EnDoRpHn said:

Does it occur to any of you that the structure of Prince's contract with Warner Bros. might not give THE RECORD COMPANY little if any incentive to promote the albums?

Prince hates promotion, and has self-sabotaged promotion of any of his releases since like forever.

After 36 years in the business, if promotion was important to him, it would be done properly. Now you would think he has enough money to spend a little himself, or work out a CON-tract where things would be to his liking, but he follows the same pattern

1. Release album

2. Watch it not sell like he wants

3. Complain that the company did not promote it.

4. Repeat Steps 1-3 for the next 20 or so years.

Rebeljuice said:

alandail said:

That's not the size of his fanbase, that's the size of the subset of the fanbase who follows his every move. The actual fanbase is quite a bit larger than that (see the numbers he draws when he does tour). Too many of them have no idea there's anything new.

I know people who know I'm a Prince fan who typically tell me when they hear he has a new release. Not one of them has told me he has anything new out. If not for prince.org I'd still not know. I haven't seen one thing about it that I would have saw if not for here. I haven't seen any displays in any stores, I haven't seen anything on TV, I haven't seen anything on any other site I visit, not even an ad. I've only seen posts on here and sites referenced to from posts on here.

I did see it listed on the iTunes store home page, but only because I went to the page looking for it. I saw the Yahoo show, but only because I saw it mentioned on here.

When I say fanbase I am referring to those that follow him, like a fan does. In other words, the likes of you and me. Those are the fans that bought the albums on or before the day of release. Those that go to his concerts are not neccesarily fans. They just want to see him live and, by all accounts, hear him play Kiss etc. Hence the hits packed shows Prince does these days. Im no fan of Springsteen, but if I heard he was in town and tickets were available, I would go and see him. I still wouldnt buy his albums or follow his fan web pages etc.

It is a lot easier and cheaper to market a live tour. You just have to market it locally wherever you are going. A simple mention on the local radio is often enough to get the not-a-fan-but-loved-purple-rain-crowd to buy tickets. His fans on the other hand jump on planes and scramble to get front row seats, but they wouldnt fill out an arena tour on their own for example.

there is a huge group of people in betweeen the visit prince.org on a regular basis crowd and the go to a prince concert so you can say you saw him crowd. Very little has been done to reach this group. A group that's big enough to send the album to at least gold. And nothing has been done at all to reach any new fans.

This week Prince has the #1 R&B album in the country and the #1 rock album in the country (is this his first #1 rock album). Yet I haven't heard of their being any airplay at all on any format of any of the new music.

Pretty bad.

Compare the figures to what Jack White managed to sell earlier this year (first week sales were about 140, 000 in the US). It's someone like him we should compare Prince's sales with these days (and don't say Jack's a "new" and "hip" artist, because he started ages ago).

http://www.billboard.com/charts/rock-albums

PLECTRUMELECTRUM tops Billboard Top Rock Album Charts

http://www.billboard.com/charts/r-and-b-albums

ART OFFICIAL AGE tops Billboard R&B Albums Chart

Polo1026 said:

What does the sales say? Prince off of really one month of internet based promotion and one month of releasing songs that weren't released to radio accoring to my friend that works for Emmis communications in NY, they were only given Breakfast Can Wait and that was months ago by NPG records not Warners, debuted two records in the top 10 after not releasing a single record in the US since 2009 and not having a 'hit' single since 2004's 'Musicology.' Lady Antebellum, sold 167,000 copies in their first week of sales in 2013 and a year later they sold 74,000. Lady Antebellum is by far a more popular band than Prince is currently with this audience that purchases music and has had more hit songs than Prince. The music industry as a whole has sold 4.35M album units this week. Prince was 70K plus of those sales off of little to no promotion.

Whatever his deal is and whatever the promo budget is no one knows but it's safe to say that it is MUCH smarter to use your money to promote a tour behind the album than to promote the actual album in hopes of some sort of record breaking sales that aren't available. 3rdeyegirl a top 10 slot with 26k record sold. I mean come on people, we are not buying music any more, it isn't happening at all. When the next two years are over and Prince doesn't have a top grossing tour, then you can bash him all you want. But calling him out for not promoting an album that would have generated this much sales anyway is silly. Prince and Warners got exactly what they wanted with this record. They released the singles free, they made sure every online outfit reviewed the albums. It was simple, low budget, promotion that was straightforward and easy to understand. Prince is back with two albums! Simple.

People on here stating that this shows Prince isn't marketable, well Forbes lists him as the top live earnings performer on the planet. Who needs a hit record when you can do that without one? Lady Antebellum and Blake Shelton had commercials, radio spots, singles etc and spent tons of cash for 101k and 74k of record sales. Think about it for a second, this was smart business not a epic failure to sell more records. If Prince spent more money what would have sold? 10k more units? Is that worth 2-5M? I really just don't understand the expectations in this forum of a 56 year old man who is still the greatest performer of his generation. You want him to be what he cannot be not what he failing at attempting to be. The epic failure is us expecting Prince to be the number one artist on the planet and have a Purple Rain like success again. Prince isn't stupid he knows he's not on that level anymore but guess what his catalog is that level and yet we complain when he defends it like a tyrant but it holds breakout monetary value for him.

Looking at this from an ROI perspective, I think you're spot on. Even so, I still think he missed out on at least giving a wider audience a view of his live prowess by not going buckwild on the Yahoo livestream.

Ok Prince, here's what we can do for your album release party:

1: We can have a quick five minute intro, you can come on stage right away, and rip into a ten song set with 4-5 of the strongest songs from the two new albums, and then maybe play 4-5 hits. We can do some great commericals with clips from the party, we can do a few radio spots. We can make a big splash and get the word out there about these albums.

2. We can have a very long boring intro, we can have your girls going over around 25 different outfits, and we eventually will get around to having your co-producer and triangle and cowbell player play some new songs...it will be kind of cool, but it will take a long long time to get to the good part. And then you can come on stage performing some cover songs, and Pretzel Booty Logic, which has had a mixed reaction from fans...

Prince: Let's go with #2...it will make the albums sell...You can't spell Promotion without Prince.

Huh? Contract/Fanatic? What?

bashraka said:

http://www.billboard.com/...ock-albums

PLECTRUMELECTRUM tops Billboard Top Rock Album Charts

http://www.billboard.com/...d-b-albums

ART OFFICIAL AGE tops Billboard R&B Albums Chart

Just received notice of this today...

linus4000 said:

At least Prince could allow warner to send a single to radio and a video to Vevo/ youtube like he did with breakfast can wait... That way some casual people or new fans would get a chance to hear the Record... I am sure prince did not allow themm to do so or they will do it when they announce A tour... But as always it just doesn't make sense [Edited 10/9/14 10:57am]

Prince didn't Allow Warners to send a single to radio? LMAOOOOO ok

Prince Crowns Dual Charts, Scores First Top Rock Albums No. 1

By Amaya Mendizabal, New York | October 09, 2014 4:56 PM EDT

Courtesy Photo

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Prince lands two concurrent chart-topping debuts as Art Official Age crowns Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, while Prince & 3rdEyeGirl's Plectrumelectrum awards the musician his first No. 1 on Top Rock Albums.

Album Review: Prince's First Two Albums in Four Years Are a Mixed Bag

Art Official Age arrives with 51,000 copies sold in the week ending Oct. 5 (according to Nielsen SoundScan), logging Prince his sixth No. 1 on the list, and first in five years. Prince landed his first chart-topping album 30 years ago when the Purple Rain soundtrack reached No. 1 in 1984 and spent 19 weeks atop the list. Art Official Age notches Prince his 15th top 10 on the Billboard 200, where it enters at No. 5.

The rock-driven Plectrumelectrum debuts on at No. 1 Top Rock Albums with 23,000 copies sold, and introduces Prince's all-female backing band, 3rdEyeGirl, to the Billboard charts. The trio (drummer Hannah "Ford" Welton, guitarist Ida Nielsen and guitarist Donna Grantis) was assembled by Prince and first joined him on his Live Out Loud Tour in 2013.

The dual-chart showing is the first time an artist has posted two different No. 1 titles on both lists in the eight-year history of the Top Rock Albums chart. However,Beastie Boys had a simultaneous No. 1 on Top Rock Albums and Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums in 2011, when Hot Sauce Committee Part Two debuted atop both lists.

This article is to ALL the HATERS! That said this whole project wouldn't be PROFOUND or successful 4 or even sell...

Congrats on another notch in the history books

http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/6281321/prince-tops-two-charts-rock-album