journey said:

RodeoSchro said:

I agree 100% that people have a right to their opinions, and that includes me, too. I've listened to Bart whine for at least 18 years, but maybe as long as 25 years. That's probably longer than you are old. Think about that - I, and the others that have been on Prince websites since the Internet came around, have been listening to Bart whine for the entirety of your life.

Imagine this:

You come out of the womb - the first words you hear are Bart whining about Prince.

You learn how to talk - you are still hearing Bart whine about Prince.

You start grade school - you are still hearing Bart whine about Prince.

You start Little League, and hit your first home run - you are still hearing Bart whine about Prince.

You graduate from grade school and begin junior high - you are still hearing Bart whine about Prince.

You go to your first dance - you are still hearing Bart whine about Prince.

You begin high school - you are still hearing Bart whine about Prince.

You go on your first date - you are still hearing Bart whine about Prince.

You get your drivers license - you are still hearing Bart whine about Prince.

You graduate from high school - you are still hearing Bart whine about Prince.

You go off to college - you are still hearing Bart whine about Prince.

You pledge a fraternity/sorority - you are still hearing Bart whine about Prince.

You graduate from college - you are still hearing Bart whine about Prince.

You get into grad school - you are still hearing Bart whine about Prince.

You get your MBA - you are still hearing Bart whine about Prince.

You get your first job - you are still hearing Bart whine about Prince.

Trust me, if there was an IGNORE feature on this website, I'd use it. And I have CERTAINLY asked for one many times.

The man has been whining about Prince for longer than many people here have been alive. I'm sick of it. He doesn't have "opinions".

He has a grudge. He has a vendetta.

I honestly don't care if he's justified in his vendetta or not. I just want him to take it off this website. Nowhere in the description of this site is the purpose defined as "A place for people with vendettas to carry them out".

So there is an opinion for you.

You know, there's an easy solution to your problem with Bart......if you don't like his whining, then just don't read his posts! No one's forcing you to read his posts if they bug you so much. Just ignore them, because I don't know if you're aware of this, but your whining about Bart's post is just as annoying as you consider his whining about Prince.

There's no such thing as an Ignore feature on this website.

Like I said - he's carried on a personal vendetta against Prince for the entirety of this website's life, and longer than that on other websites. I'm tired of it.

If you don't like that, you can ignore ME.

funkyhead said:

Giovanni777 said:

Actually, I second that. Bart most definitely has a place here, and he's a veteran of the Org.

I get what others are saying, but I'll bet that Bart has actually liked some of Prince's more recent stuff. I'm betting he likes at least some of the 'Lotusflow3r' album, likes some of what Prince is doing now, and probably really enjoyed the Jimmy Fallon performance of 'Screwdriver' and 'Bambi'...

Bart is indeed full of criticism most of the time, but he's not the only critical ORGer, and I think he provides balance with his particular brand of criticism.

~G

agreed...without people like Bart this site would be a very creepy,cult like place....hmmm a bit like NPG Music club used to be!! Bart rarely calls it wrong, too harsh sometimes BUT tells it like it is.

Bart never calls it right. All he does is criticize anything and everything - many times without knowledge aforehand. Case in point:

Bart made several criticisms about the guitar solo in the slow version of "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man". It turned out that ALL of his critiques were wrong. Not just a wrong opinion - wrong facts. He said Prince did things in the solo that never happened. He said Prince preened on and on about himself when in fact, Prince said once (at the very end of the solo) "No one can do it like I can". When called out on that, he responded with silence. He can dish it out, but he cannot take it. That's because he's NOT critiqueing Prince - he's waging war against Prince.

Face it, the guy is not interested in anything except waging a personal vendetta against Prince because Prince failed to recognize the awesomeness of Bart's website and (apparently) had it shut down.

I'm all for real criticism of Prince. I didn't like the song choices for his performance at the Billboards show Sunday.

But I am sick and tired of 20+ years of this guy's personal grudge. If he can't let it go, he should be LET go.

funkyhead said:

Giovanni777 said:

Actually, I second that. Bart most definitely has a place here, and he's a veteran of the Org.

I get what others are saying, but I'll bet that Bart has actually liked some of Prince's more recent stuff. I'm betting he likes at least some of the 'Lotusflow3r' album, likes some of what Prince is doing now, and probably really enjoyed the Jimmy Fallon performance of 'Screwdriver' and 'Bambi'...

Bart is indeed full of criticism most of the time, but he's not the only critical ORGer, and I think he provides balance with his particular brand of criticism.

~G

agreed...without people like Bart this site would be a very creepy,cult like place....hmmm a bit like NPG Music club used to be!! Bart rarely calls it wrong, too harsh sometimes BUT tells it like it is.

This place is already a very creepy, cult like place and this is why his cult members want people like me and Bart to go away. Prince should start his own fan site for his cult following but we all know there will be less than 100 members. He can make everyone who joins sign a "Partnership Pact" and they will only be able to kiss his ass.

Sassey said:

funkyhead said:

agreed...without people like Bart this site would be a very creepy,cult like place....hmmm a bit like NPG Music club used to be!! Bart rarely calls it wrong, too harsh sometimes BUT tells it like it is.

This place is already a very creepy, cult like place and this is why his cult members want people like me and Bart to go away. Prince should start his own fan site for his cult following but we all know there will be less than 100 members. He can make everyone who joins sign a "Partnership Pact" and they will only be able to kiss his ass.

LOL. I think there's a great balance on here, total kiss ass 'fams' , big haters and a load in the middle who don't buy the BS but also take a balanced view. It's never dull on here and that why it's a great , vibrant place to visit. Having met orgers from around the world in the past they really are a great bunch.

Thread subject: PRESS RELEASE: PRINCE AND KOBALT MUSIC GROUP PEN PARTNERSHIP PACT

Please Keep messages on-topic

Thanks, l'ange bleu, moderator

SuperSoulFighter said:

No, thread title should be changed, in fact, all threads should have the same title: "Prince does something and fans use it as an excuse 2 argue amongst themselves."

SuperSoulFighter said:

No, thread title should be changed, in fact, all threads should have the same title: "Prince does something and fans use it as an excuse 2 argue amongst themselves."

RodeoSchro said:

journey said:

You know, there's an easy solution to your problem with Bart......if you don't like his whining, then just don't read his posts! No one's forcing you to read his posts if they bug you so much. Just ignore them, because I don't know if you're aware of this, but your whining about Bart's post is just as annoying as you consider his whining about Prince.

There's no such thing as an Ignore feature on this website.

Like I said - he's carried on a personal vendetta against Prince for the entirety of this website's life, and longer than that on other websites. I'm tired of it.

If you don't like that, you can ignore ME.

Great, done. Consider yourself ignored from here on. Now, see how simple that was.

Tremolina said:

Sheesh, could we like stop talking about Bart? This thread is not about him, please quit making it so.
That is annoying.


The topic is Prince has a new label. It seems to be artist friendly, but the question is how label friendly Prince is these days, what he wants to do with it and how much he is willing to invest in it. As usual, real information is scarce. All that is really being said is that Prince wants to use it release his own stuff and stuff he produces for others. Ok, but like what kind of stuff and when? What about just saying what, where, when and how instead of just claiming that Prince is going to "release a slate of new music". And what about "old" music? What about making his independent stuff decently available, what about For You?


These kind of press releases are also annoying.

[Edited 5/22/13 7:18am]

theblueangel said:

funkyhead said:

...Come on, remember the 777 projet or whatever it was..promises of this and that blah and ooohh look it fucked up!...

What in the world is/was "the 777 project"? I consider myself relatively well informed when it comes to Prince (although admittedly my interest has waned quite dramatically in the last few years) but "the 777 project" isn't ringing any bells.

Funkyhead: What were you referring to when you mentioned the "777 project?"

From Kobalt's Website:

(NEW YORK and LONDON) May 9, 2013 -- Willard Ahdritz, Founder and CEO of Kobalt Music Group (Kobalt), today launched Kobalt’s next transparent, interactive client portal, the company’s most radical leap forward to date in technology and design.

The new Kobalt Portal presents a number of unique, transformative features. As a first for the industry, clients can see usage data and royalties earned on YouTube user-generated content and watch the associated video from their portal. Kobalt plans to roll out this unique level of transparency for all key digital service providers globally. Clients can also follow the synch process in real time globally and not only see the incomes generated, but also the videos of their music when licensed for advertising, TV, film trailers, games and other media. Among other key new features are a real-time, customizable global activity feed and action center that notifies clients of key events and items to address in their catalogue.

Other Kobalt clients include Paul McCartney and MPL Communications, Disney Music Group, Max Martin, Dr. Luke, Dave Grohl, Lady Antebellum, Stevie Nicks, No Doubt, Ryan Tedder, Noah Shebib, Thom Yorke, Björk, The Hives, The Lumineers, Richard Ashcroft, Kelly Clarkson, Gotye, Skrillex, Herbie Hancock, Moby, Kid Cudi, Dave Stewart and Joss Stone.

I just have the feeling this is the start of something big.

http://www.kobaltmusic.co...?id=WN1102

so not only will he be releasing new music, but he may move his whole music publishing/rights management to them aswell - could be a new golden age for the artist.

It'll b a lot better than signing with RoCNation or LiveNation which every artist seems 2 b doing now. Even Madonna.....

databank said:

leecaldon said:

databank said:

Oh but they HAVE fulfilled, they're fulfilling at this very moment!

I don't know in the US but fact is that in France record stores are indeed disappearing very quickly, and the records stacks in the stores that sell other things such as books, games and movies are shrinking every year. Also more and more independent acts release their products in digital shape only, because it reduces the costs.

But the most interesting fact is that ALL my friends, and I mean ALL of them and I know a greal deal of people, mostly people aged 25 to 40, switched to digital. U give 'em a CD and the first thing they'll do is to rip it in the computer because the computer is their "player" (they don't even have a CD player anymore outside of the comp's one). How does CD survive in this? It doesn't just because it's not handy. it's just easier to play a file on a computer that's switched on 24/7 than to grab a CD and put it into a player then take it out and put it back in its box and grab another CD and so on: what a HASSLE! Now u can even have ur mobile phone with the music inside connect automatically, wireless, with ur car's music player and launch a song the minute u start the car

As for compression the fast evolution of drive space and download speed will soon make Flac or similar formats replace compressed formats so quality differences won't be an issue.

Last year, for the first time, digital sales in the US were more important than physical sales, and these figures will keep evolving every year to the advantage of digital (it just have been the case for the last 10 years so why would it stop?). Music is a business, what sells is what survives, what doesn't sell dies.

Look around u, if u hang out with people who r less than 45 who still uses CD's? And when they stop selling who's gonna manufacture them? It's like people who couldn't believe CD were gonna replace LP's and cassettes. They did. It's a mere fact of life: technology always wins.

The same is happening with movies: video-renting stores have almost all disappreaded in France and more and more people switch to digital and once again as soon as the compression/download speed question is settled people don't care anymore about having DVD's or Blu-rays and just plug the comp to the big TV screen. The funny thing is that none of my friends believe that physical records or movies have a future but many still can't believe that BOOKS will disappear because book is such a sacred objets and it wasn't possible to enjoy books and comics on a traditional compiter the way we could enjoy music and movies. But now that we got i-Pads and all these other readers believe me they will just as well because once again it's cheaper and more handy. It tends to be a human reflex to stick to what is familiar, to believe that "this can't happen" just because "this" is new and was unthinkable of 20 years earlier, but look at how our lives evolved in the last 50 years: our lifestyle has so very little in common with our grandparents'...

So give or take a few years my bet is:

- By 2020 most record companies will have stopped manufacturing CD's, save a few prestigious, expensive collectors editions.

- By 2025 most studios will have stopped manufacturing DVD's and Blu-Rays, save a few prestigious collectors boxsets.

- By 2035 at most (it will take more time) publishers will have given-up manufacturing paper books, once again save the few pricey deluxe collectors editions.

The future of cultural data is digital. Fact of life. Even the future of the human body is all technology with these nanomechanics things being close to be all over our bodies

Star Trek is at your door, man, and it's GREAT NEWS

My new iMac doesn't even have a CD player!

i know! but they do have a separate usb port cd drive you can buy.

so as long as people still have cd's at home i'm sure they will keep an

option open for people to get those cd's onto their macs.

but it was disconcerting when i first saw that, like the end of an era.

on the other hand, i've only bought 2 physical albums in the last five (!)

years. the rest i just purchase online direct from the bands or at itunes.

still make back ups on cd though

it'll be interesting to see how long Kobalt will remain in bussiness now they've

signed prince.

you know, 'the prince curse' and all where everyone and every company that

works with prince tails off into obscurity or goes bust.

IstenSzek said:

it'll be interesting to see how long Kobalt will remain in bussiness now they've

signed prince.

you know, 'the prince curse' and all where everyone and every company that

works with prince tails off into obscurity or goes bust.

This is fuckin' hysterical....3 days in and the new video link isn't working and Kobal are running around trying ti 'fix the link'...welcome to doing business with the purple one...we hope you enjoy your experience!!..oh and make damn sure you get paid!!

Javi said:

databank said:

Oh but they HAVE fulfilled, they're fulfilling at this very moment!

I don't know in the US but fact is that in France record stores are indeed disappearing very quickly, and the records stacks in the stores that sell other things such as books, games and movies are shrinking every year. Also more and more independent acts release their products in digital shape only, because it reduces the costs.

But the most interesting fact is that ALL my friends, and I mean ALL of them and I know a greal deal of people, mostly people aged 25 to 40, switched to digital. U give 'em a CD and the first thing they'll do is to rip it in the computer because the computer is their "player" (they don't even have a CD player anymore outside of the comp's one). How does CD survive in this? It doesn't just because it's not handy. it's just easier to play a file on a computer that's switched on 24/7 than to grab a CD and put it into a player then take it out and put it back in its box and grab another CD and so on: what a HASSLE! Now u can even have ur mobile phone with the music inside connect automatically, wireless, with ur car's music player and launch a song the minute u start the car

As for compression the fast evolution of drive space and download speed will soon make Flac or similar formats replace compressed formats so quality differences won't be an issue.

Last year, for the first time, digital sales in the US were more important than physical sales, and these figures will keep evolving every year to the advantage of digital (it just have been the case for the last 10 years so why would it stop?). Music is a business, what sells is what survives, what doesn't sell dies.

Look around u, if u hang out with people who r less than 45 who still uses CD's? And when they stop selling who's gonna manufacture them? It's like people who couldn't believe CD were gonna replace LP's and cassettes. They did. It's a mere fact of life: technology always wins.

The same is happening with movies: video-renting stores have almost all disappreaded in France and more and more people switch to digital and once again as soon as the compression/download speed question is settled people don't care anymore about having DVD's or Blu-rays and just plug the comp to the big TV screen. The funny thing is that none of my friends believe that physical records or movies have a future but many still can't believe that BOOKS will disappear because book is such a sacred objets and it wasn't possible to enjoy books and comics on a traditional compiter the way we could enjoy music and movies. But now that we got i-Pads and all these other readers believe me they will just as well because once again it's cheaper and more handy. It tends to be a human reflex to stick to what is familiar, to believe that "this can't happen" just because "this" is new and was unthinkable of 20 years earlier, but look at how our lives evolved in the last 50 years: our lifestyle has so very little in common with our grandparents'...

So give or take a few years my bet is:

- By 2020 most record companies will have stopped manufacturing CD's, save a few prestigious, expensive collectors editions.

- By 2025 most studios will have stopped manufacturing DVD's and Blu-Rays, save a few prestigious collectors boxsets.

- By 2035 at most (it will take more time) publishers will have given-up manufacturing paper books, once again save the few pricey deluxe collectors editions.

The future of cultural data is digital. Fact of life. Even the future of the human body is all technology with these nanomechanics things being close to be all over our bodies

Star Trek is at your door, man, and it's GREAT NEWS

I think we're going to derail the thread if we continue this debate. Also, I see this issue in exactly the opposite way. I don't agree with even the smallest detail of your comment, so no point in continuing the discussion.

As far as predictions go, I don't think many people would have predicted the recent vinyl revival, a return of something so far away from recent technological developements. It seems that I'm not alone in valuing well crafted cultural items as opposed to digital files.

Anyway, let's go back to the new Prince contract!!!

I created a thread about this in GD: http://prince.org/msg/100/397717

Go and fight 4 ur ideas!!!

http://www.startribune.co...94811.html

Posted by: Chris Riemenschneider

Cool he's getting a lot of press re: this partnership, but hard 2 believe this guy got the lyrics incorrect after they've been spelled out on the big screen for months

Bart Van Halen is right about the club shows not selling out. Prince is so out of touch with how to sell a show out in a recession. He could easily lower prices, play mid size venues and make much more profit, but Prince always seems to find a way to screw things up.

Bart is wrong about nobody caring about Prince...lots of people do care, but with poor marketing, and over-inflated ticket prices, people won't go to the shows.

RodeoSchro said:

BartVanHemelen said:

Pur-lease. They had to GIVE AWAY TICKETS.

Prince has not made you happy since approximately 1988.

You know what's sad? That you're hopelessly obsessed with me, project all of your desires on me (I don't wanna work with P, but please inform us once again how your daughter was on stage with him), and yet your first accusation is flat-out wrong.

Sassey said:

I don’t agree “nobody gives a fuck about Prince”

The numbers on his YouTube videos are embarrassing. His records haven't sold any decent numbers in ages (he couldn't even be arsed to release his latest in the US). He did a *club tour* and they struggled to shift the tickets. Go on Twitter and check a Prince-related hashtag and you'll find it's five guys retweeting each other ad infinitum. Lotusflow3r.com was abandoned after mere weeks because they had only a couple of thousand subscribers at best.

All these people who care about Prince: where are they? Why aren't they buying his albums, watching his videos, buying tickets to his shows,...?

Giovanni777 said:

I get what others are saying, but I'll bet that Bart has actually liked some of Prince's more recent stuff. I'm betting he likes at least some of the 'Lotusflow3r' album,

Nope.

likes some of what Prince is doing now,

Nope.

and probably really enjoyed the Jimmy Fallon performance of 'Screwdriver' and 'Bambi'...

Nope.

BartVanHemelen said:

Sassey said:

I don’t agree “nobody gives a fuck about Prince”

The numbers on his YouTube videos are embarrassing. His records haven't sold any decent numbers in ages (he couldn't even be arsed to release his latest in the US). He did a *club tour* and they struggled to shift the tickets. Go on Twitter and check a Prince-related hashtag and you'll find it's five guys retweeting each other ad infinitum. Lotusflow3r.com was abandoned after mere weeks because they had only a couple of thousand subscribers at best.

All these people who care about Prince: where are they? Why aren't they buying his albums, watching his videos, buying tickets to his shows,...?

There are people who bought the 250$ tickets the minute they went on sale...look at the SF DNA lounge shows..i was there..people paid on the black market up to 1000 $ for a ticket...but this was a venue with only 800 people...

But then there are the, i say casual fans, who would not pay so much, not for Prince or anybody...

I hope Prince will learn out of it...but maybe not.......

We all know- except Bart- that he sells out most of his normal priced shows without any problems and his last albums sold well... (3121, musicology, Lousflow3r etc...)

The LA Forum shows with more than 250 000 tickets sold, 21 nights in London with more 420 000 concertgoers, welcome 2 australia was huge success too etc...he is selling many many tickets in just some weeks...not like the other artists where the show is announced one year ahead...

linus4000 said:

BartVanHemelen said:

The numbers on his YouTube videos are embarrassing. His records haven't sold any decent numbers in ages (he couldn't even be arsed to release his latest in the US). He did a *club tour* and they struggled to shift the tickets. Go on Twitter and check a Prince-related hashtag and you'll find it's five guys retweeting each other ad infinitum. Lotusflow3r.com was abandoned after mere weeks because they had only a couple of thousand subscribers at best.

All these people who care about Prince: where are they? Why aren't they buying his albums, watching his videos, buying tickets to his shows,...?

There are people who bought the 250$ tickets the minute they went on sale...look at the SF DNA lounge shows..i was there..people paid on the black market up to 1000 $ for a ticket...but this was a venue with only 800 people...

But then there are the, i say casual fans, who would not pay so much, not for Prince or anybody...

I hope Prince will learn out of it...but maybe not.......

We all know- except Bart- that he sells out most of his normal priced shows without any problems and his last albums sold well... (3121, musicology, Lousflow3r etc...)

The LA Forum shows with more than 250 000 tickets sold, 21 nights in London with more 420 000 concertgoers, welcome 2 australia was huge success too etc...he is selling many many tickets in just some weeks...not like the other artists where the show is announced one year ahead...

BartVanHemelen said:

His records haven't sold any decent numbers in ages (he couldn't even be arsed to release his latest in the US).

Just an observation--I assume the "latest" that Prince "couldn't even be arsed to release in the US" was 20Ten. The last thing he really released that is relevant to a sales discussion was the Lotusflow3r project--which had a ridiculously fragmented release, with different timing and different configurations and a protege artist album and the confused mess that was the website all thrown together to create a commercial mess--but the thing was at least released commercially, which 20Ten wasn't really. A covermount that you're getting free I don't think can really be considered relevant to sales discussions. Kind of like when people tout Musicology tour giveaways in sales discussions or those Planet Earth giveaways. Sure, Billboard counted the Musicology copies and they count streams now, but such things tells us little about what people care enough to buy. I'm not horribly interested in "decent numbers" discussions anyway. Nobody sells anything like what would have been noteworthy in the '80s, anymore (because you don't have to buy a record to hear it on demand, like you had to back then)--and you can add to that the fact that Prince is an aging artist (thus lower sales are expected) who can't ever seem to sync up his promotional efforts and his releases so they happen close to each other (honestly, he usually seems to be promoting tours rather than releases).

Now, saying that Lotusflow3r is more relevant to discussions of sales doesn't mean anything much. I'm the only person I know (outside of folks on the internet) who bought it, and we all know that Target started practically giving away the things within months (and since two of the discs were already free at the original price, clearly people weren't very interested in buying it). Prince doesn't sell much. But numbers like he's sold in the more recent past are far greater than those posted by Kobalt's big success story, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Push the Sky Away. This deal isn't, I don't think, about big sales numbers. It's about Prince having a "flexible" partner that let's him keep his masters but will still manage to orchestrate releases as he wants to release them. I don't know how that will shake out--and when you look at all the ways Cave worked to promote that album, it's much more organized and planned out than Prince seems to like to play things--but I don't think simple sales figures are what this is really about.

Lotusflow3r sold more than 530 000 copies in the US alone...and yes, the price was reduced at a later time, but not at the beginning when it sold more than 400 000 copies...

and i don`t buy a record from an artist or a group, even for a cent, if i don`t like the music to some point....

We all know Prince isn`t selling like in the 80ies or till 92, but what is the point in telling this again and again...

All the big artists from 70ies, 80ies, even now madonna, don`t sell as much as timberlake, katy perry or coldplay...except maybe bon jovi...

Or telling us he does not sell tickets to his shows? Nowadays most shows don`t sell out completely...

here in germany there were some tickets left for beyonce, springsteen etc..but if the concerts are nearly full they make their money and that is the same with his shows...He mada lot out of the W2A tour...

Even some lovesexy shows back then were not sold out...so what?

Just relax and enjoy the music while it is still coming out

[Edited 5/26/13 5:11am]