coltrane3 said:

Like most fans, I would die for deluxe remasters of Prince's WB catalog. Can you imagine all of those albums, remastered with new tracks, b-sides, rarities, live versions, etc.?

And, not to mention the sound quality. I'd pay for a new SOTT with no new material simply if it sounded better.

So many artists have released back catalog material in "deluxe" format. It's a trend I really appreciate. Sure, many times it's just a grab at money for the artist, but no one is forcing you to buy. It's just great to have the option.

But, unless Prince really gets into a mess financially, I just don't see it happening.

Usually Digitally Remastered means Overcompressed Plastic Crap. If it was to be remastered, it should be done properly.

hollywooddove said:

I got bigger tits than that woman on the left and I'm a skinny man. WTF?

hollywooddove said:

Last time I heard, no other 'slave' was given $100 million contract and full artistic freedom.

All they wanted to do was slow down his releases, let a new album breathe a little, and get some momentum, and then wait an extra year to build up anticipation for the next one. Which Prince didn't like.

erik319 said:

hollywooddove said:

Last time I heard, no other 'slave' was given $100 million contract and full artistic freedom.

All they wanted to do was slow down his releases, let a new album breathe a little, and get some momentum, and then wait an extra year to build up anticipation for the next one. Which Prince didn't like.

Slaves were always fed and housed. $100 mil really wasn't too much skin off WB's back. How much did WB make off his records?

Not sure why a visit to WB's is such a big deal, Prince has hundreds of thousands of unreleased songs /projects in his "Vault", plus many ways of distributing material.

WB's and Prince have one thing in common; Prince wrote some stuff which actually sold, and Warners own the rights to it. Bottom line.

I think Prince learnt alot when out of contract from WB's, they were right, no one wants heaps of crappy music ! Most of his 3 disc releases, speaking very generally, and splurge release overkill saturation releases, post Warner Bros, generally flopped.

Most of these methods aren't big money makers, but if he wanted there's plenty other big companies to distribute his material if wanting to generate dollars, which he certainly would need to be doing, he's not getting any younger and concerts are the bread and butter of Artists these days.

In 1994, Prince's attitude towards his artistic output underwent a notable shift. He began to view releasing albums in quick succession as a means of ejecting himself from his contractual obligations to Warner Bros. The label, he believed, was intent on limiting his artistic freedom by insisting that he release albums more sporadically. He also blamed Warner Bros. for the poor commercial performance of the Love Symbol album, claiming that it was insufficiently marketed by Warner. It was out of these developments that the aborted Black Album was officially released, approximately seven years after its initial recording and near-release. The "new" release, which was already in wide circulation as a bootleg, sold relatively poorly.

Following that disappointing venture, Warner Bros. succumbed to Prince's wishes to release an album of new material, to be entitled Come. When Come was eventually released, it confirmed all of Warner's fears. It became Prince's poorest-selling album to date, struggling to even shift 500,000 copies. Even more frustrating was the fact that Prince insisted on crediting the album to "Prince 1958–1993".

Turnaround: 2000–05

" ..., etc. "

hollywooddove said:

Seriously?

dseann said:

erik319 said:

Last time I heard, no other 'slave' was given $100 million contract and full artistic freedom.

All they wanted to do was slow down his releases, let a new album breathe a little, and get some momentum, and then wait an extra year to build up anticipation for the next one. Which Prince didn't like.

Slaves were always fed and housed. $100 mil really wasn't too much skin off WB's back. How much did WB make off his records?

Oh please. Prince was never a slave. He WILLINGLY signed the contracts each time. Lets face the truth. Prince wanted the BIG upfront advances (just like he complains about in a VERY recent interview) and would have his people go bragging to the press about it but didn't want to actually do the work to make an album sell successfully.

jtfolden said:

dseann said:

Slaves were always fed and housed. $100 mil really wasn't too much skin off WB's back. How much did WB make off his records?

Oh please. Prince was never a slave. He WILLINGLY signed the contracts each time. Lets face the truth. Prince wanted the BIG upfront advances (just like he complains about in a VERY recent interview) and would have his people go bragging to the press about it but didn't want to actually do the work to make an album sell successfully.

Again, I'll ask the question. Prince got $100 million deal out of Time/Warner, but how much did they make off of Prince? Let's not forget that they own his masters for twenty years after he wrote, arranged, produced and performed on them.

dseann said:

jtfolden said:

Oh please. Prince was never a slave. He WILLINGLY signed the contracts each time. Lets face the truth. Prince wanted the BIG upfront advances (just like he complains about in a VERY recent interview) and would have his people go bragging to the press about it but didn't want to actually do the work to make an album sell successfully.

Again, I'll ask the question. Prince got $100 million deal out of Time/Warner, but how much did they make off of Prince? Let's not forget that they own his masters for twenty years after he wrote, arranged, produced and performed on them.

I'd like to know how all this happened. We see Prince as savvy-but when you look at Kate Bush for example-doesn't she have all this in place

So what how much Warner Brothers made. That the nature of the business. I ridiculous when you hear all of these rock stars claiming to be slaves after they are MULTI millionaires and then they get mad at the record label because they are rich too. Warner Brothers MADE Prince. I wish we could make Prince forfeit ALL of the money he made from WB and go from there. Things would be much different. These artissts are all so full of themselves. They need a reality check. There are people out there unemployed of making 15-30,000 and cant live off of that and then you have people like Prince who throws a cissyfit if he doesnt get 1 mil per concert or per album release. Fuck him and all of those other artists like that!!

dseann said:

Again, I'll ask the question. Prince got $100 million deal out of Time/Warner, but how much did they make off of Prince? Let's not forget that they own his masters for twenty years after he wrote, arranged, produced and performed on them.

Your question is entirely irrelevant. Prince willingly signed ALL those contracts, including the ones that gave away ownership of his masters. At no time was Prince ever "forced" into anything. He willingly, there I'll say it again, agreed each and every time his contract came up for renewal. He must have been perfectly happy with the numbers...

...but this was never about money, this was about commitment. Prince never had a problem with the money until WB asked him to actually show some commitment, to actually do some work to help make his albums a success.

Prince didn't deserve $100M just for walking in an office.... and he didn't get it, in the end, either. He essentially failed to live up to the contract... just as he's doing today, Prince wanted advance $$$$ in exchange for doing virtually nothing but handing over an album. By the very points in the contract, Prince could have earned MORE if he worked with WB to fulfill certain goals... but he acted like a petulant child because he couldn't release and then dump one album after another on a whim. Do you think ANY of the albums he released under that final contract were worth much of anything to WB besides, MAYBE, . Hell, were any of the albums after Purple Rain an outstanding success for WB? Other than Batman and D&P, no.

If anything WB is grudgingly meeting with Prince as a courtesy, with the enthusiastic "what the heck does he want now" welcoming of lover that has moved on, but grudgingly acknowledging the joint custody and well being of the kids,... a conjoined trust fund.

No way WB will be releasing 20ten, music like 20ten is the reason they split up in the first place.

Maybe a different album, but there is no way any executive can justify their salary and put this out into the world, especially since fans already have it. There is no way to monetize this new album in the US.

[Edited 7/28/10 1:19am]

violetblues said:

If anything WB is meeting with Prince as a courtesy, grudgingly acknowledging the joint custody and well being of the kids,... a conjoined trust fund.

No way WB will be releasing 20ten, music like 20ten is the reason they split up in the first place.

Maybe a different album, but there is no way any executive can justify their salary and put this out into the world, especially since fans already have it. There is no way to monetize this new album in the US.

[Edited 7/28/10 1:13am]

music like 20ten is the reason they split up in the first place.

dseann said:

Let's not forget that they own his masters for twenty years after he wrote, arranged, produced and performed on them.

The funny thing is this mostly just a recent phenomena - artists wanting to own their masters. It used to be a point that most music attorneys wouldn't even fight for, sometimes rather even advising against saying that keeping up with the masters was a hassle an artist needn't worry about. After all he still receives royalties on every record sold, and the real money in the music business is in the publishing anyway, and he still retains that.

Owning the mechanical recording is really just a technicality, sure he'll be tied to WB in some way if he wants to re-release that exact recording, but WB also can't release any copies of that recording without his permission.. and as long as they control it they have a huge incentive to help him make additional money off those recordings

jtfolden said:

dseann said:

Again, I'll ask the question. Prince got $100 million deal out of Time/Warner, but how much did they make off of Prince? Let's not forget that they own his masters for twenty years after he wrote, arranged, produced and performed on them.

Your question is entirely irrelevant. Prince willingly signed ALL those contracts, including the ones that gave away ownership of his masters. At no time was Prince ever "forced" into anything. He willingly, there I'll say it again, agreed each and every time his contract came up for renewal. He must have been perfectly happy with the numbers...

...but this was never about money, this was about commitment. Prince never had a problem with the money until WB asked him to actually show some commitment, to actually do some work to help make his albums a success.

Prince didn't deserve $100M just for walking in an office.... and he didn't get it, in the end, either. He essentially failed to live up to the contract... just as he's doing today, Prince wanted advance $$$$ in exchange for doing virtually nothing but handing over an album. By the very points in the contract, Prince could have earned MORE if he worked with WB to fulfill certain goals... but he acted like a petulant child because he couldn't release and then dump one album after another on a whim. Do you think ANY of the albums he released under that final contract were worth much of anything to WB besides, MAYBE, . Hell, were any of the albums after Purple Rain an outstanding success for WB? Other than Batman and D&P, no.

ATWIAD, & SOTT went platinum. They were successes.

weirdozmedia said:

dseann said:

Let's not forget that they own his masters for twenty years after he wrote, arranged, produced and performed on them.

The funny thing is this mostly just a recent phenomena - artists wanting to own their masters. It used to be a point that most music attorneys wouldn't even fight for, sometimes rather even advising against saying that keeping up with the masters was a hassle an artist needn't worry about. After all he still receives royalties on every record sold, and the real money in the music business is in the publishing anyway, and he still retains that.

Owning the mechanical recording is really just a technicality, sure he'll be tied to WB in some way if he wants to re-release that exact recording, but WB also can't release any copies of that recording without his permission.. and as long as they control it they have a huge incentive to help him make additional money off those recordings

Ray Charles fought for and got to own his in the 60's and Michael Jackson got to keep his since the late 70's. It doesn't seem to be such a recent trend to me.

dandeeland said:

Warner Brothers MADE Prince.

Thats the stupidest thing I've heard on the org all day... I think you misunderstand how the music industry works. They profit from employing talent. If they could create talent out of nothing they wouldn't pay talent what it takes to keep them satisfied.

dseann said:

weirdozmedia said:

The funny thing is this mostly just a recent phenomena - artists wanting to own their masters. It used to be a point that most music attorneys wouldn't even fight for, sometimes rather even advising against saying that keeping up with the masters was a hassle an artist needn't worry about. After all he still receives royalties on every record sold, and the real money in the music business is in the publishing anyway, and he still retains that.

Owning the mechanical recording is really just a technicality, sure he'll be tied to WB in some way if he wants to re-release that exact recording, but WB also can't release any copies of that recording without his permission.. and as long as they control it they have a huge incentive to help him make additional money off those recordings

Ray Charles fought for and got to own his in the 60's and Michael Jackson got to keep his since the late 70's. It doesn't seem to be such a recent trend to me.

So did Sam Cooke and Stevie Wonder. I think Curtis Mayfield is another one, so when Prince was trying to do it, there were others who were smart enough to know where the chips fell when it came to rights of masters of their work.

dseann said:

ATWIAD, & SOTT went platinum. They were successes.

ATWIAD sold a lot early on, riding on the coat tails of Purple Rain. SOTT actually sold less than Parade in the states... All three of those albums marked a steep and steady sales decline towards LoveSexy which struggled to grab even gold status. They were all quite disappointing commercially compared to PR. Prince had burned out his mainstream "superstar" appeal in under 4 years. This is not a reflection on the quality of the albums but he was not a major star raking in the money for WB with every release. Prince's commercial successes are really the exception rather than the rule.

Compare his sales figures to someone like Madonna during the same period and tell me who was worth more to a record company.

lezama said:

dandeeland said:

Warner Brothers MADE Prince.

Thats the stupidest thing I've heard on the org all day... I think you misunderstand how the music industry works. They profit from employing talent. If they could create talent out of nothing they wouldn't pay talent what it takes to keep them satisfied.

but it's hard to imagine another major label that would have indulged him so often during his time there prime example being the relesae of Dirty Mind after the commercial success of 'Prince' or indeed ATWIAD after P. Rain + backing his often crap Paisley Park releases etc, etc, etc.

jtfolden said:

dseann said:

ATWIAD, & SOTT went platinum. They were successes.

ATWIAD sold a lot early on, riding on the coat tails of Purple Rain. SOTT actually sold less than Parade in the states... All three of those albums marked a steep and steady sales decline towards LoveSexy which struggled to grab even gold status. They were all quite disappointing commercially compared to PR. Prince had burned out his mainstream "superstar" appeal in under 4 years. This is not a reflection on the quality of the albums but he was not a major star raking in the money for WB with every release. Prince's commercial successes are really the exception rather than the rule.

Compare his sales figures to someone like Madonna during the same period and tell me who was worth more to a record company.

It's quite interesting when you put it like that. Growing up I thought every thing Prince released/did turned to gold. Apparently after Purple Rain, this was not the case.

funkyhead said:

lezama said:

Thats the stupidest thing I've heard on the org all day... I think you misunderstand how the music industry works. They profit from employing talent. If they could create talent out of nothing they wouldn't pay talent what it takes to keep them satisfied.

but it's hard to imagine another major label that would have indulged him so often during his time there prime example being the relesae of Dirty Mind after the commercial success of 'Prince' or indeed ATWIAD after P. Rain + backing his often crap Paisley Park releases etc, etc, etc.

Thats not so hard to imagine. All you gotta do is look at the list of dozens upon dozens of crap artists they signed during his time there and realize the only person truly bigger in name recognition and buying power that they had on their roster post 84 than Prince up to the early 90's was Madonna. They couldn't have predicted what would happen post 93.

Timmy84 said:

It's quite interesting when you put it like that. Growing up I thought every thing Prince released/did turned to gold. Apparently after Purple Rain, this was not the case.

Purple Rain had a bit of a halo effect to it that effected the albums and perceptions around it. When PR came out, people were hungry for more Prince music and went picking through his back catalog, propelling sales of 1999 to multi-platinum status (and I think Dirty Mind finally went gold in 1984, as well). ATWIAD was caught in the same hunger, with people expecting another PR. Of course it wasn't and sales from there on out were a struggle.

However, for several albums post-PR, Prince got a lot of critical praise so you had an artist who was still massively visible in the media even went he wasn't selling like a rockstar.

It's interesting, too, that he still managed to put out a lot of hit singles post-PR, with SOTT having the most, but that they didn't propel a huge number of sales. I think critics, general buyers and WB all saw the potential for Prince to do something major again but they also learned not to trust his commercial choices, etc... after '87 the mainstream had all but given up, I think, and he wouldn't have another hit album on his own steam until '91.

jtfolden said:

dseann said:

ATWIAD, & SOTT went platinum. They were successes.

ATWIAD sold a lot early on, riding on the coat tails of Purple Rain. SOTT actually sold less than Parade in the states... All three of those albums marked a steep and steady sales decline towards LoveSexy which struggled to grab even gold status. They were all quite disappointing commercially compared to PR. Prince had burned out his mainstream "superstar" appeal in under 4 years. This is not a reflection on the quality of the albums but he was not a major star raking in the money for WB with every release. Prince's commercial successes are really the exception rather than the rule.

Compare his sales figures to someone like Madonna during the same period and tell me who was worth more to a record company.

Madonna isn't the topic of discussion here. How much more records than Prince did Britney Spears sell? Is she in his league? I don't think so. Nor is Madonna in my opinion. No album Prince made sold more than Purple Rain. That was his most successful, to say that album sales dropped off after that is like saying that water is wet. The fact is that the albums I mentioned went platinum which made them commercial successes.

Timmy84 said:

dseann said:

Ray Charles fought for and got to own his in the 60's and Michael Jackson got to keep his since the late 70's. It doesn't seem to be such a recent trend to me.

So did Sam Cooke and Stevie Wonder. I think Curtis Mayfield is another one, so when Prince was trying to do it, there were others who were smart enough to know where the chips fell when it came to rights of masters of their work.

paisleypark4 said:

Timmy84 said:

So did Sam Cooke and Stevie Wonder. I think Curtis Mayfield is another one, so when Prince was trying to do it, there were others who were smart enough to know where the chips fell when it came to rights of masters of their work.

they just didnt get that much xposure

Unfortunately.

OM! Prince is up to something. I gotta know!

i doubt WB will have any iintrest in releacing 20ten. He would have to come up with another album.

Unless the deal included other releases such as remasters or live stuff or a 12" collection?

it could also be prince may want premission to release more from the vault. Make no mistake WB has say in many of thoes songs.

[Edited 8/12/10 8:31am]

The irony is, that over the last 15 odd years, Prince has said that the corporate music model is fine, but it just isn't for him. However it appears that he won't do business with an organisation unless he gets an advance, i.e, the way a record company works.

If this WB thing is indeed true, there may be a distinct stench of 'tail between the legs' syndrome.

dseann said:

jtfolden said:

ATWIAD sold a lot early on, riding on the coat tails of Purple Rain. SOTT actually sold less than Parade in the states... All three of those albums marked a steep and steady sales decline towards LoveSexy which struggled to grab even gold status. They were all quite disappointing commercially compared to PR. Prince had burned out his mainstream "superstar" appeal in under 4 years. This is not a reflection on the quality of the albums but he was not a major star raking in the money for WB with every release. Prince's commercial successes are really the exception rather than the rule.

Compare his sales figures to someone like Madonna during the same period and tell me who was worth more to a record company.

Madonna isn't the topic of discussion here. How much more records than Prince did Britney Spears sell? Is she in his league? I don't think so. Nor is Madonna in my opinion. No album Prince made sold more than Purple Rain. That was his most successful, to say that album sales dropped off after that is like saying that water is wet. The fact is that the albums I mentioned went platinum which made them commercial successes.

No. And the reason Madonna is brought up is for comparison.

Prince selling 13 million copies of a record means that the expectation is there for at least comparable sales of following albums. There were NO comparably selling albums. Ever. And that is a commercial disappointment, not a commercial success. Saying selling 1 million records is a success is like saying Evian is better than Crystal Geyser. Prince selling 1 million records, a 10th of what Purple Rain sold, is a catastrophic failure.