He used to be dismissed as a self-marketing genius along with Madonna, meaning that they were better at calling attention to themselves as they were as making music.

That's the cold truth of contemporary opinions about Prince, what snobs used to say whilst dismissing the music we (mostly) all love today. (Madonna is a different corpora..............I mean story.)

Today, this alleged self-marketing genius doesn't seem to want to lift more than the occasional pinkie to promote himself. He goes out of his way to promote others and seems to consider self-promotion as kind of a sin.

He's been a reluctant self-promoter since he met Larry. I can deal with that..

[Edited 10/9/15 23:12pm]

Aerogram said:

He used to be dismissed as a self-marketing genius along with Madonna, meaning that they were better at calling attention to themselves as they were as making music.

That's the cold truth of contemporary opinions about Prince, what snobs used to say whilst dismissing the music we (mostly) all love today. (Madonna is a different corpora..............I mean story.)

Today, this alleged self-marketing genius doesn't seem to want to lift more than the occasional pinkie to promote himself. He goes out of his way to promote others and seems to consider self-promotion as kind of a sin.

He's been a reluctan self-promoter since he met Larry. I can deal with that..

No he hasn't. He did a lot of self-promotion for Musicology, including a 5 1/2 month tour, multiple TV appearances, videos, and the promotion needed to chart on teh R&B top 40, get grammy nominations and win awards.

In 2009 he went on the tonight show 4 times to promote Lotusflower.

And he certainly promoted his 21 nights at O2.

alandail said:

In 2009 he went on the tonight show 4 times to promote Lotusflower.

No. On his fourth appearance that year he played a song from the Planet Earth album.

I've never heard Prince described as a self-marketing genius. It used to be that marketing was his biggest failing, while the music was his greatest success. Lately the music is outsourced and the marketing essentially non-existent unless you count lazily phoning-in interviews from his bedroom.

alandail said:

Aerogram said:

He used to be dismissed as a self-marketing genius along with Madonna, meaning that they were better at calling attention to themselves as they were as making music.

That's the cold truth of contemporary opinions about Prince, what snobs used to say whilst dismissing the music we (mostly) all love today. (Madonna is a different corpora..............I mean story.)

Today, this alleged self-marketing genius doesn't seem to want to lift more than the occasional pinkie to promote himself. He goes out of his way to promote others and seems to consider self-promotion as kind of a sin.

He's been a reluctant self-promoter since he met Larry. I can deal with that..

No he hasn't. He did a lot of self-promotion for Musicology, including a 5 1/2 month tour, multiple TV appearances, videos, and the promotion needed to chart on teh R&B top 40, get grammy nominations and win awards.

In 2009 he went on the tonight show 4 times to promote Lotusflower.

And he certainly promoted his 21 nights at O2.

Yes but not like he would have done it in his WB days, he was on self-promo hyperdrive. being "Prince the conroversial sexy artist".

funksterr said:

I've never heard Prince described as a self-marketing genius. It used to be that marketing was his biggest failing, while the music was his greatest success. Lately the music is outsourced and the marketing essentially non-existent unless you count lazily phoning-in interviews from his bedroom.

Well I've read him described that way back in the days.

And the music is not "outsourced", that's a complete exageration. Are you always this dramatic? He just let some kid help produce some tracks, whether it was Kirky J. or Josh.

When people say "Oh on HnR he just sings and plays guitar and bass" ,that means he did everything but program the drums. Hardly "outsourced".

To be clear, he used to play this character on stage to promote himself, there was a lot of acting involved in bringing that old sexy dancing thing he used to do. Now it's like he refuses to act except if he's playing himself and other people are produciing. In any case, if he has nothing against self-promotion, then explain why he's doing such minimal self-promotion.

Aerogram said:

funksterr said:

I've never heard Prince described as a self-marketing genius. It used to be that marketing was his biggest failing, while the music was his greatest success. Lately the music is outsourced and the marketing essentially non-existent unless you count lazily phoning-in interviews from his bedroom.

Well I've read him described that way back in the days.

And the music is not "outsourced", that's a complete exageration. Are you always this dramatic? He just let some kid help produce some tracks, whether it was Kirky J. or Josh.

When people say "Oh on HnR he just sings and plays guitar and bass" ,that means he did everything but program the drums. Hardly "outsourced".

I admit I only listened to it one time, but HNR was mostly software-synthesizers. So that means, drums, synth bass, strings, synth lines, pianos, ambience pads, sound effects, etc are probably all Josh.

Also Prince has used more producers over the years than most of us generally remember, and more than likely, a few we've never heard about officially. Still never before has a producer been the primary musician, co-writer of the majority of the tracks, as well as controlling the effects and mix on a 'Prince'-branded album. We've seen similar on 'Paisley Park' and 'NPG' credited productions, but a full Prince album? No. This is a first.

Back to promotion... Prince has ruined so many good albums with unhinged promotional decisions. Poor singles choices, poor image and styling (RU2TJF and AOA anyone?), rushed release schedules, no tour, no interviews, no tv appearances, unskippable tracks, 'I'm bored with that album', 'I'm afraid of that album', 'I no longer control the rights to that album', 'slave', COntract, Warn-A-Brotha, limited release, web-only release, exhorbitant pricing, 'I already made my money'. You name it, Prince has done it. Prince usually does more to sabotoge his albums than he does to support them.