This thread is pure speculations, but.... :

My guess is a lot of newbie fams haven't even seen the excellent tv-specials The Beautiful Experience (1994) or Love 4 One Another (1996). Maybe not the live performances: Purple Rain Syracuse (1985), Parade Birthday show Detroit (1986), Lovesexy Dortmund (1988)..... the Purple Rain benefit concert at 1st Avenue (1983), this list could go on and on....

this makes me wonder why Prince wants keep these and a lot of other recordings as "secrets",



What are Prince's "motives" for not releasing these on DVD's:



- Is he kind of a "masochist", he doesn't want to be mainstream / popular, he prefer to be a "cult" artist ?

- his past puts on too high expectations on his present, Prince can't live up to his former success, therefor he always "looks forward all the time, never looking back", Prince likes to move forward ALL the time, his own past scares him a bit ?

- Prince simply looses interests in promoting and selling his work, he moves on to other projects - skipping the "old" projects as fast as he can, he likes the creative process, but finds promoting boring ?

- "the mean one": Prince simply doesn't care about what his fans needs ?


- something else, what do you think it could be..... ?

- Why are we not getting these on DVD's ?




I couln't come up with a better thread, sorry if some of it is "repetition"..
[Edited 3/3/10 4:59am]
[Edited 3/3/10 5:05am]
[Edited 3/4/10 18:21pm]

Excellent thread,maybe he doesnt want them officially released because he knows its very to get them with the bootlegs.Prince is mostly about NOW. but i wonder,its not just the concerts u mentioned its classic songs we have heard in crappy quality. I still wanna know why there wasnt a Crystal Ball II

I think him being the control-freak he is, n 110% perfectionist, never satisfied, is prolly the most important reason not to release live stuff (which also explains the awful overdubbing and stuff on the things he did release).

Apart from that, he made the mistake of his life to split with major companies. His creative output has become worse significantly since that day IMO, plus his marketing "strategy" is a joke. Why would anyone release promo videos (that do not get any airplay) if there's no single released with it (e.g. Crimson & Clover). And why would anyone release promo singles (that do not get any airplay either) if there's no promo video released with it (e.g. Dance 4 Me). Plus his so-called "innovative" marketing strategies (e.g. Lotu$Failure) come half-hearted at best, and spoil more fans than they please and cater. I don't get it.

He's prolly the artists begging the hardest to be bootlegged in the whole industry. And that's why he should be the one whining the least, actually.
[Edited 3/3/10 5:38am]

It's probably mostly the third reason: "- Prince simply looses interests..." He writes a lot of music and is constantly looking forward. Could be a little of the second reason too, that his past is so brilliant that he doesn't dare to compare it to his current work by releasing DVDs of old material.

perhaps he he wants to share them with those he's most intimate with. If that's the case, I'd understand. How about you?

Newsflash, most great artist arent astute business people and they most likely have Attention deficit disorder. That WB was able to maximize and promote his unique gifts and make him a world celeberty was a study in frustration, it's all there for the record. He is his own man, and that will allow him to make more for selling less, abandon traditional touring and promotion models-sometimes it is to his benefit, most of the time it blows up in his face. But i'm sure he rarely stays still long enough to feel the impact of one of his poor marketing choices, his answer to every hiccup is "make another album" lol

thedance said:

I don't think this is an unreasonable hypothesis. But then again, he does play his old songs in concerts all the time.

If you think about it, only the WB stuff (which he has no control over) and his latest album are still in print. So yeah, maybe he only wants people to see what he's doing now, and 'forget' his past.

If you were a new fan, you couldn't do what I did when I became a fan and buy everything from HMV... You'd have to buy stuff second hand and illegaly download stuff. That's not accessible at all, is it?

He's a berk.

I think he's aware that a large percentage of people will just get his past albums from the net. These days people are more motivated to pay for the physical copy if it's brand spanking new. They will also buy some old classics.

Buying some mediocre pop / rock album from the mid-00s couldn't sound more absurd to me these days. I'll just download them. He knows his current releases aren't comparable to "Purple Rain". You can compare them to records like "Controvery" or "Graffiti Bridge" quality-wise though.

I think its because he is never delighted or happy with its total outcome.he thinks there is someting in these live performances that aren't perfect.but what he fails to relize is.most musician cant even live up to his half ass performances nothing to b ashmed of.if its not that then what.i mean dude would make a killing just selling performances d.v.d.from any and everywhere.i dont get it.know way i would b holding this talent from being seen .i dont get either,

dance4me3121 said:

thanks dance4me3121

btw: I have just edited the thread title.

perhaps he thinks its not profitable and only a handful of fans will be interested

NelsonR said:

He knows that it will be profitable and alot of his fans will love it.

sacrifice said:

Only it seems, that the longer he waits, the smaller the fan base might be, and in the end it'll be totally unprofitable.

What Prince could do, now... is utilize Lotusflow3r.com and use its potential. All those shows, all those videos could be uploaded, either to the general public or to the members, and be bought in top quality and as DVD files (like .iso or regular TS folders) and be burned to DVD or bluray by the purchaser himself. Each DVD could probably (maybe? I dunno?) be embedded with an individual watermark, so any piracy could be linked back to the original downloader.

Most importantly, it wouldn't cost much for Prince to upload them (other than a one time fee for the men doing it, and continued server space) and endless copies could be made. Pure income, mister Prince. Plus the benifit of once again be rightfully the owner of that Webby award.

Yeah, I know, people would want artwork, cases and what not, but in lack of better, I'd totally buy as many shows and videos as I could possibly afford on a monthly basis. The largeness of the files, I hardly think is an issue for anyone in this day and age..

Anyway... all of that would require that Prince wasn't spending time fighting his past, rather than using it to his benefit - for what ever reason that might be (and I'm hoping it ain't because of vanity, cos' then nobody's ever gonna see anything from behind the Paisley Park walls that's older than his last record).
[Edited 3/5/10 3:20am]

Most of you are not thinking of the business aspects that would apply here.

The number one business question here would be could I make a profit off this project ?


The short answer is no because ...

1. Who is going to assume the costs of producing/marketing?
2. What market will be targeted ?
Etc,Ect.
Then who owns certain distribution rights to the material ????

The best advise for Prince if he wanted to get this material out would be to use the lotusflow3r.com vehicle and put this stuff on the web. However this method is the easiest way for bootleggers to access the material and sell it without sharing the profits with Prince.

It's a lose/lose situation for Prince and that's the reason why this material is hidden.

muleFunk said:

Oh please, right now he makes zilch and the bootleggers still run with his shit.

So your argument makes no sense.

Just a guess.
Prince believes that live performance should be seen LIVE.

It would make money for Warner Brothers, that's why.

Prince is sitting on a gold mine! face it, he probably makes more money off his concerts than his cds. He is a legendary live performer who can sell out venues in no time! Even "so so" fans that dont buy his new music go see his concerts.
He should do what the Stones did a few years back. Release a multi DVD set of concerts from different locations. Or better yet, even from different eras.
"Prince - the purple archives"
1978-1981
1982-1985 (rise to the throne)
1986-1989
1990-1993
1994-1999 (the years)
2000-2003
2004-2010 (return to the throne)

He could milk it for a year, by releasing them in sets periodically throughout the year. This would make him MILLIONS!

2freaky4church1 said:

^ that's it... we all know that he doesn't want anybody to profit from his 'children' and another simple explanation of it, (I said this before) he just doesn't care
[Edited 3/5/10 12:08pm]

lotusflower said:

Hmmm... Yea, forgot all about that small little detail

ronnwinter said:

We all HOPE he comes to his senses one day.... oow we all hope Cuz PRINCE it IS ALLOT of FREAKING MONEY! even if Warner takes a cut...
[Edited 3/5/10 12:15pm]

lotusflower said:

Why does everyone thik this? Who is going ot buy all of this unreleased stuff besdies about 2000 people?

xlr8r said:

Prince his fan base is allot more than 2000 people my friend...

lotusflower said:

Only for tours. His ish barely can make gold nowdays. So if he even released 25% of past vhs and some remasters, I dont think they will make much of a dent in profits. Just like Van Halens and Madonnas etc. didn't.

xlr8r said:

Only for tours? Come-on, there are at least a 100 threads on Prince.org (only)... about Re masters and VHS to DVD etc etc. We all want the re-masters and the old shows to be on dvd or bluray format... we all would buy it. (how many people bought the SHN version of his CD's lately?)

You compare it to van Halen and Madonna? Queen's last LIVE dvd (Live at Milton Keys) was, when first release 5 MONTHS at number 1. now how many Queen fans are there? I think there allot more Prince fans to me honest. So the dvd's will sell... a heck load of them!
[Edited 3/5/10 12:29pm]

lotusflower said:

Yeah, the same mutherfunkers who've been posting the same shit for years and years. Soccer mom fans who used to be fine in the day aren't tryna buy no remasters.

hence..the 200 or so who post on websites are the remasters etc audience...not much profit for all the work involved

and that Queen shit you posted..England is really different lol

I think it's a whole lot of reasons, including the reasons initially listed. Plus Prince has a history of trying to "punish" people with whom he feels have betrayed him or in some way "done him wrong". So he will "punish" fans for not attending the LoveSexy tour by refusing to play in his home country for 9 years. He will completely demolish a muli-story muli-million dollar home just so a ex-wife couldn't get it. He will end friendships if the friendships can't be on HIS terms. And he will deny most of his most loyal followers of his music with what he KNOWS they want, just to keep someone else from making a cent (by they way, I DO understand why he wouldn't want to do that but my question is to what extreme).

I would also say that insecurity may be at the root of it all. We all know that Prince is a perfectionist and he is no question, a genious. BUT, I don't think Prince is as much of a genious as people in general believe that he is, and I think he is a bit paranoid that people as a whole, will discover this. With Prince being the genious he is, I also think his reality is a bit warped, which is common amongst his kind. Plus, Prince as we all know, can just simply be a jerk.

Who knows, and knowing Prince we will probably never find out.

*NOTE* This is all opinion, so please do not ask me for proof.
[Edited 3/5/10 12:52pm]

VelvetJ said:

^ Yeah and Madonna and van Halen are in the same league as PRINCE

This is ridicules.... the point is... It would sell... and not only for 'Prince fans' but also the 'common' folks... they all know When Doves Cry, Purple Rain etc. etc.