Graycap23 said:

I think u forget the main point.

Prince doesn't care.

And soon neither will the world. Amen.

donnyenglish said:

The artistic process requires a hungry artist and/or traumatic events. Prince has been a megastar for over 30 years. All that he can write about now are love songs, spiritual songs or songs about the music industry because it is hard for him to be passionate about anything else. And those new songs are not going to have the same level of inspiration that an Uptown or Sexuality has because it is just harder to be inspired when you are already a hall of fame artist. I am actually surprised that he has been able to put out the quality of work that he has released the last 20 years given his status. We will never get another Dirty Mind. But, Rainbow Children and AOA are pretty darn good for an artist who has everything. [Edited 12/30/14 13:56pm]

You saved my two typing fingers!

owen said:

Can I contrdict this whole thread by saying Prince got paid $2 for his Coachella performance...

I don't think he lost his commercial clout for bookings and performances, maybe album sales, but for performances he is one of the highest paid musicans for bookings, if not the highest paid.

I don't think he lost his commercial clout for bookings and performances

-------------------

word

[Edited 12/30/14 14:58pm]

Pentacle said:

Graycap23 said:

I think u forget the main point.

Prince doesn't care.

And soon neither will the world. Amen.

Prince can put on a successful tour at the drop of a hat.

feeluupp said:

warning2all said:

feeluupp said:

Can I contrdict this whole thread by saying Prince got paid $2 for his Coachella performance...

I don't think he lost his commercial clout for bookings and performances, maybe album sales, but for performances he is one of the highest paid musicans for bookings, if not the highest paid.

$2 isn't very much.

2 million.

i love the Eagles music...but Don Henley?...nah

not in Skipper's league as a singular artist....

Eagles = top 10 band in music history though...

donnyenglish said:

The artistic process requires a hungry artist and/or traumatic events. Prince has been a megastar for over 30 years. All that he can write about now are love songs, spiritual songs or songs about the music industry because it is hard for him to be passionate about anything else. And those new songs are not going to have the same level of inspiration that an Uptown or Sexuality has because it is just harder to be inspired when you are already a hall of fame artist. I am actually surprised that he has been able to put out the quality of work that he has released the last 20 years given his status. We will never get another Dirty Mind. But, Rainbow Children and AOA are pretty darn good for an artist who has everything. [Edited 12/30/14 13:56pm]

I love this post!

terrig said:

donnyenglish said:

The artistic process requires a hungry artist and/or traumatic events. Prince has been a megastar for over 30 years. All that he can write about now are love songs, spiritual songs or songs about the music industry because it is hard for him to be passionate about anything else. And those new songs are not going to have the same level of inspiration that an Uptown or Sexuality has because it is just harder to be inspired when you are already a hall of fame artist. I am actually surprised that he has been able to put out the quality of work that he has released the last 20 years given his status. We will never get another Dirty Mind. But, Rainbow Children and AOA are pretty darn good for an artist who has everything. [Edited 12/30/14 13:56pm]

I love this post!

I agree 2 an extent. Prince's religion has done more 2 stunt his art than any of the above comments.

Glad the topic has garnered so any positive replies and debate. I agree too that he has stopped giving a fuck and possibly the behaviour alos points to premature senility. Prince is only 56, but he has lived three quarters of his life in the commercial music scene. He was pretty much serious at 14 when he was in Grand Central and decided music was his life.

.

Maybe now with his life's labours achieved and quite a lot to show for it along with a body of some of the finest pop and funk music ever made, in amongst a lot of works of more dubious stature, he has bowed down from the world. He no longer cares about crossing over to the hordes of Bieber, No Direction and Minaj fans in teenage wasteland anymore. He makes music to please the remaining hardcore and himself.

.

I do think he has come close to losing it all several times though, in 1988 after the flop of Lovesexy, 1992 before the big deal, 1996 whenhe had the breakdown and had to buy out of his contract and possibly more recently when a lot of bills were going unpaid (Remember a thread when an orger went to Paisley Park and saw it run down with faded Emancipation era decor, overgrown lawns and flaking paint) and his house being demolished (If you run a sequence on Google earth it disappears between 2005 and 2007). This seems to have ended now with the new albums, which clearly show a revitalised Paisley Park and successful tours must be bringing in loot.

.

Keep it coming guys as I love what I am reading.

owen said:

donnyenglish said:

Graycap23 said:

Prince can put on a successful tour at the drop of a hat.

2024. "Ah, cute, granpa Prince is back in town, with his Purple Rain variety show!"

"Gross, singing all those dirty songs... Doesn't he have a few other ones?"

"Yeah, but they most of them aren't very good."

"Ah, well I don't know then. Let's go see Miley Cyrus. She's cleaned up her act since her third bout of syfilis."

I think Prince doesd inhabit a somewhat unique position of being a cult figure who can enter the mainstream if he chooses.

I do think that Purple Rain tends to distort commercial success somewhat and remember a quote fro either Wendy or Prince to the effect of 'the same people who bought 1999 were the ones who bought ATWIAD'.

It would of course be possible for Prince to spend a great deal of effort promoting each new release and sometimes he does such as Musicology or even Rave to an extent but his passion is in creating the music.

He knows that ultimately, the people who desire his work will receive it and yes, whilst it would great if more new Purple recruits were introduced to the work of Prince, I enjoy his amazing work and accept that other people like whatever music they like. I would also note that there are still some new recruits such as Jesse Jenkins joining us, so all hope is not lost!

The things that can make Prince huge and relevant again is the things he won't do because of that very reason.

.

Who opened for him on the Welcome 2 Australia tour and after? who was he promoting?

If the Time opened for him it would have taken things to another level even for Prince as far as his music output...

Pentacle said:

Graycap23 said:

Prince can put on a successful tour at the drop of a hat.

2024. "Ah, cute, granpa Prince is back in town, with his Purple Rain variety show!"

"Gross, singing all those dirty songs... Doesn't he have a few other ones?"

"Yeah, but they most of them aren't very good."

"Ah, well I don't know then. Let's go see Miley Cyrus. She's cleaned up her act since her third bout of syfilis."

Prince is close to 60 years old.

No friends, no wife, no kids. He has more important issues than the nonsense being stated in this thread.

Peeps are really mad at Prince right now...

if he ever listened to the people on here ..for sure he would

Graycap23 said:

terrig said:

I love this post!

I agree 2 an extent. Prince's religion has done more 2 stunt his art than any of the above comments.

I agree with you about the religion as well, I can't hate on anyones spritual journey, but in Prince's case it's a limiting factor only in that if anything seems to be aging him... it's that. I thought though that Black Sweat was a great compromise for him and he managed to bring the sexy back in a mature adult way without appearing to censor the hotness

[Edited 12/31/14 10:09am]

NME01 said:

What is a crying shame for fans and wider music fans is the sheer lack of quality material available. THAT is where I think some of the 'commercial' debate wrongly stems from. Some fans want Prince to (still) get his dues in this day and age and it's easy to see why Prince gets a lot of blame on this one - old arguments (again): A third to half his official releases are out of print. They are not online. He was such a package - image and sound, so where are the videos to document this? Nothing online in an age where it could not be easier via YouTube / Apple, etc. THAT is a fucking tragedy right there. Add to that he's one of the worlds greatest live performers and always has been since the early 80's. That too is essentially lost for good when he (and the last few Orgers) leave this planet. Awful. Then we get on to the most common complaint - remasters. Adding to my previous point that precious material we DO have mostly sounds bad, some real bad. If Prince was French their government would probably legally force remasters such is their passion and high value of preserving 'the greats'. Final point and another real kick in the nuts for me personally - The Fucking Vault, there's (conservative guess) at least three albums worth of Absolutle Gold there. That also may never see the light of day. Sorry to ramble through what most of us know, but having read these forums for years and rarely participated I wanted to make the point that perhaps the longing for commercial success is a smokescreen for my points above. Prince is still massively underrated (and time is running out, it's sad to say) and it can be infuriating (even though we have not right to dictate his legend) that he is sometimes the one failing to help himself.

That is my main issue as well

Prince is close to 60 years old.

No friends, no wife, no kids. He has more important issues than the nonsense being stated in this thread.

--------------

well damn....never considered that angle.... also, his parents, have passed on...i know its been reported that he wasnt very close with his mother and had an inconsistent relationshp with his pops...but i know from personal experience, that when you lose a parent with whom youve had a dysfunctional relationship with, it can cause some feelings of guilt and and a certain lack of closure that NEVER goes away... we cant say for sure if he's troubled in that regard, but i can certainly empathize with him if he's dealing with that kind of emotional/spiritual pain

Adorecream said:

Just my 2 cents here, but 5 basic reasons, why Prince is not moving product like he used too. These are my opinions and my observations of his post 2000 output. Not every reason here applies to every album released since then, but at least 3 dog each Prince album. Would appreciate your feedback and suggestion though rather than "Your list sux" etc, if it does, why does it.

.

In order

.

5. Bizarre Releasing patterns. Releasing albums to British newspapers, online websites that cost money and to certain markets only. 20 Ten and Planet Earth are the most common examples of this. Making it hard to get and frustrating for fans does not help your case if you want to be respected as a master artist. If anything you are trying to kill your prime market (For Prince, mostly hardly core fans) and it makes look more like a pratt than ever. But at least the latest albums and a few others have been released using traditional channels - stores, downloads.

.

4. Segues, Instrumentals, spoken word excerpts. When producing music for a niche audience and mostly mature fans, we do not need spoken word segues like Affirmation, Darth Vader Voices, silly dub overs, 40 second long musical segues and the like. For goodness sake use quality control Prince. You notice there are no affirmations or 40 second jazz segues on SOTT or 1999! Also with Prince you know the number of quality songs left off an album to make way for a pointless spoken word sequence or 40 seconds of a conversation in Spanish or Pig Latin is frustrating.

.

3. Media gag in general. - Not promoting any released music is bad enough, but suppressing all forms of fan comment, reviews and videos on Youtube is just saying "Please kill off my career now". It also makes him look like a complete douchebag. If Prince put as much energy into making high quality albums, that he did shutting down Youtube videos and trying to gag fan sites like Housequake. Also hsi own media attempts of recent years have been laughable with Lotusflow3r.com and his one or two twitter and Facebook posts.

.

2. Plugging proteges and sexy muses - This is not a new problem with Prince, if its 19, got big tits and squeaks along to a Prince bassline, he will promote it. Forcing some of 3rd eye girl's lesser moments, Bria Valente and Tamar on his own projects does him no favours. Plus Prince you are in your mid 50s, chasing around 18 to 23 year girly girls and given them albums of your rejects and making us buy them is not a good way to keep fans. Even worse is that most of these vanity projects never do that well and seem to have less talent than all of the big boobed sex kitten fluff on the charts now. Seriously, if we had not had 3rd eye girl, we would not have been inflicted with Boytrouble.

Seriously does anyone still know of Tamar, listen to the Bria disc we were forced to buy or care about Andy Allo anymore?

.

1= Intolerance - Making music in the 21st century has meant that nearly anyone can be a star, we have Gays, Arabs, Trannies and all sorts of people making music and becoming stars now. Promoting outdated and hateful ultra Protestant Christianity in music is so passe and left to camp and frightening Christian music of the mid to late 20th century. We don't care that you love Jehovah or hate gays and write songs about Jews having family names. Also turning your back on everything that made you famous, sex, swearing and sheer inventiveness is also affecting your core base of friends. Although Prince is a JW and hardcore Christian, not that many of his fans are and many fans are likely to be liberal and intellectual, not briandead sheeple controlled by money based Christian hate cults.

.

1 = Lack of Promotion - Goes back to reason 5 with the lack of releasing for Planet Earth and 20Ten and also all the new singles have had no release, Prince has to have a gun held to his head just to make a video now. Every other chart artist promotes the heck out of their new songs/albums and Prince sits there twiddling his thumbs. Albums lately have charted highly, but have dropped like lead balloons due to lack of promotion. More of this would help erode the general public image of him as an eccentric weirdo who changed his name to a symbol and fought with his record company. Come on Prince, make the people want it. I noticed the few mates of mine who have heard songs of AOA have usually bought a copy and wonder why they barely knew of it. One even could not believe it was the Purple Rain guy and his 20 somethink album since then.

.

So just my feelings and ideas, nothing new, but something that has occupied my thoughts, now 3 months after its release, the new albums are nearly forgotten.

your right on all of the above pretty much, except the 3rdeyegirl Twiiter account - that worked, especially here in the UK with the #PrinceArmy and the Feb & May gigs