Hell yeah...I'm on it!

That's an amazing set! Thanks,Prince!

SoulAlive said:

databank said:

There is no entire content yet.
The rumours say it will continue unto the 90's.

funkyhead said:

That's not what you said. Lemme quote your own post:



Your main argument there is that it wouldn't sell enough, and/or that it wouldn't make a profit. I contradict that by pointing out several niche releases. Open up any mag like Mojo or Uncut and check out what kind of obscure artist get the "remaster + bonus tracks" treatment. It must be profitable in those cases, so why not in Prince's case, especially when it comes to material that relates to his most successful period, for which this kind of stuff has not been (legally) available except for rare cases (the one live VHS from the PR tour,...).

IMHO there is a significant market for those things, especially hen handled well (for instance coupled with a major in-depth retrospective article in a major music mag like Mojo, and/or a book like Per Nilsen's DMSR (except official).

funkyhead said:

I'm saying you should stop thinking about hits etc. when it comes to these kind of things.

The ONLY thing that's stopping official releases in this vein is PRINCE. All of your "would not shift in any great quantity" and "the effort put in vs the units sold I doubt would add up" is nonsense. Especially when properly promoted releases like this would enhance his stature.

BartVanHemelen said:

have to agree to diagree on this one - I think we are both agreed that P is simply not bothered / restricted [due to religion or whatever whim he's on!] on doing such a project. You are right about me and my commercial outlook - for me the figures always need to stack up and in his case , regardless of promotion etc I doubt he could make it work. I would genuinely be interested if you could provide us some sales stats for similar projects from other artists. His stature is already assured so far, although the Purple and Gold may have an effect on that!.

one thing that will fulfill both commercial & artistic criteria and be a far better option than a live anthology will of course be remasters of released albums with the usual extra content. Like the live release this ain't gonna happen anytime soon, P is happy to carry on releasing P-LITE albums. Where did his pride go?.

I'd like to push that "P should do that because he could sell the set" nonsense a bit further.
There will always be bootlegs. If P should start to release outtakes, there would be tweaked versions. If he should start to release shows as on the set announced, there would still be some 8000 shows to be bootlegged. The die-hard fans want em all. They would buy an official live set every month and still download 3 new live boots a week. It won't change anything if he'd release some of that stuff officially. And it's fine like that. Face it.

P might release an edited/rerecorded/overdubbed/enhanced/etc soundboard.
Bootleggars might release the unedited audience tape.

See the IndigO2 CD versus the stuff that is out there.

True, his-tory has shown that to be the case almost every time. But even if he would release a set of 4 full shows (an example), there would still be enough to boot. His output is huge enough to have room for both official and bootleg releases. I don't believe in the myth according to which bootlegs ruin the market for official releases. The fans will try to get them all, official or not. The not-so-die-hard fans won't even get their hands on bootlegs, however. Only thing that bootlegging does is pushing the competition.

wasn't part of the WB exit deal going to be a similar project i.e. a few discs of his best shows ?, but it all fell through etc?. can someone fill us in on that?.

poetcorner61 said:

funkyhead said:

The simple fact that there are tons of small labels who continue to put out remasters of obscure albums from obscure artists is proof enough. Hell, the fact that BOOTLEGGERS are doing this, is proof enough.

I really don't know what costs you imagine there to be. All that needs to be done is a clean-up of the tapes, and some artwork. Considering we're talking about someone who has entire MOVIES in his vault, these things are not what's stopping him.

FunkyDissCo said:

True, but there's only so much money to go around. If he does this right, it would kill off the bootleg market, because they would be up against major competition.