hhhhdmt said:

Replica said:

many can't stand him

many respect him, but had a hard time getting into his style

actually I believe that 90% of those going to see him on concert is just there for the hits and him being an icon, while the actual serious listener of his music is rather small

Meeting big fans of his music is a seldom experience, atleast for people on my age(25)

This is the problem:

The general public wants hits, and therefore might like him for the ones they remember, but prefer Michael Jackson.

The musicians and music interrested choose to listen to James Brown, Parliament and Sly and The Family Stone instead. They're good, but alot easier to get into. One don't have to deal with the whole persona thing, and all the weirdness, attitude... etc that Prince brings to the table.

I am not sure if Sly or Parliment have more fans than Prince, even among musicians. I think most musicians respect him alot and his work gets covered by everyone from rock musicians, to pop and r&b artists and so on. Even those who dont like his persona respect his talent alot.

hehe, I gotta admit I speak from a Norwegian perspective. And this is how I feel about it atleast here, even though both of the concerts he did in oslo almost sold out. But yeah it's an almosy. ACDC would do that easily.

Those who's after his hits were probably the hugest part of the crowd at the concert I attended to. And I think Prince knew that, since he did such a boring hit parade as we all are familiar with. I know more people that is listening to James Brown and P-Funk than Prince. Maybe not Sly and The Family Stone though. But you know alot of people are buying into that thing about Prince being a comercial sellout full of gimmicks, thus leading to not being aware of his greatness, and that he has done so many things that is rather the opposite of trying to get more listeners. Sometimes I've believed he was digging his own grav musically on purpose.

Revolution said:

hardcore fans = those who will buy ANYTHING he puts out = 100,000

casual fans = those who will buy the hits or anything which may get radioplay = millions.

His recent concerts are drawing out the casual fans bigtime.

And it might varies according to the countries...

MarquessMarq said:

It could be bigger. Much bigger. But I seriously think at this point in time, that Prince doesn't give a fuck about how many fans he has.