SquirrelMeat said:

alandail said:

I would be shocked if Prince doesnt' get more than enough recurring revenues from his back catalog to more than cover the cost of the studio he owns open.

I would hope, but as he doesn't push his old catalogue into modern revenue streams (youtube etc), then he is reliant on radio royalties alone, and he's not a top spinner in that regard.

I fear a Little Richard senario here, where the personality outstrips the sales and the artist is too clouded to see it.

But we actually don't know if he has investment revenues, right?

The low sales numbers are not good news but not too surprising either. Since Prince has seen the numbers he achieves up close for so many years, being an independent artist, I'd be surprised if he does not have a good idea of what he can live with.

I also think this release was one of the most ripped ever, people vowed to get their copy since they doubted a physical CD and downloads would be available. The !exclusive" strategy backfired badly, and if all physical/digital copies were counted (legal and illegal) plus those that just listen to it via streaming (like me), the numbers would be closer to those achieved by AOA.

Aerogram said:

Its really sad, that he doesnt promote his records anymore....

this will be his lowest selling album. Its already out of germanys top 150 i-tunes charts. As far as i know, it peaked at #63.

On the other hand i think he should leave this kind of music to young artist...it doesn´t fit his age well...and I´m sure, that no matter how much promotion he would do, this record wouldn´t hit (too many psycho - sounds on the most of the tracks for a causal listener/ musicians...

udo said:

I said this in another thread but the Best Buy near me could not even locate HitnRun in their store until I waited around for 30 minutes. The did have 15 copies of AOA though, which have been there since it came out. Maybe all of this will force him to create a fantastic website. Hell, he can have Josh manage that for a while.

iZsaZsa said:

I bought 2 CDs.

KingSausage said:

iZsaZsa said:

I bought 2 CDs.

You never know when you need a second coaster.

anyone want to send me a 20ten "coaster" ...i think its an exc album

Prince primarily cares about his contract independence and his advance. Next the ability to get a physical release in stores. He doesn't care if it sells or not. Physical releases are unlikely to go away, if Prince has a choice. He'd prefer a hit album, but just getting the product in the stores is an achievement that satisfies his ego. I think he sees TIDAL as a low-cost-fcuk-you to WB and expensive production costs for remasters. The fact that HitNRun is a total shitfest as an album probably also satisfies his ego. He thinks he's being nouveau when he releases crap. That's how it has been and that's how it forever shall be....

funksterr said:

Prince primarily cares about his contract independence and his advance. Next the ability to get a physical release in stores. He doesn't care if it sells or not. Physical releases are unlikely to go away, if Prince has a choice. He'd prefer a hit album, but just getting the product in the stores is an achievement that satisfies his ego. I think he sees TIDAL as a low-cost-fcuk-you to WB and expensive production costs for remasters. The fact that HitNRun is a total shitfest as an album probably also satisfies his ego. He thinks he's being nouveau when he releases crap. That's how it has been and that's how it forever shall be....

i agree...as long as he's pre-paid he dont give a hoot

funksterr said:

Prince primarily cares about his contract independence and his advance. Next the ability to get a physical release in stores. He doesn't care if it sells or not. Physical releases are unlikely to go away, if Prince has a choice. He'd prefer a hit album, but just getting the product in the stores is an achievement that satisfies his ego. I think he sees TIDAL as a low-cost-fcuk-you to WB and expensive production costs for remasters. The fact that HitNRun is a total shitfest as an album probably also satisfies his ego. He thinks he's being nouveau when he releases crap. That's how it has been and that's how it forever shall be....

Very few professional sources consider HitNRun a total "shitfest", most have something good to say about the album.

It's mostly here on the Org that people are extra-over-exagerating whatever issues exist with this release.

Aerogram said:

funksterr said:

Prince primarily cares about his contract independence and his advance. Next the ability to get a physical release in stores. He doesn't care if it sells or not. Physical releases are unlikely to go away, if Prince has a choice. He'd prefer a hit album, but just getting the product in the stores is an achievement that satisfies his ego. I think he sees TIDAL as a low-cost-fcuk-you to WB and expensive production costs for remasters. The fact that HitNRun is a total shitfest as an album probably also satisfies his ego. He thinks he's being nouveau when he releases crap. That's how it has been and that's how it forever shall be....

Very few professional sources consider HitNRun a total "shitfest", most have something good to say about the album.

It's mostly here on the Org that people are extra-over-exagerating whatever issues exist with this release.

how much were they paid for their insight?

Aerogram said:

funksterr said:

Prince primarily cares about his contract independence and his advance. Next the ability to get a physical release in stores. He doesn't care if it sells or not. Physical releases are unlikely to go away, if Prince has a choice. He'd prefer a hit album, but just getting the product in the stores is an achievement that satisfies his ego. I think he sees TIDAL as a low-cost-fcuk-you to WB and expensive production costs for remasters. The fact that HitNRun is a total shitfest as an album probably also satisfies his ego. He thinks he's being nouveau when he releases crap. That's how it has been and that's how it forever shall be....

Very few professional sources consider HitNRun a total "shitfest", most have something good to say about the album.

It's mostly here on the Org that people are extra-over-exagerating whatever issues exist with this release.

Meh... I usually agree with you... But HitnRun is deff a miss for me... There are a few great songs, I love 1000 X's & O's and Hardrocklover... But this experimental EDM just doesn't do any justice for PRINCE. To be honest Dance 4 Me sounds better than all those EDM tracks on HitnRun.

feeluupp said:

Aerogram said:

Very few professional sources consider HitNRun a total "shitfest", most have something good to say about the album.

It's mostly here on the Org that people are extra-over-exagerating whatever issues exist with this release.

Meh... I usually agree with you... But HitnRun is deff a miss for me... There are a few great songs, I love 1000 X's & O's and Hardrocklover... But this experimental EDM just doesn't do any justice for PRINCE. To be honest Dance 4 Me sounds better than all those EDM tracks on HitnRun.

You love two songs on it, which makes it not a total shitfest.

Aerogram said:

feeluupp said:

Meh... I usually agree with you... But HitnRun is deff a miss for me... There are a few great songs, I love 1000 X's & O's and Hardrocklover... But this experimental EDM just doesn't do any justice for PRINCE. To be honest Dance 4 Me sounds better than all those EDM tracks on HitnRun.

You love two songs on it, which makes it not a total shitfest.

Never said it was a shitfest... Those EDM tracks just don't sound right for PRINCE...

luvsexy4all said:

Aerogram said:

Very few professional sources consider HitNRun a total "shitfest", most have something good to say about the album.

It's mostly here on the Org that people are extra-over-exagerating whatever issues exist with this release.

how much were they paid for their insight?

I'm sure every time someone gives an ok review it can only be because someone paid them

That way, the world at large makes more sense.

feeluupp said:

Aerogram said:

You love two songs on it, which makes it not a total shitfest.

Never said it was a shitfest... Those EDM tracks just don't sound right for PRINCE...

I know but my comment was in answer to someone who did. So your assessment is at least a little better.

Aerogram said:

funksterr said:

Prince primarily cares about his contract independence and his advance. Next the ability to get a physical release in stores. He doesn't care if it sells or not. Physical releases are unlikely to go away, if Prince has a choice. He'd prefer a hit album, but just getting the product in the stores is an achievement that satisfies his ego. I think he sees TIDAL as a low-cost-fcuk-you to WB and expensive production costs for remasters. The fact that HitNRun is a total shitfest as an album probably also satisfies his ego. He thinks he's being nouveau when he releases crap. That's how it has been and that's how it forever shall be....

Very few professional sources consider HitNRun a total "shitfest", most have something good to say about the album.

It's mostly here on the Org that people are extra-over-exagerating whatever issues exist with this release.

It would be unprofessional for a 'professional source' not to say something positive. That's how the game works. Usually the criticism is delivered in highly muted tones. The fact that some publications delivered whole paragraphs of negative criticism speaks volumes. That's the equivalent of completely trashing the album, no matter how much praise the album received in other parts of the review.

inspireof said:

alandail said:

the issue eveyone is overlooking is the thread title got changed. It started out as something like "trackign HitNRun sales" and the title was changed after the early sales numbers came out. The conclusions people are making are a bit misleading because they first only had partial numbers and the album itself wasn't out for the full week. There also appears to be some confusion with some retailers not displaying the album until today even though it was supposed to be a monday release.

.

EXACTLY!, I live in Minneapolis, called Target, Walmart and Bestbuy on Monday and none of them had even HEARD of the CD nor did they have it instock... Taget told me to call back in a few weeks, walmart didn't have it either and bestbuy said only their Mall of America would carry a few copies...

.

I actually ended up finding it at Barnes & Noble (go figure)

.

SO I'm pretty sure if it had actually been available for sale at the time and places where it was supposed to be it would've sold way more...

.

[Edited 9/19/15 0:54am]

.

that's odd. i bought my copy at the richfield target the day it became available; they had sold out of one pile of the album and were replacing the stack with a fresh pile of copies.

Prince is not on the radio, is not on tv, ergo his albums aren't going to sell Taylor Swift numbers. Whats the surprise? I don't understand your obsession with his sales. He's obviously happy with what he made from the deal that he's moved on to promote Judith's album.. so why care so much about it?

feeluupp said:

Ofcourse music sales have been at an all time low, it's been like that since the evolution of the internet and social media/streaming for the last 10 years... But artists who promote properly still don't sell as low as 10,000 copies for their debut.

lezama said:

Prince is not on the radio, is not on tv, ergo his albums aren't going to sell Taylor Swift numbers. Whats the surprise? I don't understand your obsession with his sales. He's obviously happy with what he made from the deal that he's moved on to promote Judith's album.. so why care so much about it?

feeluupp said:

Ofcourse music sales have been at an all time low, it's been like that since the evolution of the internet and social media/streaming for the last 10 years... But artists who promote properly still don't sell as low as 10,000 copies for their debut.

Strange whenever someone posts sales numbers on PRINCE it's always the ones who react in the "why do you care so much" way, are the real "obsessed" ones...

lezama said:

Prince is not on the radio, is not on tv, ergo his albums aren't going to sell Taylor Swift numbers. Whats the surprise? I don't understand your obsession with his sales. He's obviously happy with what he made from the deal that he's moved on to promote Judith's album.. so why care so much about it?

feeluupp said:

Ofcourse music sales have been at an all time low, it's been like that since the evolution of the internet and social media/streaming for the last 10 years... But artists who promote properly still don't sell as low as 10,000 copies for their debut.

Is this not a PRINCE site? Sharing the latest low sales figures of his recent album is not news?

No I don't care so much, just sharing it...

XxAxX said:

inspireof said:

.

EXACTLY!, I live in Minneapolis, called Target, Walmart and Bestbuy on Monday and none of them had even HEARD of the CD nor did they have it instock... Taget told me to call back in a few weeks, walmart didn't have it either and bestbuy said only their Mall of America would carry a few copies...

.

I actually ended up finding it at Barnes & Noble (go figure)

.

SO I'm pretty sure if it had actually been available for sale at the time and places where it was supposed to be it would've sold way more...

.

[Edited 9/19/15 0:54am]

.

that's odd. i bought my copy at the richfield target the day it became available; they had sold out of one pile of the album and were replacing the stack with a fresh pile of copies.

I called Target Edina.. I guess I shoulda called a different one cuse Edina has the worst customer service....

feeluupp said:

So according to Hits Daily Double 91% of the sales have been calcualted so far and the first week sales of HitnRun at this point are:

#36 HitnRun Prince: 4,481

this makes it his lowest selling debut of all time.

I could be wrong, but I believe these are the sales in the week before the actual physical release. Here's the final Hits Daily Double estimate from that week:

http://hitsdailydouble.com/building_album_chart

You can see that the big release for the week the CD came out (last week) was Lana Del Rey, and that isn't on the list. I think the 8,762 number is based either on early release CDs or on streaming only..

feeluupp said:

alandail said:

the issue eveyone is overlooking is the thread title got changed. It started out as something like "trackign HitNRun sales" and the title was changed after the early sales numbers came out. The conclusions people are making are a bit misleading because they first only had partial numbers and the album itself wasn't out for the full week. There also appears to be some confusion with some retailers not displaying the album until today even though it was supposed to be a monday release.

Yes I changed the title when I saw the numbers... Very low numbers.

The numbers were 91% in, so thats not too "partial".

There was no confusion, PRINCE played his games again making a press release how it will be streamed only on TIDAL than by fans demand a "surprise" release with very little time to promote it. So the numbers are what they are, another full week of sales won't change anything, it still will be his lowest debut and probably his lowest selling album of all time. N.E.W.S only sold 40,000 in the U.S. and so far based on the first week's sales it will take a promotion miracle to even come close to the sales of N.E.W.S.

... and for the people complaining about they don't care about sales... Do you want to wait another 4 years for a proper PRINCE album to be released because he is having a hard time distributing for a physical release when his albums can't push any substansial numbers to make a profit for the other side... That's why sales are crucial at this point of his career, because it will dictate if he's able to release the music he wants when he's already a legacy act.

Changing the thread title is nevertheless intellectually dishonest, shows u were just hoping for low sales to change the title as soon as possible.

In other words, this thread was a pony trap from the beginning. It was never meant to list information about the album's sales but always meant to make a point that sales were low. This is manipulation and could even be considered trolling.

There is no need for the title of sales thread to mention whether they are high or low, particularly when the record's been out for less than a week and depending on how promo goes things could change (not that I think the album's gonna be a hit, just talking in general).

People are intelligent enough to decide for themselves whether the figures they read are low or high.

feeluupp said:

alandail said:

the issue eveyone is overlooking is the thread title got changed. It started out as something like "trackign HitNRun sales" and the title was changed after the early sales numbers came out. The conclusions people are making are a bit misleading because they first only had partial numbers and the album itself wasn't out for the full week. There also appears to be some confusion with some retailers not displaying the album until today even though it was supposed to be a monday release.

... and for the people complaining about they don't care about sales... Do you want to wait another 4 years for a proper PRINCE album to be released because he is having a hard time distributing for a physical release when his albums can't push any substansial numbers to make a profit for the other side... That's why sales are crucial at this point of his career, because it will dictate if he's able to release the music he wants when he's already a legacy act.

While I understand ur fears they are totally disconnected to the realities of the music industry. Lots of artists sell much less than Prince today and still have no trouble getting a distribution deal. John Zorn for example releases an album every 2 months. Buckethead releases an album every week or so. I doubt those 2 artists sell more than 10,000-20,000 copies of each and still they are perfectly able to release and distribute the music, not only digitally but even on CD. So do musician friends of mine who sell about 10,000 copies of their records and are nevertheless able to keep a record deal, tour and pay for studio costs and release an album every year or so. Once a quite famous French artists (with high profile studio and session musicians costs) said that he needed 50,000 copies for his label to renew his contract after each album. And that was 10 years ago when sales were significantly higher.

The mere notion that Prince could ever be unable to release music is ridiculous and comes from people who have no connection to the music industry nor any idea how it works.

For a thing a distributor cannot possibly lose money with an independent deal such as the ones Prince makes anyway, which is why he gets them every time. That's what distributors do: they distribute and take a commission.

Prince weights 300M dollars and makes about a million dollars per live performance, his money comes from there nowadays.

He could release an album every week if he wanted to, have an online shop and do it without a distributor or find a small label that'd be more than happy to have a big gun on its roster.

And as for physical releases y'all have to accept the fact that they'll have disappeared within 10 years save a limited collector's editions market. Unless y'all are old enough to die withing 10 years, u're gonna see a digital music world long before u die so u better get used to it. I know I'm gonna get a lot of denial "this ain't gonna happen" replies but hey, folks, WAKE-UP: it IS happening, now, as we speak

[Edited 9/20/15 8:09am]

The album was initially released as an exclusive on a STREAMING site and y'all are quibbling about sales.

Makes no sense.

You know what numbers I'd like to see? The amount of streams there have been on TIDAL, and how those figures compare to other artists on TIDAL.

funksterr said:

Aerogram said:

Very few professional sources consider HitNRun a total "shitfest", most have something good to say about the album.

It's mostly here on the Org that people are extra-over-exagerating whatever issues exist with this release.

It would be unprofessional for a 'professional source' not to say something positive. That's how the game works. Usually the criticism is delivered in highly muted tones. The fact that some publications delivered whole paragraphs of negative criticism speaks volumes. That's the equivalent of completely trashing the album, no matter how much praise the album received in other parts of the review.

I could write a PhD thesis on reviewing -- this place was pre-pissed about Hit NRun and the Tidal deal, I don't think it's a good place to find balanced views.