kewlschool said:

BartVanHemelen said:

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If Jill Jones's record (which was a masterpiece) flew under the radar, lesser folks never had a chance.

If he wanted Jill Jones to succeed, all Prince had to do was tour with her as the opening act.

One has to wonder y P didn't make more "triple threat" tours in order to promote PP artists.

Mazarati and Sheila could have opened for the Parade Tour.

Besides Madhouse, Jill or Taja could have opened for the SOTT tour.

Three O' Clock, Dale and/or Good Question could have opened for the Lovesexy tour.

Mavis and The Time did some Nude tour openings IIRC but it was not systematic when it should have been if u ask me, and Kahoru Kohituimaki could have been the opening in Japan at least.

Same with the D&P tour: Mavis did some openings IIRC but I remember in Paris we had a crappy dance act that had nothing to do with P (Indra, and she was booed!) when P could have promoted TC or Ingrid or Eric.

Same again with Act I and Act II: we had a crappy band called No as the opening in Paris when it could have been Mavis again or Eric again (Carmen did a few in 92 or 93 but from what I understand it was a disaster so P cancelled it, and I think George had too big a band to be profitable as an opening).

It wasn't before 98 that we got a new Triple Threat and that's a pity: touring could indeed have been an awesome way to promote PP artists

BartVanHemelen said:

databank said:

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If Jill Jones's record (which was a masterpiece) flew under the radar, lesser folks never had a chance.

OK maybe I'm nuts. Thing is being a hipster and having worked in the music business in France I know lots of artists who have enjoyed moderate sales and are happy with it. Some people I know sell maybe about 10,000 to 25,000 copies of their albums at most, they tour a lot, they make a decent living (not much more than a 9 to 5 job would get 'em, but at least they make that money playing music all day), they have a lot of recognition from hipsters and dub fans and critics and they don't go and complain that they're not superstars or that they're not selling 1M copies and the independent labels supporting them are fully satisfied with them and the money they make with them.

So it's always hard for me to understand how u can be a failure when u've sold 100,000 copies or more (and I'm quite sure that most PP albums, worldwide, probably sold more than 100,000 due to the simple fact that they benefited from being associated with P even if no one save hispters and Prince fans knew about it). The problem is that expectations are too high the minute a major is involved and every P associate had paid the price of this, from W&L to Jesse and Morris: it's either u're Prince or u're out, and it's a pity if u ask me.

So OK, IDK, maybe Ingrid didn't have the potential of Enigma or Massive Attack, but I'm quite sure it could have sold as much as all these trip-hop bands who florished in the mid 90's and were critical successes despite not achieving superstar status, particularly in the 90's when record sales were at their peak.

databank said:For example u can b assured that Prince will want all the songs he was involved with that were per4med by The Time. But actually even though P arranged and performed it, After Hi' School was written and composed by Dez, so why not Dez? And Morris sang on it so why not Morris? And it was credited to The Time so why not the whole band? And what about Jungle Love, The Bird and Ice Cream Castles? They were after all collaborative efforts between Prince, Morris and Jesse so why should Prince alone have the masters? The whole band even play on the released version on The Bird... Could David Z reclaim a share of the masters for Kiss, considering how much of his work ended-up on the final product? And so on, and so on... Don't get me wrong: I doubt anyone will want to go in a costly legal battle with Prince, who can afford the best attorneys in the industry. fDeluxe and TO7 sure didn't when it came to keeping the old bands' names. But that's just to say that it ain't so simple... + WB, even if they can't keep the masters, may try to make a point of the fact that this will represent a loss, and may ask for a compensation in the hope of creating a jurisprudence...[Edited 3/24/14 8:31am] Man, Prince had all these cats sign heavy contracts that are STILL in effect, I imagine..

And what of 1999: The new masters? I was hoping he was going to do that with the entire catalog!!

mydrawers said:

databank said:For example u can b assured that Prince will want all the songs he was involved with that were per4med by The Time. But actually even though P arranged and performed it, After Hi' School was written and composed by Dez, so why not Dez? And Morris sang on it so why not Morris? And it was credited to The Time so why not the whole band? And what about Jungle Love, The Bird and Ice Cream Castles? They were after all collaborative efforts between Prince, Morris and Jesse so why should Prince alone have the masters? The whole band even play on the released version on The Bird... Could David Z reclaim a share of the masters for Kiss, considering how much of his work ended-up on the final product? And so on, and so on... Don't get me wrong: I doubt anyone will want to go in a costly legal battle with Prince, who can afford the best attorneys in the industry. fDeluxe and TO7 sure didn't when it came to keeping the old bands' names. But that's just to say that it ain't so simple... + WB, even if they can't keep the masters, may try to make a point of the fact that this will represent a loss, and may ask for a compensation in the hope of creating a jurisprudence...[Edited 3/24/14 8:31am] Man, Prince had all these cats sign heavy contracts that are STILL in effect, I imagine..

Huh?

mydrawers said:

And what of 1999: The new masters? I was hoping he was going to do that with the entire catalog!!

Reportedly he did, just didn't release it ^^

databank said:

So it's always hard for me to understand how u can be a failure when u've sold 100,000 copies or more (and I'm quite sure that most PP albums, worldwide, probably sold more than 100,000 due to the simple fact that they benefited from being associated with P even if no one save hispters and Prince fans knew about it).

.

I think you're wildly overestimating those numbers. Most of those releases weren't even competing in the marketplace, if you randomly found a copy of one in a record store it would be amazing. The Family's CD I found in the early 1990s in a discount bin, and at least one record store I visited regularly simply told the customers he knew to be P fans that there was some release on PPR or NPGR coming up. Hell, the dude even had a fan buy a bunch of NPG Gold Nigga CDs at a German or French gig so he could sell them at his store to such fans. But he never even put those out on his shelves, because he knew damn well the things wouldn't sell.

.

Let's not forget that once upon a time Naomi Campbell recorded an album when she was super duper famous and sold a grand total of 19 (nineteen) copies in the first week in the UK. This was massively hyped, and it sold a mere 19 copies.

.

The problem is that expectations are too high the minute a major is involved and every P associate had paid the price of this, from W&L to Jesse and Morris: it's either u're Prince or u're out, and it's a pity if u ask me.

.

It's not even about being on a major, it's simply they're part of that family. IMHO it actively hurts them: they have to battle that association, because for many people the attitude is "I might like P records, but that doesn't mean I'll buy something that sounds quite alike but isn't sung by P". It's almost like P already filled all the P-needs they have.

BartVanHemelen said:

databank said:

So it's always hard for me to understand how u can be a failure when u've sold 100,000 copies or more (and I'm quite sure that most PP albums, worldwide, probably sold more than 100,000 due to the simple fact that they benefited from being associated with P even if no one save hispters and Prince fans knew about it).

.

I think you're wildly overestimating those numbers. Most of those releases weren't even competing in the marketplace, if you randomly found a copy of one in a record store it would be amazing. The Family's CD I found in the early 1990s in a discount bin, and at least one record store I visited regularly simply told the customers he knew to be P fans that there was some release on PPR or NPGR coming up. Hell, the dude even had a fan buy a bunch of NPG Gold Nigga CDs at a German or French gig so he could sell them at his store to such fans. But he never even put those out on his shelves, because he knew damn well the things wouldn't sell.

.

Let's not forget that once upon a time Naomi Campbell recorded an album when she was super duper famous and sold a grand total of 19 (nineteen) copies in the first week in the UK. This was massively hyped, and it sold a mere 19 copies.

.

The problem is that expectations are too high the minute a major is involved and every P associate had paid the price of this, from W&L to Jesse and Morris: it's either u're Prince or u're out, and it's a pity if u ask me.

.

It's not even about being on a major, it's simply they're part of that family. IMHO it actively hurts them: they have to battle that association, because for many people the attitude is "I might like P records, but that doesn't mean I'll buy something that sounds quite alike but isn't sung by P". It's almost like P already filled all the P-needs they have.

U may be right about the figures but my estimation came from Jesse Johnson's Shockadelica, which reportedly sold 400,000. IDK in the US, maybe Jesse was big in the US but in France his albums were in the exact same situation than PP's releases:

- Impossible to find outside of Paris, Lyon and maybe a few other really big French cities.

- Out of the shelves (and often out of print) within a year or 2 of their release.

- Some plain and simple IMPOSSIBLE to find after that, even second hand (I luckily found Shockadelica and most PP albums on CD but I never saw a CD version of his first and third albums, Vanity 6, Mazarati, Vermillion, Time The Motion and Time The Motion Live in my life, even though I spent hundreds of hours roaming records stores in Paris and Lyon between 1991 and 2004).

- Absolutely ZERO radio airplay.

- Absolutely ZERO music videos on TV.

- Very few -if any- articles about the release and only in specialized rock/pop magazines.

- Absolutely NO ONE had ever heard about these records save Prince fans, funk fans and some very well informed hipsters.

Still... 400,000 copies (most in the US and maybe a few in Japan and UK too I guess). So my thought was if Jesse can sell 400,000 of an album no French people had even heard of, maybe PP records were around similar figures. But once again maybe Jesse was much more famous and popular in the US and PP records were just as obscure there than here, this only Americans can tell.