I mean this album is a masterpiece, how come it only sold like 4 million copies? Sorry i am a "new" fan, i've been listening to prince for about 8 or so months, so i dont know as much about him as many on this site do

That's about the average for any Prince album back then. Purple Rain sales was the exception, not the rule. Look at his sales before and after PR. They all leveled out pretty much.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...iscography

hhhhdmt said:

I mean this album is a masterpiece, how come it only sold like 4 million copies? Sorry i am a "new" fan, i've been listening to prince for about 8 or so months, so i dont know as much about him as many on this site do

double CD costs more than a single cd-harder sale to a casual fan.

The changing musical styles of Prince-general public could not keep up.

No USA tour to support CD

kewlschool said:

hhhhdmt said:

I mean this album is a masterpiece, how come it only sold like 4 million copies? Sorry i am a "new" fan, i've been listening to prince for about 8 or so months, so i dont know as much about him as many on this site do

double CD costs more than a single cd-harder sale to a casual fan.

The changing musical styles of Prince-general public could not keep up.

No USA tour to support CD

I completely agree with this. Why we love Prince is that he did change so much but for the mass market it isn't usually good for business..

And I've said it before about the price. In the UK this album had prices anywhere up to£18-which for 1987 was quite high. Prince had made sure you needed to be a fan to buy-he couldn't rely on poppy tracks like U Got the Look to push sales

well it didnt sell poorly.....it has sold close to 5 million worldwide now.....that its good sales....very few albums sell that....it was a double album remember and apart from purple rain ...its not far behind any of his other albums...and it was critically acclaimed as one of the best of the 80s....and is my favourite album of all time

.

it also produced 3 top ten hits in the us and 4 top thirty hits in the uk....after this album... prince was seen as a genius particuarly in europe which let the way to his lovesexy tour the following year being a huge sucess....

[Edited 9/4/10 4:01am]

Besides the cost of a double LP, no tour and losing the momentum long ago from Purple Rain, poor second single choice, he also cut it loose way too early in favour of another poorly selling LP. SOTT could've had at least 2 or 3 more singles than it did. No promo, no tour it all adds up.

It's funny cos the SOTT period really sticks in my head - I would have been 14 when it came out, and I seem to remember posters and stuff being everywhere, a good few years before I really became a fan.

When I read stuff now about it selling poorly t always suprises me.

Sam with Lovesexy, but I guess a year later I'd really begun to sit up and take notice.

No video for SOTT

If I was your Girlfriend 2nd single

Double Album

Rap blowing up

Radio reintegrating itself. (ie too "black" for rock radio, too "white" for black radio, too artsy for pop radio)

but mostly he gave up on it to soon. Dude needed some discipline back then.

emesem said:

No video for SOTT

If I was your Girlfriend 2nd single

Double Album

Rap blowing up

Radio reintegrating itself. (ie too "black" for rock radio, too "white" for black radio, too artsy for pop radio)

but mostly he gave up on it to soon. Dude needed some discipline back then.

see this is what i hate

there should be a radio station that plays all types of music

people can hear songs and artist they never heard before and promote new artist aswell

it should be called scattered radio

[Edited 9/4/10 7:42am]

ONLY 4 million copies. oh how many bands wish they could suck that bad

BAD was out.

Marrk said:

BAD was out.

Not it at all. SOTT was released in March of 1987. BAD wasn't out until August or September, and SOTT film was released near the end of the year. SOTT had a huge head start on BAD. Prince didn't bother to put that much into it, esp once the European tour was over. He was over it.

However, to the original poster, again, 4 million is average for Prince. He's never been a HUGE record seller. There are exceptions - but those aren't the rule of thumb with him.

ernestsewell said:

Marrk said:

BAD was out.

Not it at all. SOTT was released in March of 1987. BAD wasn't out until August or September, and SOTT film was released near the end of the year. SOTT had a huge head start on BAD. Prince didn't bother to put that much into it, esp once the European tour was over. He was over it.

However, to the original poster, again, 4 million is average for Prince. He's never been a HUGE record seller. There are exceptions - but those aren't the rule of thumb with him.

I didn't think that was the case at all. I was just being a cuntish bastard.

The same reason very few Prince albums sell as much as they should. Prince doesn't promote them like he should.

All the things people have written so far all contributed to SOTT being a low selling album. The biggest points would be:

-No US tour

-Poor choice of Singles

-Not enough time in between albums

-BAD stole some of it's momentum

-The Cost of a Double LP

-Lack of Proper videos

-Bad promotion in general

While I don't think this one not being a hit is 100% on Prince, If he would have waited till 88 to release Sign and done a proper US tour and chosen something other than IIWUGF as the second single I really believe album sales would have been double what they were.

I pretty much agree with everyone else. The biggest promo for a new ablum is a BIG tour!!! Makes people want the cd when they see the good music on display!! Prince was putting the ablums out so quickly because he had so much in him. HE was more focused on the music than the sales. HE should have really pushed this one, it's in his top 3 or at least top 5 ablums of all time. IMHO, it should have done as well as PR...a great movie, different than what he did, would have also helped!! I personally love "If I Was Your Girlfriend." It's one of my top 20 fave songs of Prince's. But I think more people would have like it had it been "Prince" singing it. The whole alter ego wasn't a popular choice..

Heavens above. No US tour. The world must stop!

one of the main reasons sott 'only' sold 4 million at the time was.....around the world in a day.....simple....remember 'parade' sold around 4 million as well....prince's left turn after purple rain made sure he would never again sell 20 million albums like purple rain ever again.....and thank god he did or he wouldnt be half as interesting or half the artist he is.....he didnt take the michael jackson route....he didnt wait to see what would happen after he became the biggest selling music star in the world in 84.....he released around the world in a day to get rid of the hangers on and was left with real music fans from parade onwards....

Selling 4 million doesn't sound poor to me, although I do agree with the majority

1. Poor promotion, in which I think Prince was never really good at

2. Not the best 2nd single choice. Housequake was in heavy rotation on the radio, but he chose IIWYG. People weren't ready for that song, although many may agree now it's a classic.

3. Being a double album it was a little more expensive. Although I did buy it 3 times. Twice on cassette, the first got messed up in the player, and once on vinyl. Actually 4 times, years later on cd.

I really believed it could have done better because here in Chicago radio stations were playing most of the songs on different stations. Only two songs I haven't heard on the radio were It and The Cross.

can any of you tell us where you did you get the info that sign of the times sold 4 million? you do known that double do not count as a full sale. they count as half a sale. so he really sold 2.5 million copies. please show methe link where parade sold 4 million copies.

It just was too experimantal at the time being released, like it would have been too experimental now. Just look at the popular songs in 1987, the sound of sign of the times was just sounding too different.

But does it really mather? as much as IIWYG meant too me at that time, i can understand it didn't sell well.

1987:

• La Bamba" - Los Lobos
• "La Isla Bonita" - Madonna
• "Land of Confusion" - Genesis
• "Lean on Me" - Club Nouveau
• "Let Me Be the One" - Exposé
• "Let's Wait Awhile" - Janet Jackson
• "Little Lies" - Fleetwood Mac
• "Livin' on a Prayer" - Bon Jovi (released in 1986)
• "Rhythm Is Gonna Get You" - Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine
• "Shake Your Love" - Debbie Gibson
• "Bad" - Michael Jackson
• "Ballerina Girl" - Lionel Richie

SquirrelMeat said:

Heavens above. No US tour. The world must stop!

Spoken with the type of jealousy I've come to expect from non US citizens

Not trying to avoid the question, but I've just never followed Prince's sales figures. Some artists I do, but not Prince. I've known since 1999 that I was going to buy his new albums when they were released, so it never really mattered to me. Also, I sometimes enjoy the fact that Prince is considered by many to be one of the greates of all time, but also has a hardcore fanbase that exists at near underground levels.

To actually add to answering the quetion, though, Mtv didn't really pay much attention to that album, either. So you add up all those albums with different styles back to back REALLY close together, no US tour, lack of Mtv (and other promotional) support, the fact that it sounded nothing like anything else that was out at the time and there you go. However, it did make A LOT of year end lists, as I remember, and was regularly discussed as a landmark album for about the next decade. It's still in almost every "greatest albums of all-time" list.

saying prince albums were selling poorly in the 80s is nonsense really....selling 4 to 6 million an album when he was releasing an album every year is brilliant sales.....most artists have one big album then they have smaller sales for the rest...he must have been in the top 5 biggest selling artists in the 80s overall and he was the most acclaimed so it really isnt true.....even now....prince is assured of selling a million worldwide without much publicity....not many artists sell a million albums nowadays....any record company would snap him up in a minute....

.

1999 - 6 million

atwiad - 4.5 million

parade - 4 million

sign - 4.5 million

lovesexy - 3 million

batman - 5 million

graffiti - 2.5 million

diamond - 6.5 million

.

.

those are not poor sales ...almost all artists wouldnt get near them....

[Edited 9/5/10 2:31am]

I think the proper question is "Why wasn't Sign 'O' the Times the best-selling '87 album in the US ??"

We all know that:

-If I Was Your Girlfriend (great song, awful single, Camille belongs to the Vault, not to the radio )

-Some songs that had great FM potential were not released as singles (Adore, Starfish & Coffee, etc.)

-No USA Tour...

-Failure of the SOTT film...

-Lack of major Warner support (I mean, they had the best '87 album in their hands and they were not even excited about it, I bet it was just that "friggin' double album" for them )

-Perception by the (always lazy, always stupid) mainstream audience that a double album means "borefest" and "a lot of filler". They were soooooo wrong

-By 1987, many hardcore fans were puzzled by ATWIAD and Parade () and the mainstream audience just expected another Kiss or another Raspberry Beret, not double albums... ()

-I bet the mainstream audience also thought "Where is the Revolution ?? "

-Finally, perhaps a double album/CD was pretty expensive during the late 80s...

That said, the album was a major seller worldwide and of course the European tour was an artistic success...and the album sold reasonably well in the US, mainly due to U Got the Look. But as I've said, it was not the "Thriller 1987" it could have been... George Michael's Faith was it... (great singles, tight 9 songs album, world tour, huge promotional campaign, etc.) Proof: the second best-selling Prince album of the 80s was Batman: a tight 9 songs album, with some killer singles and huge promotion (the Batman film)

emesem said: No video for SOTT

Thought this one was official

blackbob said:

one of the main reasons sott 'only' sold 4 million at the time was.....around the world in a day.....simple....remember 'parade' sold around 4 million as well....prince's left turn after purple rain made sure he would never again sell 20 million albums like purple rain ever again.....and thank god he did or he wouldnt be half as interesting or half the artist he is.....he didnt take the michael jackson route....he didnt wait to see what would happen after he became the biggest selling music star in the world in 84.....he released around the world in a day to get rid of the hangers on and was left with real music fans from parade onwards....

it is true that sales for multi album sets count as that number? So 'Sign' got credit for2 units for each sale. And Lotus got credit for 3 units?

Shango said:

emesem said: No video for SOTT

Thought this one was official

yeah there was a video, but I never saw it until years later and I was LOOKING for it!

Shango said:

emesem said: No video for SOTT

Thought this one was official

It is. Emesem needs to check their Hits DVD.

ernestsewell said:

It is. Emesem needs to check their Hits DVD.

So what. No one wants to watch that dumb video. There was no proper video with Prince and the band in it like all the previous videos.