I have both cd's here that i got thru amazon .

I have not listened to them yet ...

djThunderfunk 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?!

I pre-ordered both albums from the WB site. The CDs arrived a couple of days early and the MP3 downloads were available on release day.

databank said:

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.

.

.

so does that mean you would steal a car off a dealer lot but if the guy who actually built it came to you that you would pay for it?

stealing is fuckin stealing. its people like that have ruined the music business. thats why there arent any great record stores anymore. where do you work so i can come take money out of your goddamn pocket.

yes, im a musician, so shit like this pisses me the fuck off!

pre ordered both early september from the Warners website, downloaded the leak on September 26th and got my full downloads from Warners of AOA on the 30th and Plectrum a few days later because they didn't send me that download email on the 30th.

databank said:

.

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?

This is a good idea, but a long way off I think. The world of ISP's is so fragmented and large, to get them all to play the game will be a real struggle.

Take for example where I am (and probably where you are in India too to a large extent) in Zambia. There are no copyright laws here so pirating is as legit as downloading your emails. The ISP I currently use would never agree to increase prices for the sake of passing that increase onto some international (read foreign) company.

But, perhaps at least getting some of the big players in the West to do it may certainly help somewhat, but imagine trying to get territories like Russia (huge pirating nation), China, the Far East, Africa, South America on board... I just dont see it. The internet has no barriers and very little law governing it. ISP's the world over can never be made to sign up to such a scheme, it would have to be voluntary. And places like Zambia, where greed and corruption is king, I just dont see it happening.

The only way artists are really going to get paid is through performing live in the end. The industry is coming full circle. And perhaps that isnt a bad thing. Albums will be given away (or pirated) simply to support the tour. Hopefully that will at least get rid of the no-talent wannabes that are clogging up the airwaves.

savagedreams said:

databank said:

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.

.

.

so does that mean you would steal a car off a dealer lot but if the guy who actually built it came to you that you would pay for it?

stealing is fuckin stealing. its people like that have ruined the music business. thats why there arent any great record stores anymore. where do you work so i can come take money out of your goddamn pocket.

yes, im a musician, so shit like this pisses me the fuck off!

Which part of "dont' waste ur time lecturing me" didn't u understand?

The big difference with stealing a car is that a car is a single object that costs money and, once stolen, can't be sold. When I download a record it's not like a copies that were printed on CD can't be sold, there is a 5% loss maybe for musicians because I could barely afforda mere 5% of what I download. But anyway yes I'd download the car. I'd donload the food, the clothes, everything for that matter. When 3D printers will allow us to manufacture every object we need at home as long as we buy the basic material, the schematics will be for sale online and will be shared on P2P networks. I'll download them. Everybody will. This is not sci-fi this is about 20 years ahead of us if not earlier. The machines work already, they're just waiting for them to be cheaper to start selling them to u.

.

And I'm a writer so the "I'm a musican part" will not make me cry a tear. I'll download books for free, too, when I'll have a tablet, maybe not all of them but most of them.

.

I've spent my whole life working almost for free, because writing doesn't pay off, and I'll keep doing so, like so many other artists (including musicians) that I know. U know what: we live on government money, good taxpayers' money the French government happily redistributes to non-profitable artists in the name of the "cultural exception" policies. Is that stealing, too? (Well I don't do this anymore cuz I'm not in France anymore, but I did for years, now I teach part-time in India, please come and register your kids in my school without paying if u can, I'm just an employee, I don't give a damn!).

.

This isn't the internet's fault: art never paid-off, long before the internet. God bless u if u make money with ur music, u're one of the lucky fews, enjoy it and gimme a break. I don't blame the internet nor the publishers nor anyone for my situation: less than 1% of French' published novelist make a living only with their novels and it was like that long before the internet. 'Nuff said? Facts of life, I deal with it.

.

Peace

The new albums were an automatic first day purchase for me, physical copies. I bought all the official ones since D&P (when I got to know P's music) in their first week, while at the same time catching up with the earlier ones by plundering CD stores all over the city for months on end. This was all before the internet blew up.

I live in Belgium, both CDs were €19,90 at the record store.

[Edited 10/6/14 7:32am]

AOA vinyl is on pre-order with Amazon.

PE vinyl will be purchased as soon as it's available (or I become convinced that it won't be available on vinyl!)

Rebeljuice said:

databank said:

.

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?

This is a good idea, but a long way off I think. The world of ISP's is so fragmented and large, to get them all to play the game will be a real struggle.

Take for example where I am (and probably where you are in India too to a large extent) in Zambia. There are no copyright laws here so pirating is as legit as downloading your emails. The ISP I currently use would never agree to increase prices for the sake of passing that increase onto some international (read foreign) company.

But, perhaps at least getting some of the big players in the West to do it may certainly help somewhat, but imagine trying to get territories like Russia (huge pirating nation), China, the Far East, Africa, South America on board... I just dont see it. The internet has no barriers and very little law governing it. ISP's the world over can never be made to sign up to such a scheme, it would have to be voluntary. And places like Zambia, where greed and corruption is king, I just dont see it happening.

The only way artists are really going to get paid is through performing live in the end. The industry is coming full circle. And perhaps that isnt a bad thing. Albums will be given away (or pirated) simply to support the tour. Hopefully that will at least get rid of the no-talent wannabes that are clogging up the airwaves.

Good points here!

.

Thing is no one in Zambia nor India, I mean in terms of proportions of the population, ever spent a dime on cultural products in the first place. Most of the people here that make 5,000 or 10,000 rupees a month working 50 hours a week with 5 children and their parents at charge won't find neither the time nor the interest nor the money to spend in cultural products, they'll just turn the TV on if they're lucky enough to have one! So there is no real loss in those countries and that's also why governments just let it go unless, like China (filesharing is heavily punished there, but of course direct download can't be controlled more than anywhere else, including Europe and the US), they want to control the internet and/or please international institutions on copyright issues so they can keep fucking up human rights on the other side. I mean why do u think Prince played like once in South America and never put a foot in Africa, the Middle East, Russia or anywhere in Asia save Japan: no money there to be spent on 100 bucks concert tickets! So it doesn't really matter that people download there because they didn't use to buy before they started downloading anyway, they just didn't get the cultural exposure to Western products and didn't care until it became free of charge (for the richest ones, the ones who can afford an internet connection!).

.

Now in developped countries there WAS lots of money made on record sales, but no matter the moralistic sermons like the one I just took above, people won't pay for what they can get for free, that's called human nature, animal nature even. So the global licence, while not being an ideal solution, is the ONLY solution, and in developped countries, where the money used to be made anyway, the internet providers comply with the law. Just think France: about 25 million internet connections. 25x5€/month:125 million euros a month = 1,250 billion euros a year for France alone to redistribute!!!! Make it even 1€/connection/month and I think it'd still be a fair deal!!

.

And yeah of course live per4mances is the way most musicians make their money. All the French musicians I know who make a living with their music make it though live performances. Even the "good" sellers (50,000 copies/album at the very most) consider albums sales to be mere pocket money.

RODSERLING said:

Moreover, Prince will never publish any new album in the future on the physical format. Who would be so crazy to sign him again ?

This is so true. It would seem this is the final nail in the coffin for Prince and his dealings with record companies. Why would anyone sign him when is he going to do absolutely nothing in the way of promotion. It will be interesting to see how much he whines about this one.

who has actually bought the prince albums here

is this some kinda trick question maybe?

anyone who answers "no" will be banned for life?
yes, I'd support that

yes, of course I have the albums. pre-ordered from Amazon.

if it's not a physical relase, I refuse to get it, don't even consider it as part of his discography, has been this way since 300 years and I have no intention to change that

[Edited 10/6/14 7:39am]

I'll add that i KNOW that global licence WILL happen sooner or later because it's the ONLY solution (there is NO WAY, technically speaking, to stop so-called "illegal" downloads), many are fighting for it to happen, have been for years, only labels and studios are reluctant. I know the day it happens musicians will get paid again. I also know that just because I don't download it won't stop everyone else from doing it. So I'm just adding my little nut to the cake and the more people will download for free, the sooner global lice happens, the sonner musicians make money again, do the math!

At first I illegally downloaded mp3's of the new album, as impatient me couldn't really wait for the actual release date. On the release date I bought the two albums on 24 bit WAV format as I like to have the best possible quality. Also I always buy Prince releases (even if they are bad) as I don't want him to stop recording and releasing new music. You never know, his next album might be the masterpiece I have been waiting for since 1984!

Also please realize that Prince hasn't released a record in 5 years. Things change big time in 5 years. Since his last record Jay Z, a top record seller, sold the right to distribute his album to a cell phone company. Why? Because the model of making money by selling records is dead and has been dead unless you are the chosen project of the CONGLOMERATE not just the record label. They have to make money off of you via multiple revenue streams to promote you to the best of their ability. Beyonce, Bieber, Taylor Swift, etc are drivers of multiple revenue streams and you still see Beyonce trying new avenues to sell records but also touring heavily to make money.

If you are Warner bros, you sign back basically your signature legend but he has three albums to release and promote in less than a year and apparently has two more albums of new material and a vault filled with old songs. There isn't enough revenue drivers from Prince to make up that amount of cost. So you use limited funds to reintroduce Prince to the market and please him by releasing TWO albums. However, you keep the big budget cash for the remastered Purple Rain album which you know is a classic, has sold big, will sell big again and has the abilty to make the company's money back. AOA and Plectrum are low budget releases almost like a new artist release.

For those who say Prince should pay for his own promotion he's rich and he could perform and blah blah blah. Let me say there is no way Prince would have made any of his money back by promoting himself. It is not free to play late night TV shows. It just isn't smart business to do that anymore and I have to commend Prince for actually showing restraint and good business sense by not doing that. Clearly, based on Prince's comments about the Purple Rain album, Prince believes the big money should have been spent on his current output but he knows the Purple Rain album will sell and any label will kill to put it out.

You can't bitch about the promotion of two records released at the same time by an artist who hasn't been in the market in 5 years regardless who it is especially when there is no breakout single. Most of the songs are good, great even but still not radio smash hits. He's getting closer to finding his sound that radio can't ignore but he's not there yet. Now one thing Prince COULD do that he won't do is go to every radio morning show and interview and let them play his songs. If you want Prince to have a hit record and a radio single, that's what needs to happen. It won't ever happen because Prince doesn't do that stuff.

I agree with Rodserling, there's no sense singing only one song (from 2 albums) in a promo-live, and giving no sign of life the days after ... Where is Prince today ? Is he invited on any show, is he promoting any song of the album ? Oh yes, Way Back Home is on the internet (officially), but for what ? In France, where I live, almost everybody has already forgotten that Prince has published 2 albums ...

[Edited 10/6/14 7:48am]

Preordered both disks from Amazon and itunes digital.

Will always buy every song / album / whatever.

All the live concert boots and unreleased songs we have means I owe Prince $$$ for the next 69 years.

I want it all, like a new pair of shoes

PANDURITO said:

"I like to evaluate the worth of a product before purchasing"

I see the point here, it's a big advantgage today compared to the old days. back then if you were lucky and took the time you could preview a few short snippets from a few songs from the vinyl album in the store. so in the end I bought thousands of records blindly without any pre-listen, and I would surely have skipped some of them if I had known the album better before purchasing.

that is the only reason I use iTunes: to preview albums. and if I like it, I will order the CD from Amazon

a full illegal download of an entire album is different though, but yeah, I'm also okay with that, if you delete it in case you do not buy it... why not?

Polo1026 said:

Also please realize that Prince hasn't released a record in 5 years. Things change big time in 5 years. Since his last record Jay Z, a top record seller, sold the right to distribute his album to a cell phone company. Why? Because the model of making money by selling records is dead and has been dead unless you are the chosen project of the CONGLOMERATE not just the record label. They have to make money off of you via multiple revenue streams to promote you to the best of their ability. Beyonce, Bieber, Taylor Swift, etc are drivers of multiple revenue streams and you still see Beyonce trying new avenues to sell records but also touring heavily to make money.

If you are Warner bros, you sign back basically your signature legend but he has three albums to release and promote in less than a year and apparently has two more albums of new material and a vault filled with old songs. There isn't enough revenue drivers from Prince to make up that amount of cost. So you use limited funds to reintroduce Prince to the market and please him by releasing TWO albums. However, you keep the big budget cash for the remastered Purple Rain album which you know is a classic, has sold big, will sell big again and has the abilty to make the company's money back. AOA and Plectrum are low budget releases almost like a new artist release.

For those who say Prince should pay for his own promotion he's rich and he could perform and blah blah blah. Let me say there is no way Prince would have made any of his money back by promoting himself. It is not free to play late night TV shows. It just isn't smart business to do that anymore and I have to commend Prince for actually showing restraint and good business sense by not doing that. Clearly, based on Prince's comments about the Purple Rain album, Prince believes the big money should have been spent on his current output but he knows the Purple Rain album will sell and any label will kill to put it out.

You can't bitch about the promotion of two records released at the same time by an artist who hasn't been in the market in 5 years regardless who it is especially when there is no breakout single. Most of the songs are good, great even but still not radio smash hits. He's getting closer to finding his sound that radio can't ignore but he's not there yet. Now one thing Prince COULD do that he won't do is go to every radio morning show and interview and let them play his songs. If you want Prince to have a hit record and a radio single, that's what needs to happen. It won't ever happen because Prince doesn't do that stuff.

Very good analysis and post, thanks! I agree with the bolded part...

RODSERLING said:

Common...How would you expect someone to buy AOA when you weight the packaging the moment you take it in your hand to watch the tracklist ?...Oh well that's true, there is not even a tracklist...

No tracklist

No booklet

No video

No deluxe content

No bonus content

No jewel case

No single on radio

No tv performance

No tour

No promotion made by Prince, in any fucking way.

Even the greatest hits doesn't sell anymore

2/3 of the 3121 sales were made on the first week. We may guess the total sales of AOA in UK will never exceed 10.000 copies. Surely next week it will be out of the top 40, like 3121, and the latter benefited from a lot of promotion.

Prince doesn't promote albums. In fact, he takes steps to make sure he does whatever he can do to hurt sales. Like having a release party where you have to watch a bumbling girl who thinks the band is Prince And The Power Generations ramble on about boring stuff...and sit through nonsense about clothing for an hour before you hear music..

Even when Prince pretends to promote, like he did with Lotus Flow3r, 2 weeks after the album was out, he went back in his shell, no more tv shows, continuing to steal $77 for a website that was awesome at first, and then it went stale...then it crumbled. Then he made fun of his fans by putting 77 tracks on 20Ten on purpose to make fun of the $77 he stole from us!

And despite all that, I still love him, but it hurts to see him fumble and bumble over how to promote a release and he ends up doing more harm than good. There are simple things you can do to promote a release, and he fails at every single one of them over and over.

Warners didn't do him any favors way back when either...there was epic fail after epic fail... releasing albums left and right hoping for something...but not truly developing Prince as a viable legend.... but enough brilliance to keep his career going well from 85-93 in the aftermath of Purple Rain...but when the Purple Rain momentum finally stopped lingering...we have what we have.

I think Prince has more great songs than anyone in history, it's just they are sprinkled over nearly 40 albums, and many of them are in the vault...so silly that so many great songs were left unreleased, while so many lackluster songs...(Jughead, Daddy Pop, Push It Up, etc..) were released...From 1986-1988, those 3 albums alone had more great songs than most other artist's entire career, but they were released too quickly, and together sold less than half of Purple Rain

And AOA and Plect Elect are good albums...would've been much better as one...but Warners and Prince...two bumblers back together again..."Let's make sure these albums don't sell...so we can blame each other over and over again..."

Polo1026 said:

Let me say there is no way Prince would have made any of his money back by promoting himself. It is not free to play late night TV shows.

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.

KingSausage said:

The 77 tracks on 20ten thing was meant to mock fans who wasted $77 on the Lotusflower website? If true, holy shit. That's cold!

Haha, never thought about it like that, might well be true!

Polo1026 said:

Also please realize that Prince hasn't released a record in 5 years. Things change big time in 5 years. Since his last record Jay Z, a top record seller, sold the right to distribute his album to a cell phone company. Why? Because the model of making money by selling records is dead and has been dead unless you are the chosen project of the CONGLOMERATE not just the record label. They have to make money off of you via multiple revenue streams to promote you to the best of their ability. Beyonce, Bieber, Taylor Swift, etc are drivers of multiple revenue streams and you still see Beyonce trying new avenues to sell records but also touring heavily to make money.

If you are Warner bros, you sign back basically your signature legend but he has three albums to release and promote in less than a year and apparently has two more albums of new material and a vault filled with old songs. There isn't enough revenue drivers from Prince to make up that amount of cost. So you use limited funds to reintroduce Prince to the market and please him by releasing TWO albums. However, you keep the big budget cash for the remastered Purple Rain album which you know is a classic, has sold big, will sell big again and has the abilty to make the company's money back. AOA and Plectrum are low budget releases almost like a new artist release.

For those who say Prince should pay for his own promotion he's rich and he could perform and blah blah blah. Let me say there is no way Prince would have made any of his money back by promoting himself. It is not free to play late night TV shows. It just isn't smart business to do that anymore and I have to commend Prince for actually showing restraint and good business sense by not doing that. Clearly, based on Prince's comments about the Purple Rain album, Prince believes the big money should have been spent on his current output but he knows the Purple Rain album will sell and any label will kill to put it out.

You can't bitch about the promotion of two records released at the same time by an artist who hasn't been in the market in 5 years regardless who it is especially when there is no breakout single. Most of the songs are good, great even but still not radio smash hits. He's getting closer to finding his sound that radio can't ignore but he's not there yet. Now one thing Prince COULD do that he won't do is go to every radio morning show and interview and let them play his songs. If you want Prince to have a hit record and a radio single, that's what needs to happen. It won't ever happen because Prince doesn't do that stuff.

Somehow I think the majors have pushed things way too far in terms of selling crap for gold. Also the industry as it was was very unfair. People would get a deal, make several hundred thousand bucks, sometimes a million (see TC) for releasing one single album that took them 4 months to record, wouldn't sell and then they'd fall into oblivion and would be able to live for the rest of their life with that label money (see Jesse? What do u think he's been doing between 1990 and 2010, basically nothing, God bless him, he's been lucky, but don't talk to me about a fair reward for hard work). Was this money well spent? Was this money spent in favor of the most hard-working artists, the most talented? It wasn't, not always at least. How many albums do u have by an artist that did a brilliant work, sold poorly and was abandoned on the sidewalk while the new Boys Band was selling millions of songs written for them by a writing team? I have plenty of such magnificent albums no one ever heard of even though they were on a major. How much room has been left on TV and radio by the majors for the often brilliant work of independent labels? None. Was it fair game that TC Ellis (and believe me I love the dude and his album!) would make a million buck with one album that didn't sell 50,000 while so many talented artists were starving, unable to get a record deal and touring clubs for a living? It wasn't. Was it right that some albums were pushed into selling 10 million copies although there were pre-fabricated crap while some others by vibrant talents were ignored by the very labels that had released them (Terence Trent D'Arby anyone?)? It wasn't. I'll buy Prince's music if he sells it straight to me because I want to encourage this business model. I won't buy it on a major label, I don't have any money to give those people. They used to do a relatively decent job 35 years ago, not always but relatively, now they're just selling music as if it were vacuum cleaners. Prince can have my money. Not WB, not Sony-BMG, not Universal. As I said I bought EVERYTHING Prince released independently through the internet since the very beginning. I can't buy everything by everyone cuz I'm too poor, but he's my favorite artists and I'll always encourage him doing this even though he fucked me over hard with my 77 bucks back in 2009. WB? Non merci. I believe in a new business model. I believe in artists reaching fans by themselves. I also believe that if everyone made a decent living instead of one multimillionaire for 10,000 starving artists it wouldn't be that bad. Don't get me wrong I ain't a communist or something, I just think that the whole industry as it is is unbalanced: too few records get pushed into selling millions and too many are ignored. We could sell a bit more of a lot more and balance the income by a true business model based on talent and merit and not only on marketing. How much talent is there in the Top 10 nowadays, in the Top 100 for that matter? Zero. Thanks to the majors and their radio and TV accomplices. Screw that. It's time artists grow balls and do what Ani DiFrance did 25 years ago, what all enterpreneurs in every other field do: start you own thing, go to your own consumers. I hear people who tell me "writers shouldn't publish their books themselves because it's a scandal they should invest on their own book!". WTF is this, what are we an elite? Have you ever heard a man saying "It's not fair that a man should invest in opening his own store or company because someone else should give him the money, then afterwards own his work?". Only us have been egotic enough to get fucked in that way for too long because a very few of us became rich and everybody dreamt of being one of them. Screw that. The internet gives us the way to reach our audience by ourselves. Let's not be shy, let's have guts, let's do it and if some of us can make a minimum wage income with it, it's fine enough, an artist doesn't need to be a millionaire to ba happy. End of ranting. Thank you.

Pre ordered both CD's, of course.

Bought 'em Oct 1 at my local Walmart. I'd planned to pick 'em up in the next town over at Best Buy for $10, but I payed the extra dollar to save myself the trip.

Well worth it, even though I already had the music from the leak the previous week.