This is just an idea that has been floating in my brain for a while. With the success of paid streaming music apps like Beats and others, I wonder how would Prince fair in this marketplace by creating his own app that streams his FULL catalog for a subscription price of 2.99 per month? If you could hear EVERY song Prince has ever recorded, including the vault and new material, for 2.99 per month would you subscribe? My answer would be an emphatic yes. The question is how would Prince fair in this market with an application? Admittedly 2.99 maybe a little low but I believe it's low enough to attract as many of Prince's hardcore fan base as possible. However, that fan base may already have every song they want to hear from bootlegs but there is still a percentage of people that would buy anything Prince related.

<p>

If 500k people bought this application year-round Prince would generate 17.9M in revenue. Depending on the costs of operating the app and taxes, he could clear 2-3M off that number. It doesn't seem like much money for Prince but who is making 2M cash off of music today? Very very few artists and we are talking 2M every year. Of course, the more subscribers the more money he would make but this idea isn't just about Prince, it's about Prince finding the right avenue to release his music and feel good about the compensation and consumption of it, while satiating his rabid fans with a product they can finally be proud to own. Subscription based services are the direct-to-consumer wave of the present and future. While my idea is just a thought, Prince and his team should already be doing research on a possible Prince music application. It solves all of his compensation issues and allows him creative freedom to add content as he records it.

<p>

Why waste time on the Purple Rain remaster when you can digitize everything in the vault and put out a sleek, purple application that has everything on it that fans can have right at their fingertips for a meager price. The product is there, the demand is still there although waning because there has been no promising movement towards the release of the unheard catalog of music. In my opinion, there are a million Prince fans worldwide that would subscribe, it's essentially $35.88 a year. That number of subscribers would generate so much revenue yearly(35.88M to be exact) that not one entity attached to Prince and the creation of the music couldn't be compensated more than fairly. The infrastructure already exists at Paisley Park, Prince would just need to purchase the servers and start digitizing his catalog.

<p>

This is the new path for content distribution and monetization. Prince can do it himself or wait until Apple starts signing artists to deals to release direct to conusmer music through their Beats App and then you'd be signing a record company-ish contract where Apple takes 50% of the profits. Spend the money and do it yourself Prince your fans are waiting. Or at least one fan is.

What do you guys think?

As a fan, I'll throw a wedge of cash at Prince, sure. Hell, I paid $77 for Lotusflow3r.com and 2.99/month is half that price.

But for the average consumer? Nah. That's a hard sell. I pay £7.99/month for Google Play Music which gives me access to their entire catalog, which is something like 20million+ songs and the entire catalogs of most artists you can think of, unless they are quite obscure.

Polo1026 said:

This is just an idea that has been floating in my brain for a while. With the success of paid streaming music apps like Beats and others, I wonder how would Prince fair in this marketplace by creating his own app that streams his FULL catalog for a subscription price of 2.99 per month? If you could hear EVERY song Prince has ever recorded, including the vault and new material, for 2.99 per month would you subscribe? My answer would be an emphatic yes. The question is how would Prince fair in this market with an application? Admittedly 2.99 maybe a little low but I believe it's low enough to attract as many of Prince's hardcore fan base as possible. However, that fan base may already have every song they want to hear from bootlegs but there is still a percentage of people that would buy anything Prince related.

<p>

If 500k people bought this application year-round Prince would generate 17.9M in revenue. Depending on the costs of operating the app and taxes, he could clear 2-3M off that number. It doesn't seem like much money for Prince but who is making 2M cash off of music today? Very very few artists and we are talking 2M every year. Of course, the more subscribers the more money he would make but this idea isn't just about Prince, it's about Prince finding the right avenue to release his music and feel good about the compensation and consumption of it, while satiating his rabid fans with a product they can finally be proud to own. Subscription based services are the direct-to-consumer wave of the present and future. While my idea is just a thought, Prince and his team should already be doing research on a possible Prince music application. It solves all of his compensation issues and allows him creative freedom to add content as he records it.

<p>

Why waste time on the Purple Rain remaster when you can digitize everything in the vault and put out a sleek, purple application that has everything on it that fans can have right at their fingertips for a meager price. The product is there, the demand is still there although waning because there has been no promising movement towards the release of the unheard catalog of music. In my opinion, there are a million Prince fans worldwide that would subscribe, it's essentially $35.88 a year. That number of subscribers would generate so much revenue yearly(35.88M to be exact) that not one entity attached to Prince and the creation of the music couldn't be compensated more than fairly. The infrastructure already exists at Paisley Park, Prince would just need to purchase the servers and start digitizing his catalog.

<p>

This is the new path for content distribution and monetization. Prince can do it himself or wait until Apple starts signing artists to deals to release direct to conusmer music through their Beats App and then you'd be signing a record company-ish contract where Apple takes 50% of the profits. Spend the money and do it yourself Prince your fans are waiting. Or at least one fan is.

What do you guys think?

I agree with every word. Very well-thought out solution to Prince's problems with distribution and compensation. In an ideal world, Prince would do what you described verbatim. I think Prince has a lot of hangups about losing money from people ripping music from the app and other people getting the music for free. Also, pricing the app at $2.99 a month would be temporary at best. For the value of the service, access to his full catalog of material in the vault, released songs and songs from live shows, $10 a month seems more than fair for fans and Prince. Lastly, Prince has proven to be a very bad businessman who often does business in bad faith. He probably would sign a pact through Apple to release his legacy digitally direct to consumer. That way he could let other people take care of the logistics and financial aspects of the business details.

Stranger things have happened, like George Lucas selling off Star Wars, but I doubt we'll see Prince open the vault before we are all dead.

Propose any good business scheme you want, he won't go for it...

bashraka said:

Polo1026 said:

This is just an idea that has been floating in my brain for a while. With the success of paid streaming music apps like Beats and others, I wonder how would Prince fair in this marketplace by creating his own app that streams his FULL catalog for a subscription price of 2.99 per month? If you could hear EVERY song Prince has ever recorded, including the vault and new material, for 2.99 per month would you subscribe? My answer would be an emphatic yes. The question is how would Prince fair in this market with an application? Admittedly 2.99 maybe a little low but I believe it's low enough to attract as many of Prince's hardcore fan base as possible. However, that fan base may already have every song they want to hear from bootlegs but there is still a percentage of people that would buy anything Prince related.

<p>

If 500k people bought this application year-round Prince would generate 17.9M in revenue. Depending on the costs of operating the app and taxes, he could clear 2-3M off that number. It doesn't seem like much money for Prince but who is making 2M cash off of music today? Very very few artists and we are talking 2M every year. Of course, the more subscribers the more money he would make but this idea isn't just about Prince, it's about Prince finding the right avenue to release his music and feel good about the compensation and consumption of it, while satiating his rabid fans with a product they can finally be proud to own. Subscription based services are the direct-to-consumer wave of the present and future. While my idea is just a thought, Prince and his team should already be doing research on a possible Prince music application. It solves all of his compensation issues and allows him creative freedom to add content as he records it.

<p>

Why waste time on the Purple Rain remaster when you can digitize everything in the vault and put out a sleek, purple application that has everything on it that fans can have right at their fingertips for a meager price. The product is there, the demand is still there although waning because there has been no promising movement towards the release of the unheard catalog of music. In my opinion, there are a million Prince fans worldwide that would subscribe, it's essentially $35.88 a year. That number of subscribers would generate so much revenue yearly(35.88M to be exact) that not one entity attached to Prince and the creation of the music couldn't be compensated more than fairly. The infrastructure already exists at Paisley Park, Prince would just need to purchase the servers and start digitizing his catalog.

<p>

This is the new path for content distribution and monetization. Prince can do it himself or wait until Apple starts signing artists to deals to release direct to conusmer music through their Beats App and then you'd be signing a record company-ish contract where Apple takes 50% of the profits. Spend the money and do it yourself Prince your fans are waiting. Or at least one fan is.

What do you guys think?

I agree with every word. Very well-thought out solution to Prince's problems with distribution and compensation. In an ideal world, Prince would do what you described verbatim. I think Prince has a lot of hangups about losing money from people ripping music from the app and other people getting the music for free. Also, pricing the app at $2.99 a month would be temporary at best. For the value of the service, access to his full catalog of material in the vault, released songs and songs from live shows, $10 a month seems more than fair for fans and Prince. Lastly, Prince has proven to be a very bad businessman who often does business in bad faith. He probably would sign a pact through Apple to release his legacy digitally direct to consumer. That way he could let other people take care of the logistics and financial aspects of the business details.

You're probably right about Prince waiting and signing with Apple. I think it's very shortsighted on his part if he does that because it's probably a thousand songs? not 20 million like on google and spotify so the cost of Prince operating it himself is not exorbitant. I could see Prince setting the price at 9.99 but that may chase some people away but I still think the app would do very well. It's a win for the fans and him so the chances are slim it actually happens.

Pentacle said:

Stranger things have happened, like George Lucas selling off Star Wars, but I doubt we'll see Prince open the vault before we are all dead.

Propose any good business scheme you want, he won't go for it...

Probably true. I needed to put this out there, I know his people read this site maybe it starts a discussion, maybe not. It really is an amazing opportunity for him if he's willing to actually do something innovative and pleasing to his fans and consumers. I'm not so sure Prince wants to please fans anymore and that is probably the reason the vault won't be released.

Militant said:

As a fan, I'll throw a wedge of cash at Prince, sure. Hell, I paid $77 for Lotusflow3r.com and 2.99/month is half that price.

But for the average consumer? Nah. That's a hard sell. I pay £7.99/month for Google Play Music which gives me access to their entire catalog, which is something like 20million+ songs and the entire catalogs of most artists you can think of, unless they are quite obscure.

Avg fan probably doesn't buy but hardcore Prince fans absolutely will and that is who he should target with the app. However, I wonder if the appeal of having a legends catalog available to you would attract music aficionados and a more broader audience.

I could see Prince doing a streaming service of some kind, but opening the vault up is a bit too far methinks. He could add an new collection of songs every month to keep people interested, but not all at the same time (plus he has a few religious problems with he older material/cemsoring issues).

Instead of a standalone streaming app, I'd rather see him do a 24/7 audio broadcast that was free but ad-supported. Have his full catalog and a decent amount of live tracks from the vault on shuffle and it'd be pretty cool.

It would reach a generation he's missing out on, turn casual fans into hardcore fans, give him an outlet for new material and, of course, give him a little $$$

Maybe even have a tip jar where, if a certain amount of money's raised, something special will happen.

[Edited 4/17/15 16:07pm]

You know what?

I retract my earlier comment.

I think a $2.99/month subscription app could work.

Tyler, the Creator just recently launched a similar app called "Golf Media"..... (Golf comes from Golf Wang, a play on the words Wolf Gang, part of the name of his group, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All)

It's a similar proposal. It has new music, original content, live streaming, early access to new music, invites to rehearsals and early access to tickets for shows, etc.

And he's charging $4.99/month for it. On my Android device, I can see that the app has already had 10,000+ installs! If we assume that there's a similar number of installs on iOS (iPhone/iPad), then that's 20,000 installs already!

Now, Tyler's fanbase obviously is a lot more tech savvy than Prince's, it's pretty much a guarantee that 100% of his fanbase own a smartphone and are used to paying for apps................................but Prince's fanbase is a lot larger.

P really needs to jump onto this idea, seriously.


I mean, essentially it's NPGMC......but as an app.

do we get a tee shirt?

fool me once, shame on you. fool me 6 or 7 or 8 times, shame on me.

No, because just like all things Prince before, he'll shut it down with no notice whatsoever, and leave you hanging as usual.

No- his "business" schemes always fail.

Militant said:

You know what?

I retract my earlier comment.

I think a $2.99/month subscription app could work.

Tyler, the Creator just recently launched a similar app called "Golf Media"..... (Golf comes from Golf Wang, a play on the words Wolf Gang, part of the name of his group, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All)

It's a similar proposal. It has new music, original content, live streaming, early access to new music, invites to rehearsals and early access to tickets for shows, etc.

And he's charging $4.99/month for it. On my Android device, I can see that the app has already had 10,000+ installs! If we assume that there's a similar number of installs on iOS (iPhone/iPad), then that's 20,000 installs already!

Now, Tyler's fanbase obviously is a lot more tech savvy than Prince's, it's pretty much a guarantee that 100% of his fanbase own a smartphone and are used to paying for apps................................but Prince's fanbase is a lot larger.

P really needs to jump onto this idea, seriously.


I mean, essentially it's NPGMC......but as an app.

NPGMC as an app! Exactlt right! This model is a win for prince and the fans.

1contessa said:

No, because just like all things Prince before, he'll shut it down with no notice whatsoever, and leave you hanging as usual.

Bingo. As usual, it'd be a fun ride while it lasted though. He keeps you on your toes.

1contessa said:

BobGeorge909 said:

1contessa said:

No, because just like all things Prince before, he'll shut it down with no notice whatsoever, and leave you hanging as usual.

This. Prince is piss poor with following through with business commitments. He's a great musician but, imo, a poor business partner. I consume his art, but imma avoid entering into a contract with him.

All part of his image I think. Difficult to pin down. Keeping the fans angry is almost the same as keeping them interested. Definitely more interesting than if he good-guy followed up on everything.

MrSquiggle said:

i'm in! would love that...

Of course its a good idea in principle..

But the only person who matters - won't be IN this

Not yet anyways

After that $77 debacle?

Not a chance.

in theory,it's a good idea.The question is,would Prince follow through with it? He seems to get bored really quickly.He'll launch it one day,fans will sign up,then six months later,he will shut it down.

Polo1026 said:

This is just an idea that has been floating in my brain for a while. With the success of paid streaming music apps like Beats and others, I wonder how would Prince fair in this marketplace by creating his own app that streams his FULL catalog for a subscription price of 2.99 per month? If you could hear EVERY song Prince has ever recorded, including the vault and new material, for 2.99 per month would you subscribe?

.

Pointless dreaming. Ain't gonna happen, especially not for that price.

.

If 500k people bought this application

.

Bwahahaha.

.

It doesn't seem like much money for Prince but who is making 2M cash off of music today?

.

He ain't gonna settle for that kind of money.

.

In my opinion, there are a million Prince fans worldwide that would subscribe

.

Utter nonsense.

Have to agree with Bart on this. 500K? His last 2 albums still haven't sold 100,000 combined yet right? Yea, it would be vault material but I believe just a little bit more people would buy that than the past 2 albums. The demand isn't there as much as it is amongst us here, which is in the minority sadly.

are you in?

.

Nope.

I do not use an 'app' to do whatever.

I use tools that use open standards withoud drm and otehr restrictions where possible.

Also I do not carry a `smart` foon.