Pentacle said:

this is hardly a low point.....BTW look what metallica is doing with THEIR remasters.....breathtaking

Bohemian67 said:

Pentacle said:

He's treated with reverence for his '80s material and the fact that he is great on his instruments.

Some girls treat him with reverence because they want to sleep with him.

'He's treated with reverence for his '80s material and the fact that he is great on his instruments.'

-

I notice that you omit the word vocal and lyric writing. I know some guys who don't like Prince because of the vocals and as a guy, I might also feel uncomfortable listening to some of the things Prince sings. However, if you can still sell out concerts and create music that people buy 30 years on from your prime, then there's no point in re-inventing the wheel. Reverence was born and it was so electric that it has turned into legend which still lives on in the minds of people today, 30 years later. With or without Youtube.

-

'Some girls treat him with reverence because they want to sleep with him.'

-

Uh….... 'Well Mr Nelson listening 2 joy in repetition on Tidal crying just like I did in Oakland ur amazing. Love Me' . @Princefam4life profile - A mother of three and married for 24 years. Can you imagine how many men Prince is making happy because he has got their wives all horny again? Guys got their noisy Plectrum Electrum, let the women enjoy their HitnRun Revelation.

-Furthermore, I'm afraid I have to correct you. 'Some girls' is a gross understatement. Prince is probably sleeping with 100K girls tonight (nattevingerwerk en metaphorically speaking). We are all going to share him, willingly and lovingly. And guess what Pentacle? You are not invited.

[Edited 3/15/16 4:08am]

Ur responses to Pentacle are cool but I venture also to suggest: Don't feed the . 'cause that's where it's at!

Pentacle said:

jayspud said:

Acccording to that logic Prince didn't really rate ATWIAD as there was virtually no promotion for it.

You seem also so have skipped over Musicology which was promoted alongside a huge Multi-Million pound tour.

ATWIAD, as far as I understand it this was an ill-thought out 'PR'-idea (although it's interesting to try something like that when you're on top of the world; not, say, right now...)

Musicology Tour: you mean that greatest hits tour with the addition of Life Of The Party and Musicology? Yeah, great

Yea-ass! Forgive--I must say that it was a mighty cool video that he put to the "Musicology" song, btw. With a brand new do', for an Old School joint revue! Can you say "Aouah!"

I don't want to offend anyone but Prince belongs to the 80s. I'm sure many of his fans are already 40+ years old. My mom loves him but she probably doesn't even know what TIDAL is.

If he wants to sell his music to 18 years old it's ok.

But his albums will be unnoticed by most of his supporters until he starts promoting properly.

The Dance said:

Germanegro said:

The Dance said:

Think about it....if Prince released a proper live album of this tour with some decent cover art, an interesting tracklist without unnecessary edits, and a nice DVD of some show other than what would be on the CD and maybe an anniversary, remastered Purple Rain album (and his other masterpieces from the 80s) then he´d definitely be making a lot of extra money and be all over the news.

To respond to the speculation of Prince's waning popularity, we all know that Prince remains in the news as a worthy subject on many counts; this is why some who are concerned are typing away on the Org. Among us, you may like all the media-publicity gems and fan blurbs that remind us of his relevance; or like to incite general unrest; or you have complaints about the guy that you must vent and he's not returning your calls. Prince continues to publish music that some portion of the great music-buying market enjoys, of volume enough to keep him producing what his hands can craft, since he keeps working the next project and looking for the next market, obviously. Physical product sales of music are down as today's general market trend, and to be true, Prince's sales percentage decline among the decades of his career is also in part due to the "age of the act." I think it's difficult to guage the amount of his sales' downturn as due to one effect or the other without applying some economics calculus and consumer surveys. He's an ageing artist who has seen his heyday, sure, but quite talented with ideas to spare and a new highlight track ready to burst from a speaker and capture one's fancy at any moment thus far. You can call me a kool-aid-drinker on this point but it's cited as a reflection on my rate of enjoyment of his songs of the past decade-and-a-half.
>
As pure consumers, people who demand an ever-growing list of varied and expansive back-catalog output from Prince may fail to realize one thing. He takes the professional-activist dimension of his career as seriously as his craft, illustrated in his willingness to change his stage name to the symbol as a prop in his fight for the right to negotiate for masters ownership. He absorbed great ridicule and a diminished commercial profile as a result, but he obtained his goal. It wasn't a selfish act--the impact extends beyond his own commercial desires--and today he wishes to improve the livelihood of his contemporaries and future artists in the dimension of sales remuneration. He's made plenty of statments on his desire to impact major labels' payment of percentages to the talent that fuels their commerce (selling their intellectual/artistic product) without which the industry would cease, or as radio has done in many changes in broadcast programming, shift their A&R/publishing focus to documenting other audio recitations and news.
>
Prince has forgone the typical money-grab of fully embracing the enticements of Warner Bros.'s contract options. He has honored some basic elements of the deal, but is looking to leverage WB's desire to profit from his back-catalog of 1978 to 1996 as a deal-maker for being paid a bigger sales perentage that better reflects his intellectual investment in the material's creation and brings a more equitable share of profit to an artist-creator in the advertising-recording-distribution partnership. He's trying to be a real mover-and-shaker of the busniness model in the industry's evolution and it's a tough enterprise! His takedown of videos from Youtube and removing music within his copyright control from everywhere that he does not have an exclusive agreement increases his leverage in the dealmaking. The lockdown of this desired vintage product makes the dealmaking harder for WB to circumvent. One result is Prince's diminished profile among potential audiences, which sucks! I miss seeing whatever of Prince's stuff I would have found in the past in the same way today I can find every other artist's material that I have a mind to view on the Internet. I sample that stuff, but it is marketing for the material that I will pay for (I am not into jacking the artists)! I have the feeling, however, that his career emphasis is geared more toward improving the potential of all recording artists--musicians, singers, bands, etc--to earn a better living which in the long run is a bigger slice of the pie than, say, getting those remasters out to the people; having highly-renowned old creations circulating on the 'net to make more buzz; or building sales numbers for "the firm," with artists' earnings remaining unchanged. The same dramatically smaller earnings compared to their industry partners, providing less resources and motivation to make further creations, pay rent, mortgage, fuel, feed babies, and other stuff they need to have to have a life--commensurate with their skills and productivity.
>
I'll conclude that however you view the circumstances there is certainly a madness to Prince's method, and he is sacrificing the day's popularity to stand up for a good cause. If you're really not into creators of entertainment and art then you can beg to differ.

Really great and thoughtful post. Thank you

TKO said:

I don't want to offend anyone but Prince belongs to the 80s. I'm sure many of his fans are already 40+ years old. My mom loves him but she probably doesn't even know what TIDAL is.

If he wants to sell his music to 18 years old it's ok.

But his albums will be unnoticed by most of his supporters until he starts promoting properly.

Just out of curiousity how many Prince supporters don't know about HITnRun Phases 1 & 2?

Anyone who follows him on Twitter certainly knows, thats 140,000. Anyone who has the ability to use google to see what Prince is up to knows. Is someone really a supporter if they have no idea what he is up to and what he is creating? They may be someone who liked Prince from an earlier time but I think it would be fair to say that if you are a supporter of an artist you might from time to time actually check out what they are up to.

NorthC said:

Pentacle said:

I'm Tony M.'s mother.

C'mon, you can make better jokes than that.

Yes but to quote of my favorite Dutch artists: "Ik heb er de kracht niet meer voor..."

Things were at a low point in 2001/2002/2003. Most of what he was doing was Internet-based (NPGMC/TCI/Slaughterhouse) or jazzy (ONA/TRC/NEWS/Xpectation/CNOTE).

2004 was his big "comeback", and he started playing nice with the media again.

Pentacle said:

Se7en said:

Things were at a low point in 2001/2002/2003. Most of what he was doing was Internet-based (NPGMC/TCI/Slaughterhouse) or jazzy (ONA/TRC/NEWS/Xpectation/CNOTE).

2004 was his big "comeback", and he started playing nice with the media again.

It's very true that Prince retreated from the mainstream for those years, he felt very much like an cult independent artist. Then as you say you have the huge Musicology project, 3121 and the Superbowl.

thedance said:

Imagine this kind of a remastered "Sign O' The Times" Deluxe boxset:


[img:$uid]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v67/ecnirp2004/Sign%20O%20The%20Times%20-%20Deluxe%202013_zps3wnetjma.jpg[/img:$uid]

^ that would be cool don't you think?

That would be lovely...too bad we'll never get it.

SoulAlive said:

thedance said:

Imagine this kind of a remastered "Sign O' The Times" Deluxe boxset:


[img:$uid]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v67/ecnirp2004/Sign%20O%20The%20Times%20-%20Deluxe%202013_zps3wnetjma.jpg[/img:$uid]

^ that would be cool don't you think?

This looks nice! But honestly,I have stopped waiting for Prince remasters.It's not gonna happen and I'm tired of waiting for 'em.

How sad. To resign yourself to knowing that your so-called hero is never going to give his fans what they want. :smh: ((((hug))))

yeah it's sad...but thankfully,most of my other favorite artists and bands have released box sets and remasters I got more than enough great stuff to enjoy!

Germanegro said:

To respond to the speculation of Prince's waning popularity, we all know that Prince remains in the news as a worthy subject on many counts; ... or you have complaints about the guy that you must vent and he's not returning your calls.

Fortunately, I have Daddy Cool wrapped up in my back pocket. All 4G. So no need to call.

Physical product sales of music are down as today's general market trend... etc., You can call me a kool-aid-drinker on this point but it's cited as a reflection on my rate of enjoyment of his songs of the past decade-and-a-half.

Completely true. I'll take a kool-aid with you on that one.

....It wasn't a selfish act--the impact extends beyond his own commercial desires--

I believe this too. Now I get it. If the music is put out there on Youtube or remasters, and 'The Dance's' further desires are produced then Warner earns more than their fair share. This is really not about money it's about PRINCIPLE which is so much more important than money. Priceless actually, because Prince could still earn on it. He doesn't need the money. If he was greedy, he'd just go for it and 'sell his soul' knowingly this time round. I suppose this means that he has to stick to the same stance with the latest material because Apple & Google, two of the biggest tax dodgers on the planet, and others, all want a piece of the pie too. While the latter are all drowning in cash piled high in in dirty tax havens like Delaware, NL, Singapore, Ireland etc. deliberately ignorant to aspiring young artists, who struggle to earn a living. The inequality of the power game is despicable.

Prince has forgone the typical money-grab of fully embracing the enticements of Warner Bros.'s contract options. He has honored some basic elements of the deal, but is looking to leverage WB's desire to profit from his back-catalog of 1978 to 1996 as a deal-maker for being paid a bigger sales perentage that better reflects his intellectual investment in the material's creation and brings a more equitable share of profit to an artist-creator in the advertising-recording-distribution partnership.

That is good to hear! I didn't quite understand what Warner had to do with AOA. What a pity he is not free from these .......... yet. I'd say Prince. Stick to your guns. In this matter principle is still more important than the fans. Keep giving us new music, that's all we need. 'Are you infected with the same disease, Of lust, gluttoney and greed? Then watch the ones With the biggest smiles, The idle jabbers... Cause they're the backstabbers...' Don't let these corporate War of the Worlds machines play you.

I sample that stuff, but it is marketing for the material that I will pay for (I am not into jacking the artists)!

Join the club.

I have the feeling, however, that his career emphasis is geared more toward improving the potential of all recording artists--musicians, singers, bands, etc--to earn a better living which in the long run is a bigger slice of the pie than, say, getting those remasters out to the people;

Well that is an honourable cause and I'm sure it helps him Shakedown and sleep better 'At night.' I don't think there's madness at all in Prince's method. Art never dies and he's creating his own history, not only for himself but for artists worldwide, who might one day in the future be appreciated for what they give to the world, instead of being used, abused and pimped so some 'dirty fat banker' or Warner shareholder who can add some stash to his/her dividends. It's a dirty world out there.

The first problem is of course yes, Prince might not be getting the exposure he deserves in being heard by the youth. This is something I have to think about more as I have mixed feelings. I also believe in saving the best to last, and there is sometimes a lot to be learnt by not getting what you want. For example, imagine what the youth will get one day if things 'get better with time' and they have a treasure trove of delights upon which to feast. From bread and butter to the Garden of Eden in terms of music.

The second problem is one half the world is fighting politically, and it runs parallel to this artisitic venture too. How to create a uniform, fair, equal global tax system in CIT (corporate income tax) to avoid BEPS (base erosion profit shifting), by altering Transfer Pricing rules, enforcing Country-by-Country reporting so that these Corporate giants pay their fair share. A masssive cultural change but it would stimulate a fairer world and I believe fairer payment to artists by these blood sucking leeches because of the shift in the emphasis on 'how much profit' rather to sustainabiltiy.

The conflict lies in that while some artists follow Prince's methodology and are prepared to fight for artists' rights, some don't, so it allows the Corporates almost free reign to maintain an unfair playing field. It seems as if the fight will never be over, and like racism, it isn't. But cultural evolution takes time and humankind has managed to abolish Slavery, child labour (most), given women the vote, killed apartheid, torn down the Berlin wall, we should never give up. Unless of course we don't have to because Trump hits the White House, causes WW3 and we all end up '1000 light years away from here'.

Don't ask me why the org doesn't want to listen to my laptop in these block posts form, but I'm glad I ate before I wrote, otherwise although it's not 'June' I would have burnt the pasta!

Germanegro said:

Ur responses to Pentacle are cool but I venture also to suggest: Don't feed the . 'cause that's where it's at!

Thanks for the tip. I'm normally a kitten, but sometime 'verveel ik me met de kat uit boom kijken' or I find it necessary to pounce on that noisy twittering bird!

TKO said:

I agree, Prince is a has been like TKO wrote above, he sure belong to the 80s.

Sad and true.... long fam-explanations can't change fact.

@Bohemian67

Thanks for reading my wall-of-text post. It looks like I'm preaching to the choir with you. . It's touching to know that people are willing to engage such written thoughts, particularly when the attention-span can be very short on the Web. I feel its reasonable to note these ideas on this forum; as Prince stated on wax in Controversy--he's looking for a "reproduction of a new breed, leaders, stand up, organize!" He was serious about his utopian lyric. Here he is leading the pack in an effort to defend the principle to allow artistic creators to earn a fair wage and remain inspired to create. He's pushing the cultural shift closer to fair trade. It seems that the urge toward consumerism can loom so large that people miss the notion of the message and purpose ("We live in a world full of tourists. Tourists. Eighty-nine flowers on their back. Inventors of the accu-jack.") that goes beyond the entertainment value of what Prince does.

>

Embracing the principle takes power away from the corporations to manipulate and amplify the "market value" of what the creative can do--but you have to wonder what that value is beyond coin for someone else to hoard, quite removed from the musicians supplying the product? Consumers should be concerned about what their money supports. We wish to be entertained, but are we supporing an artist or a cartel, and to what end? Is our entertainment going to be as good as it could be? For me it is questionable whether I need another remaster/remix/Package Deluxe if withhoding these things now can help to make circumstances better for those who have created the content, and give them the inspiration to give us their best.

>

It's hard for new artists to evade the setup that the industry made to usher them along a production track, or "the career-startup." The honey-trap apparently is rubberstamped on every contract: loan cash to produce and assume ownership of product, and take x-percentage of sales. Prince wants to break down that business model. It can be done--nothing is set in stone--only the will (plus a bit of econ!) is the rule. I feel that shifting the deal more favorably to Prince (and Springsteen, Beyonce, and the obscure) would actually cultivate a broadening of the music markets.

>

Again, thanks for sharing your own thoughts about this low point of Prince's popularity. And keep working to crack those formatting codes on the .org and save the pasta!

Bohemian67 said:

Germanegro said:

Ur responses to Pentacle are cool but I venture also to suggest: Don't feed the . 'cause that's where it's at!

Thanks for the tip. I'm normally a kitten, but sometime 'verveel ik me met de kat uit boom kijken' or I find it necessary to pounce on that noisy twittering bird!

Sometimes you just have to LOL, roll with it and ehnance the entertainment value that is ripe for the harvesting, or tie a rope around that chirping beak!

thedance said:

thedance said:

I agree, Prince is a has been like TKO wrote above, he sure belong to the 80s.

Sad and true.... long fam-explanations can't change fact.

And of course you worship at the altar of the 80s career of the "has-been," which is cool! And to the new market he is a "never-was" as TKO exclaims. They can still get with the program--no pressure. No long-fam explanation is needed here .

TKO said:

@Germanegro

"reproduction of a new breed, leaders, stand up, organize!"

-

From Controversy through to the The Rainbow Children - The Purple Army. It is time for anti-culture mode because these Cartels are devoid of compassion and will never understand the artist's devotion. Artists provide a santuary and saneness to life, they have to be supported.

-

"consumerism can loom so large that people miss the notion of the message and purpose"

-

So true. Reminds me of the Gold lyrics. I used to sing "there's a notion of despair" when it was "an ocean." But that notion of 'me and more' today, is articificially created to push and feed the need for the superflous, 'justified' by economic policies. Hence, the secret to 'All that glitters ain't gold," the path to the secret fountain of happiness, has become lost.

-

"Prince wants to break down that business model. It can be done--nothing is set in stone--only the will"

-

Let's work!

A new day is coming
Black muuuse
A new day is dawning
Black muuuse

-

OFFS: DO WE HAVE A BLACK MUSE EMOTICON YET? And can we please get rid of that dancing banana.

To me,when you are a veteran artist,it's not about being "popular" anymore.The main focus should be on your legacy and your catalog.It's time to start celebrating your classic albums and your career milestones.Many of you will disagree with me,but I would rather for Prince to release remasters,box sets and DVDs/blu-rays of his classic concert tours instead of focusing on new material that won't really sell anyway.

jayspud said:

TKO said:

I don't want to offend anyone but Prince belongs to the 80s. I'm sure many of his fans are already 40+ years old. My mom loves him but she probably doesn't even know what TIDAL is.

If he wants to sell his music to 18 years old it's ok.

But his albums will be unnoticed by most of his supporters until he starts promoting properly.

Just out of curiousity how many Prince supporters don't know about HITnRun Phases 1 & 2?

Anyone who follows him on Twitter certainly knows, thats 140,000. Anyone who has the ability to use google to see what Prince is up to knows. Is someone really a supporter if they have no idea what he is up to and what he is creating? They may be someone who liked Prince from an earlier time but I think it would be fair to say that if you are a supporter of an artist you might from time to time actually check out what they are up to.

You are missing the point.

Do you think everybody is a die-hard searching for Prince news on his forums or his twitter account?

Most sales come from casual fans and general public. Everybody knows Prince, but nobody knows about his last releases and this is FACT.

Most people don't use TIDAL.

And his music not being available on popular streaming sites like Youtube or Spotify doesn't help at all.

SoulAlive said:

To me,when you are a veteran artist,it's not about being "popular" anymore.The main focus should be on your legacy and your catalog.It's time to start celebrating your classic albums and your career milestones.Many of you will disagree with me,but I would rather for Prince to release remasters,box sets and DVDs/blu-rays of his classic concert tours instead of focusing on new material that won't really sell anyway.

I think as an artist that must be a fairly uninspiring thing to do. When you are 57 do you really want to spend your time going over work you created when you were 27?

Boxsets would be nice with extended versions, outtakes, concerts etc but I also apprecite how re-do work you feel is already completed.

TKO said:

jayspud said:

Just out of curiousity how many Prince supporters don't know about HITnRun Phases 1 & 2?

Anyone who follows him on Twitter certainly knows, thats 140,000. Anyone who has the ability to use google to see what Prince is up to knows. Is someone really a supporter if they have no idea what he is up to and what he is creating? They may be someone who liked Prince from an earlier time but I think it would be fair to say that if you are a supporter of an artist you might from time to time actually check out what they are up to.

You are missing the point.

Do you think everybody is a die-hard searching for Prince news on his forums or his twitter account?

Most sales come from casual fans and general public. Everybody knows Prince, but nobody knows about his last releases and this is FACT.

Most people don't use TIDAL.

And his music not being available on popular streaming sites like Youtube or Spotify doesn't help at all.

I not entirely seeing your point.

Are you saying you are worried about Prince's financial state? He's Fine.

Are you saying he could be more popular? The guy has had more popularity in his life than almost anyone alive.

Are you saying he should care for his legacy? It's up to him but ultimately your legacy is only in your hands when you are alive and understandly would rather create new music. What sort of legacy are you talking about, 20 years time, 30, 50. Music changes. I very much doubt Elvis or Michael Jacksons legacy is going to be high profile in 30-40 years time.