Does Prince have a grasp on what he's released vs left in the vault? i suspect maybe not fully. He performs vault songs and gets great reactions and has never questioned his audiences.

'Days Of Wild' & 'Empty Room' spring to mind.

Marrk said:

And therein lies the problem.
He should get more in touch with HIS audience...before theyre all gone.
Ask them what THEY want. He should have done that with the Lotus Site. He should do it with his vault. WE are the only ones buying his albums. His isnt creating too many "new" fans, in fact, he is probably losing more fans than he is gaining. So he needs to get more in touch with US.

ronnwinter said:

No probably about it. The fanbase is aggravated and annoyed. At least some of them anyway. I'm not bothered, this is Prince and i'm used to his behaviour to an extent so i didn't join his last web venture.

I won't purchase anymore shit though that's for sure, will be listening before i buy from now on.
[Edited 4/5/10 16:41pm]

He KNOWS his fans want rarities and outtakes. He probably even knows a top 10 or 20 tracks that his diehards want.

That's why he always dangles the possibility of getting them, from time to time. My guess is that's always going to be Prince's insurance policy for drawing fans.

kaine said:

I have read the article about Bob Belden's Prince covers project. IIRC, it read "Power Fantastic" had not been officially released at the time of when Bob tried to record cover and he contacted Prince (or someone in Prince's camp) for a kind of approval, which pushed Prince to release the song officially.

"Old Friends 4 Sale" also appeard as cover first. The same goes for "In A Large Room With No Light" too, though I'm not sure if it had legally no problem.

luvsexy4all said:

Yeah, I remember that interview. He went into some detail the types of tracks the vault contained. He said he'd be releasing them over time, with exception to some of the collaborations because of the complications of having to deal with people's estates, ect.