LMAO, this thread is cracking me up. Although Bart can make a good point from time to time, I take issue with most of his positions. To wit:
I know some of you have written songs before. You know it's not easy, and it's certainly impossible to decide, "Today, I shall write the next Purple Rain". It just doesn't work like that. If it did, every album would be the next Purple Rain.
You write what you come up with. And history is replete with the next point I will make - as artists grow older and wealthier, they start writing from another place. It is impossible to stop this transition. Try as one might, one cannot keep the anger and hunger from their disadvantaged youth evident in songs that are written 20 years after they've attained success.
I suppose it's possible that if one was strung out on drugs or booze, a middle-aged rocker might be able to tap back into the places of their youth. But look at the cost! And Prince does not do drugs or booze, so this is not going to happen.
We can harp on Prince's distribution methods all we want, but these methods accomplish what Prince wants them to. That's why he continues to use them. Whether it's because they are the most profitable, or they reach the most people, or they allow Prince to have more control, it doesn't matter. Prince uses them because they are successful as he defines it.
Same thing with "hits". Prince's new stuff isn't played on the radio, that's a fact. It's pretty obvious Prince doesn't care, either. He does not appear to need radio play to: (1) satisfy his ego; or (2) drive sales of his music. By the way, his music is nevertheless generally nominated for (and sometimes wins) Grammies and other awards.
Now, Prince doesn't care if his music is played on the radio - and frankly, neither do I. I don't listen to the radio much, and I doubt you do, either. If I want to hear Prince in my car, BOOM! goes the iPod. Prince has one or two songs from each of his last few CDs that I think WOULD be hits, but thanks to technology, I can hear them any time I want, anywhere I want. So why would I care if HIT 104FM doesn't play "Guitar"? I don't need HIT 104FM to hear it.
The points I do find common ground with Bart on revolve around touring and his unreleased stuff. I sure do with he'd tour more. And by "tour more", I mean play in Houston, Texas. He hasn't been here since he backed up Tamar in 2006, and he hasn't headlined here since 2004. Unless you live in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Paris or London, you probably feel the same way.
And even this non-touring would be less of an issue if Prince would make available his performances, in either DVD or download format. For all his originality in releasing CDs, it's really quite surprising that he hasn't applied the same ingenuity in releasing videos of his live performances.
That brings us to the vault. Yeah, we all want it. Yeah, most of us have it anyway. Why he doesn't release stuff from the vault on a regular basis is a mystery to me. My best guess is that Prince just absolutely refuses to ever look backwards, so releasing stuff that he created years or decades ago just doesn't strike him as worthwhile.
Finally, we have his website or lack thereof. For all the criticism Lotu$flower.com rightfully took, at least I got to see his performance of "Guitar" on Leno. Best performance of a song I've ever seen anyone do. I guess that's worth $77, although I had to figure out myself how to grab the video (which Prince said, buried in the fineprint, was OK to do). Lotu$flower.com was a bad deal otherwise, and did not live up to the sales job.
But I have to honestly say that after following Prince since the release of "Soft and Wet" that Lotu$flower.com is the only time he's disappointed me. And even then, I got something from the website that to me, is priceless.