Is it me or do Americans expect everthing for nothing? they are very tight with their money and want a lot for it. they have one of the best economies in the world and pay very little for most commodities like gasolaine and food (although they do have to pay health insurance!).

C'mon its the first Prince album for 4+ years, get your money put and coff up!

NB. this isn't aimed at all Americans only the moany tight ones.

[Edited 10/6/14 14:57pm]

Dandroppedadime said:

Is it me or do Americans expect everthing for nothing? they are very tight with their money and want a lot for it. they have one of the best economies in the world and pay very little for most commodities like gasolaine and food (although they do have to pay health insurance!).

C'mon its the first Prince album for 4+ years, get your money put and coff up!

NB. this isn't aimed at all Americans only the moany tight ones.

[Edited 10/6/14 14:57pm]

[Bait snip - luv4u]

Purchased both CD's on there release date from Target. It was worth it. Totally enjoying both of them.

I bought both...Prince is the only artist who I don't mind paying full price for.

I bought them both. I got some assoicated artists cd's while I was at it. I'm surprised that people are making excuses. First week sales are everything. IMO, you aren't much of a fan if you didn't come through for Prince, with a first week purchase. If I were in Prince's shoes, I wouldn't promote this either right now. Turn the page to Purple Rain and hope there will be some carryover for AOA and PE.

Askani said:

Oops, he's European.

Is he??

Didn´t know

Bought both in HMV Dublin on release day here 26th September. Loving them. Will pick up Vinyls too.. Cant wait for the inevitable tour!

I bought AOA. I wish I hadn't heard them ahead of time, and I would have bought them both if I hadn't

bluegangsta said:

Purchased Both.

bluegangsta said:

I've downloaded both of them. I like to evaleuate the worth of a product before purchasing.

I won't be paying $20 each for them. So I'll wait until they're at a more fair price for me.

Where on earth do you live that a CD costs $20?

Askani said:

bluegangsta said:

I've downloaded both of them. I like to evaleuate the worth of a product before purchasing.

I won't be paying $20 each for them. So I'll wait until they're at a more fair price for me.

Where on earth do you live that a CD costs $20?

I always listen to Prince albums now before I purchase them.
I'm glad I did. Neither interest me enough to buy them.
AOA is an improvement over recent albums by Prince,

but that's not saying much.

Askani said:

databank said:

I downloaded both of them "illegally" (well, kinda legally here in India). I bought every track on 3rdeyegirl.com on the day of release, I was a crooked member of lotuscam.com who's still crying on his stolen 77 bucks, and a premium then lifetime member of NPGMC from beginning to end. My policy basically is that if it's a "fans" release directly from to us, I'm in, but if it's a mainstream release then my money isn't needed. If tomorrow opens an online store with regular releases from the vault, I'll buy each of them on the day of release.

.

I hardly buy anymusic anymore anyway. I spent a fortune in records between 1988 and 2004, buying about 200 or 250 cassettes, then between 600 and 700 CD's, an average of 1 album a week was a strict minimum 4 me. I know it wouldn't have been a much ot a fortune for a lawyer or a doctor, but it was a fortune for me given the money I used to make back then (not that I do any more money today, this being said, i'm still below the national minimum wage of a full time French worker). I paid my dues, now I just take what's available since it's available. If I could download my food and clothes too, I'd do it as well.

.

I'm all for global licence. Charge me 5 additional bucks a month on my internet connection, let me install a software that lists what I download and split the money between the artists and labels. This is the only reasonable, viable, realistic way to save the music industry and this is what they'll come to eventually, because no matter what people say, 99% of the people ain't gonna buy what they can get for free if getting it for free doesn't involve any additional effort on top of it, and there's no way, I said NO WAY to stop illegal filesharing and direct download from happening/existing, so what's the point in trying?

.

I usually get lectures here when I admit that but save your fingers 4 I ain't gonna feel guilty or change my ways: moral or not, good or bad, there's no debating reality, and this is reality. This is what I do, this is what all my friends do in both France and India, and I have lots of friends! Don't give me a choice, get the money straight from my internet connection: I'll pay. That's what they did with blank cassettes, videotapes, CD's and CD-roms: a share of the retail price was redistributed between labels, studios and royalties-managing companies. It worked well and I think it's a fair system in the end. Fair or not anyway this is the only system that's gonna work so WTF?!

[Bait snip - luv4u]

Thx luv4u for allowing me to escape whatever it was

I pre-ordered both CDs from Amazon, and I'm enjoying both CDs tremendously even though I wish that Prince would have sung all the leads on PlecElec.

I bought both cds.

Dandroppedadime said:

Polo1026 said:

RODSERLING said:

Of course it's free to play late night tv shows, when your name is Prince. The best proof is that in the last 5 years he played on many tv shows, talk shows, and without a recoring company. When your name is Prince, Madonna or MJ, tv-talk shows, and award events are dying for you to perform. They are ready to nominate you just for that.

Arsenio doubled his usual audience when Prince performed in his show this year (from 4.5 millions to 9 millions !). NEW GIRL multiplied by 8 (eight!) his audience when Prince came onboard.

There is just a lack of good timing in all this releases : the anniversary of PR was in june, it won't probably be released this year, NEW GIRL and HIT AND run tour were on february, etc. And now that he has a release, even 2 releases which is absurd, he isn't showing up anymore.

You would think that this is true but it's not. The fee is reduced based on your ability to draw ratings or how big of a star you are but that's not how it works. TV talk shows have to make money and they make money off of the appearances not just off of advertising revenue. No one shows up to a talk show to talk about their life just because. It's about selling a movie, an album, a TV show etc. Most of the time, the record label or PR dept of the movie studio will pay these fees for stars to appear and for artists to perform. I believe the cost to play the MTV awards was over 150k. Even when your name is Prince this is still a business(no pun intended). Now there maybe times where Prince is actually PAID to appear on a show like Arsenio, who badly needed the ratings but that wouldn't apply to Late Night with Letterman and Kimmel and others that has it's audience built in already regardless of who appears on the show. These performances only add to the budget costs of record labels and to Prince personally if he's showing up and paying out of pocket without the label offsetting the cost. Nothing is free in entertainment, either someone is paying for you or you are paying for yourself.

Do you have proof, or a link for your assertions, please ?

How do you explain every Prince tv performances since 2009 ?

How can you explain the Superbowl half-time show, without a recording company ?!

Can you imagine him one second paying something to perform ?

I can tell you in France for instance, they are constantly fighting to get Prince to perform on TV.

In a french award, Stevie Wonder was repOrtedly paid 200.000 euros to perform a medley on LES VICTOIRES DE LA MUSIQUE, in 2010 IIRC.

They were fighting too to get MJ in the most high-rated shows. When MJ retired in 2005, every tv show in the world were willing to pay a huge amount of money just to get MJ talking 3 words.

There are some stars that, even when they have nothing to promote, are invited because they always drain a high ratings, or make "the buzz".

Some festivals are ready to pay Prince an advance though they couldn't get a return on investment based on ticket sales, just for the prestige of having Prince.

[Edited 10/7/14 4:54am]

mrsquirrel said:

POLO 1026 :

Another thing that contradicts you, is the Pop Idol performance in 2006, the highest rated program at the time.

Prince appeared in the finale of the show, to perform two songs that were never intented to be released on single. Ok, classic Prince.

You really think Universal paid hundred of thousand dollars for an album that weeks after release amounted to only 400.000 copies sold ?

Dr Fink said that Prince gave up the promotion of 3121 because Universal didn't get an advertising spot on Pop Idol for 3the album. You really think Universal paid 500 k dollars to make Prince perform for an album that made only 400 k copies, but were too greedy to not give the same amount for an advertising during the show ?

Doesn't that bug you a little ?

Nevertheless there are some awards where Prince didn't perform. The one where he he gave an award to Gotye (but he seemed in bad shape at the time) and the one in London with the 3RD EG selfie (but the agenda was already booked).

[Edited 10/7/14 5:08am]

[Edited 10/7/14 5:11am]

RODSERLING said:

POLO 1026 :

Another thing that contradicts you, is the Pop Idol performance in 2006, the highest rated program at the time.

Prince appeared in the finale of the show, to perform two songs that were never intented to be released on single. Ok, classic Prince.

You really think Universal paid hundred of thousand dollars for an album that weeks after release amounted to only 400.000 copies sold ?

Dr Fink said that Prince gave up the promotion of 3121 because Universal didn't get an advertising spot on Pop Idol for 3the album. You really think Universal paid 500 k dollars to make Prince perform for an album that made only 400 k copies, but were too greedy to not give the same amount for an advertising during the show ?

Doesn't that bug you a little ?

Nevertheless there are some awards where Prince didn't perform. The one where he he gave an award to Gotye (but he seemed in bad shape at the time) and the one in London with the 3RD EG selfie (but the agenda was already booked).

[Edited 10/7/14 5:08am]

[Edited 10/7/14 5:11am]

Ha good one. Name a Prince album after 1992 that was seriously professionally promoted for over 2 weeks? (silence____________________________________________)

Yep, that's right...not one.

Dr Fink can have his theories about why Prince gave up on 3121...but if you really think about it....

He was spending all his time and energy working as the backing guitarist in Tamar's band. Yes, he has this great follow up to Musicology ready to release, but no, I gotta work so hard with Tamar. I gotta put my heart and soul into Tamar. The Tamar album will be huge, it will sell millions of copies, and I will look like a genius!

Ho-hum, ya know? Instead of releasing the project I put my heart and soul into, I should just shelf it. Yep, no reason to release the Tamar album, no reason to promote 3121. I can blame Universal for 3121 only being a moderate success. Tour? Nope, I'll go to Vegas, and play some little nightclub. I'll only play songs from the new album every so often.

EMANCIPATION and MUSICOLOGY were heavily promoted in the USA.

3121 got worldwide attention.

Universal surely canceled 3121 promotion when Prince refused to tour. But the beginning of the promotion was huge. There were 3 singles and music videos, all charted somewhere in the official charts.

Even Fury the 3rd single was on the top 40 on BBC 2, the biggest radio in UK. (but only made #63 on charts). 3121 needed a worldwide tour : 40 % of total sales are generally due to the publicity generated by a tour.

RODSERLING said:

Polo1026 said:

You would think that this is true but it's not. The fee is reduced based on your ability to draw ratings or how big of a star you are but that's not how it works. TV talk shows have to make money and they make money off of the appearances not just off of advertising revenue. No one shows up to a talk show to talk about their life just because. It's about selling a movie, an album, a TV show etc. Most of the time, the record label or PR dept of the movie studio will pay these fees for stars to appear and for artists to perform. I believe the cost to play the MTV awards was over 150k. Even when your name is Prince this is still a business(no pun intended). Now there maybe times where Prince is actually PAID to appear on a show like Arsenio, who badly needed the ratings but that wouldn't apply to Late Night with Letterman and Kimmel and others that has it's audience built in already regardless of who appears on the show. These performances only add to the budget costs of record labels and to Prince personally if he's showing up and paying out of pocket without the label offsetting the cost. Nothing is free in entertainment, either someone is paying for you or you are paying for yourself.

Do you have proof, or a link for your assertions, please ?

How do you explain every Prince tv performances since 2009 ?

How can you explain the Superbowl half-time show, without a recording company ?!

Can you imagine him one second paying something to perform ?

I can tell you in France for instance, they are constantly fighting to get Prince to perform on TV.

In a french award, Stevie Wonder was repOrtedly paid 200.000 euros to perform a medley on LES VICTOIRES DE LA MUSIQUE, in 2010 IIRC.

They were fighting too to get MJ in the most high-rated shows. When MJ retired in 2005, every tv show in the world were willing to pay a huge amount of money just to get MJ talking 3 words.

There are some stars that, even when they have nothing to promote, are invited because they always drain a high ratings, or make "the buzz".

Some festivals are ready to pay Prince an advance though they couldn't get a return on investment based on ticket sales, just for the prestige of having Prince.

[Edited 10/7/14 4:54am]

A festival or Euro talk shows or concerts are something completely different than US late night talk shows and the Superbowl. You have to understand the superbowl and shows like Letterman, call their own shots regardless who the guests are because people are tuning in to see the host and what he does with the guests and what the guests are selling. Every segment is about selling something, a late night show is a talking billboard for movies, albums, stars, etc. There is no such thing as free TV time to advertise yourself because you're a star. It doesn't work that way, if it did there would be no talk shows. See this article from Forbes on Beyonce's Superbowl performance;

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2013/02/04/beyonce-super-bowl-show-far-from-free/

You'd think the NFL paid a couple million to get the this generations top performer to do the superbowl but they only covered her costs and she still may have lost money in the long run. If the NFL didn't pay Beyonce, how do you figure they paid Prince? Especially when the NFL has a POLICY of not paying superbowl performers. Why would anyone agree to do the superbowl? Becuase the audience watching the superbowl is HUGE. Same reason why you do the same for a late night talk show, the audience is huge and you're exposing yourself to fans that may not know about you. Nothing in entertainment is free, trust me when I tell you that. As far as Prince's 2009 performances goes, he knows the industry standards and conducted business accordingly as anyone else would have. Prince is filthy rich my friend.

Polo1026 said:

RODSERLING said:

Do you have proof, or a link for your assertions, please ?

How do you explain every Prince tv performances since 2009 ?

How can you explain the Superbowl half-time show, without a recording company ?!

Can you imagine him one second paying something to perform ?

I can tell you in France for instance, they are constantly fighting to get Prince to perform on TV.

In a french award, Stevie Wonder was repOrtedly paid 200.000 euros to perform a medley on LES VICTOIRES DE LA MUSIQUE, in 2010 IIRC.

They were fighting too to get MJ in the most high-rated shows. When MJ retired in 2005, every tv show in the world were willing to pay a huge amount of money just to get MJ talking 3 words.

There are some stars that, even when they have nothing to promote, are invited because they always drain a high ratings, or make "the buzz".

Some festivals are ready to pay Prince an advance though they couldn't get a return on investment based on ticket sales, just for the prestige of having Prince.

[Edited 10/7/14 4:54am]

A festival or Euro talk shows or concerts are something completely different than US late night talk shows and the Superbowl. You have to understand the superbowl and shows like Letterman, call their own shots regardless who the guests are because people are tuning in to see the host and what he does with the guests and what the guests are selling. Every segment is about selling something, a late night show is a talking billboard for movies, albums, stars, etc. There is no such thing as free TV time to advertise yourself because you're a star. It doesn't work that way, if it did there would be no talk shows. See this article from Forbes on Beyonce's Superbowl performance;

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2013/02/04/beyonce-super-bowl-show-far-from-free/

You'd think the NFL paid a couple million to get the this generations top performer to do the superbowl but they only covered her costs and she still may have lost money in the long run. If the NFL didn't pay Beyonce, how do you figure they paid Prince? Especially when the NFL has a POLICY of not paying superbowl performers. Why would anyone agree to do the superbowl? Becuase the audience watching the superbowl is HUGE. Same reason why you do the same for a late night talk show, the audience is huge and you're exposing yourself to fans that may not know about you. Nothing in entertainment is free, trust me when I tell you that. As far as Prince's 2009 performances goes, he knows the industry standards and conducted business accordingly as anyone else would have. Prince is filthy rich my friend.

I think yes and no.... Talk shows are no different to any other TV show really. A TV show will pay an actor according to his popularity. In return, an actors popularity will bring in the ratings. ER with George Clooney could sell their show to a network for top dollar. But they also had to pay George Clooney top dollar. George Clooney brings in the ratings, ratings bring in the ad revenue and so on. Talk shows do the same. And whilst you are right that many guests on these shows may have to pay to get a spot, these shows also need a big draw card every now and then. So when a superstar comes on as top billing, they may well pay for that superstar to stay in the ratings game. Afterall, its a war out there.

At the end of the day, Letterman is only as good as the guests he has on. If all he did was get guests on who paid to plug their mediocre album or low budget movie, his ratings would drop like a lead balloon and the network would insist on paying less for the show. So having the big names, even if they have to pay for them sometimes, is critical for these kinds of shows.

Now, whether Prince is regarded as a big ratings draw anymore is another question entirely.

RODSERLING said:

EMANCIPATION and MUSICOLOGY were heavily promoted in the USA.

3121 got worldwide attention.

Universal surely canceled 3121 promotion when Prince refused to tour. But the beginning of the promotion was huge. There were 3 singles and music videos, all charted somewhere in the official charts.

Even Fury the 3rd single was on the top 40 on BBC 2, the biggest radio in UK. (but only made #63 on charts). 3121 needed a worldwide tour : 40 % of total sales are generally due to the publicity generated by a tour.

I remember a huge 3121 promo ad in Lyon's railway station in 2006. I was shocked, for this hadn't happened since the WB years!

Rebeljuice said:

Polo1026 said:

A festival or Euro talk shows or concerts are something completely different than US late night talk shows and the Superbowl. You have to understand the superbowl and shows like Letterman, call their own shots regardless who the guests are because people are tuning in to see the host and what he does with the guests and what the guests are selling. Every segment is about selling something, a late night show is a talking billboard for movies, albums, stars, etc. There is no such thing as free TV time to advertise yourself because you're a star. It doesn't work that way, if it did there would be no talk shows. See this article from Forbes on Beyonce's Superbowl performance;

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2013/02/04/beyonce-super-bowl-show-far-from-free/

You'd think the NFL paid a couple million to get the this generations top performer to do the superbowl but they only covered her costs and she still may have lost money in the long run. If the NFL didn't pay Beyonce, how do you figure they paid Prince? Especially when the NFL has a POLICY of not paying superbowl performers. Why would anyone agree to do the superbowl? Becuase the audience watching the superbowl is HUGE. Same reason why you do the same for a late night talk show, the audience is huge and you're exposing yourself to fans that may not know about you. Nothing in entertainment is free, trust me when I tell you that. As far as Prince's 2009 performances goes, he knows the industry standards and conducted business accordingly as anyone else would have. Prince is filthy rich my friend.

I think yes and no.... Talk shows are no different to any other TV show really. A TV show will pay an actor according to his popularity. In return, an actors popularity will bring in the ratings. ER with George Clooney could sell their show to a network for top dollar. But they also had to pay George Clooney top dollar. George Clooney brings in the ratings, ratings bring in the ad revenue and so on. Talk shows do the same. And whilst you are right that many guests on these shows may have to pay to get a spot, these shows also need a big draw card every now and then. So when a superstar comes on as top billing, they may well pay for that superstar to stay in the ratings game. Afterall, its a war out there.

At the end of the day, Letterman is only as good as the guests he has on. If all he did was get guests on who paid to plug their mediocre album or low budget movie, his ratings would drop like a lead balloon and the network would insist on paying less for the show. So having the big names, even if they have to pay for them sometimes, is critical for these kinds of shows.

Now, whether Prince is regarded as a big ratings draw anymore is another question entirely.

Talk shows and TV shows are vastly different. Tv shows are designed to get ratings and sell commercials. Talk shows are designed to be platforms for stars to sell their products and themselves. If you think Clooney came on Letterman to talk about his latest movie and the Letterman show PAID Clooney to do that then I don't know what to tell you. Letterman for example, makes 50M a year to do his show. The Letterman Show as a business makes CBS 14M in profit. So do the math, 50M for Letterman, how much for the producers, the show band, cameramen, writers, etc. Say the yearly cost to produce the show per year is somewhere around 150M per year. The show generates 14M profit so lets say the show makes 200M to account for taxes. Can you imagine what the cost to produce this show would be if the business model was to pay ANYONE to appear? It couldn't work, it would not work and CBS would not be in the late night talk show business. Now are exceptions made for certain stars who have a hot public story going on?(i.e. like Kim K porn story or Anthony Weiner) Yes. But they aren't shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars to have stars on their show. Talk Shows also don't make the same revenue from commercials because they aren't in prime time.

Polo1026 said:

Rebeljuice said:

I think yes and no.... Talk shows are no different to any other TV show really. A TV show will pay an actor according to his popularity. In return, an actors popularity will bring in the ratings. ER with George Clooney could sell their show to a network for top dollar. But they also had to pay George Clooney top dollar. George Clooney brings in the ratings, ratings bring in the ad revenue and so on. Talk shows do the same. And whilst you are right that many guests on these shows may have to pay to get a spot, these shows also need a big draw card every now and then. So when a superstar comes on as top billing, they may well pay for that superstar to stay in the ratings game. Afterall, its a war out there.

At the end of the day, Letterman is only as good as the guests he has on. If all he did was get guests on who paid to plug their mediocre album or low budget movie, his ratings would drop like a lead balloon and the network would insist on paying less for the show. So having the big names, even if they have to pay for them sometimes, is critical for these kinds of shows.

Now, whether Prince is regarded as a big ratings draw anymore is another question entirely.

Talk shows and TV shows are vastly different. Tv shows are designed to get ratings and sell commercials. Talk shows are designed to be platforms for stars to sell their products and themselves. If you think Clooney came on Letterman to talk about his latest movie and the Letterman show PAID Clooney to do that then I don't know what to tell you. Letterman for example, makes 50M a year to do his show. The Letterman Show as a business makes CBS 14M in profit. So do the math, 50M for Letterman, how much for the producers, the show band, cameramen, writers, etc. Say the yearly cost to produce the show per year is somewhere around 150M per year. The show generates 14M profit so lets say the show makes 200M to account for taxes. Can you imagine what the cost to produce this show would be if the business model was to pay ANYONE to appear? It couldn't work, it would not work and CBS would not be in the late night talk show business. Now are exceptions made for certain stars who have a hot public story going on?(i.e. like Kim K porn story or Anthony Weiner) Yes. But they aren't shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars to have stars on their show. Talk Shows also don't make the same revenue from commercials because they aren't in prime time.

I think you completely misunderstood what Rebeljuice and I said.

I never said every star were paid in the US show.

i never said Prince was paid to perform on the Us SHOW

I just said that Prince, as a freelance artist and a greedy man would have never, never paid one dollar to perform FIXYOURLIFUP on prime time. I quote you many examples when it's clear that Prince never paid anything. Why paying to perform ROCK AND ROLL LOVE AFFAIR for instance ? That's insane, just to think of it.

I even quote you some examples where Prince didn't perform.

I don't know about George Clooney. But as Rebeljuice implied, if a big star must pay to be on Letterman, well he goes to Oprah and get paid, or do the thing for free. I'm sure William Shatner never paid anything to anybody, and that he never moves his big ass unless he's paid. Shatner is a usual guest because he's funny, he's a clown. Everybody knows that he can't sell more than 10 k copies of his books or albums, why making him pay something to appear on TV ? It's even more insane than paying to perform SCREWDRIVER.

Prince is a welcome guest because he's weird, he's secret about his life, is a superstar, and the best performer alive. He always steal the show, no matter what the audience is.

It's a win-win situation. But I'm also sure some star must pay in order to get some attraction. We all agree on this point.

[Edited 10/7/14 7:52am]

Somebody wants a cup of tea?

I bought AOA. Amazon accidentally shipped 2 copies of Plectrum Erectum to a friend, so he's giving me one.

I bought both on iTunes, too. I like to support people who do work I like.