900, so it wouldn't be so far-fetched that it cost around $1 per cd package or so for 500,000 (more or less) units. Especially if P had Target pay for the manufacturing of the cds.
[Edited 1/28/10 13:33pm]

daPrettyman said:

If is a mighty big word.

Graycap23 said:

U R so right.

I never joined any of them because I refuse to pay one dime just to get on a site to purchase something. It's fine to charge for the music but to charge to even get into the site where the merchandise is, is rediculous. If you gotta charge to get into a place to buy a product, that lets you know that product isn't worth buying anyway. And as far as forums and things over there, I be damned if I'd pay to be in a forum where everyone is loony toons sitting around, holding hands, singing "Kumbaya" and "Love 4 One Another" and don't have an opinion of their own.

vainandy said:

I totally agree. Your statement makes me think of these big sales at a local arena (like a concert or sports arena), and you have to pay admission to get into the sale. I've went to one of those once. ONCE. There was another big flea market type set up here once, for a long weekend, and they wanted $10 to get into this thing. We walked right back out the door. ANYONE who charges to get in to POSSIBLY buy stuff, are crooks, straight up.

I'd never pay for a forum either. I can go to the mall's food court and hear a bunch of lunatics talkin' loud and sayin' nothin', I don't need to pay for it.

I never joined any of Prince's sites either, but I have all the music from them. I'd have gladly paid for them, at 99 cents a song or whatever, but that was never an option for us non-payers, so I took my consumer status to an extreme.

vainandy said:

I don't mind paying to join his site. My problem comes when he doesn't give us any product (good or bad). I had no problem with years one and 2 of the NPGMC. We paid $100 each year. 1st year, we got new music once a month and ahdio shows. Not to mention the few live extras, 2 full length cds (TRC and Xpectation) and hq (at the time anyway) videos. Year 2 was good for me also because we got 4 full length cds (ONA Boxed Set with ONA Piano cd). We also got to buy up close tickets for the tour which was the my best Prince experience ever.

For $25 Lifetime membership thing, I had no problem with that either because we paid to get concert tickets early and got a few mp3s here and there. This time around, we got NOTHING! A cheap, lousy t-shirt, one bonus Lotus song and a few live recordings. I wouldn't have minded so much if the videos were easy to download and were in a format that could be utilized. Now, we're stuck with a flv videos that are a pain to deal with. I'm not upset per se, but more pissed that he built Lotusflow3r.com as this BIG and innovative site. Not to mention he was throwing parties and the developers were bragging on how great their work is. The site is pretty, but not $77 pretty.

when did this happen?

i bought a replacement copy of lotusflow3r on saturday and paid 9.99 plus tax.

which brings the retail to LF.com overpay ratio to 1:16

I'd argue that Prince dropped the ball on promoting the CD. He seemed to lose all interest after the Ellen appearance. The Lotusfower disc is pretty damn good, musically IMO, and even though the MPLSOUND disc is inferior, songs like "Chocolate Box" and "Dance 4 Me" had hit potential and are certainly no worse than "I Gotta Feeling" and other shit songs that have dominated the airwaves as of late. If Prince hadn't lost interest and promoted the album better, it could have been more of a hit.

But that's the problem when you pay Prince a lump sum up front for delivering a product: there's no motive for him to promote the album. He gets paid the same whether it sells just one copy or a million copies.

minneapolisFunq said:

It was last week, I believe, that it was $4.99. I think I was there Saturday, thinking back, and saw it at $4.99. When I dropped in Sunday, I remember it being back to $9.99, which seems to be a new regular price for it. I've not seen the $11.99 price for a few weeks.

Still £30 in the UK!

sovembol said:

Ding ding ding!


Consider this album deleted.

Cinnie said:

Deleted would indicate that it had been in a constant state of being printed and sold for a long period of time. I would bet money there were a specific amount printed, and it's left at that. They knew they wouldn't sell out, so print more than what they'd need, and let a few copies linger for a while until they're gone.

mschirmer said:

If the sound is dated, maybe YOU should record something more current.

What if Prince would have ultra-current sound? Oh wait..that's not possible, because everyone will be bitching about how it sounds like shit-hop.

ernestsewell said:

Or at least begin to diversify one's portfamio.