He hasn't been dead a month yet and ungrateful "fans" have come out to keep on bitching about what isnt on the web and made easy to steal. I have supported every business move Prince has made to control his art and intellectual property - be it with the business people or the fans. That is because, like Prince, I understand that neither cares about Prince as much as Prince. They all want as much as they can get from him. He isn't obligated to give away anything to the web or the greedy white executives he fought so gallantly. God blessed him and he passed it on to us in great magnitude. No one has ever been as prolific or brilliant. Prince gave us several lifetimes worth of music.

Prince understood the nature of humans - and human nature has never been able to go unchecked by those who do not become consumed by it. Look at the world today - everyone must protect themselves. There are hundreds of way to exploit, defraud and flat out rip someone off - whether they are the world's greatest musical genius or a regular Joe.We are appalled and shocked on nearly a daily basis at the depths that people can sink to while employing tools and tactics that could be used for some much good instead.

Those of us who want to receive Prince the way Prince wants to be received have taken it the way he gave it. We understand that no one should have control - or even a say - over how Prince distributed his work to the world. He wasn't a factory producing something that people needed to survive. He wasn't a government agency providing welfare. With the sorted and evil history of the music industry in regards to black musicians, his acutely informed and defiantly independent stance was probably the one thing that made him my hero. No one else had the brains or the guts to do it the way he did it - and from the looks of it, no one ever will.

Bohemian67 said:

His catalogue will go on and be enjoyed for decades to come.

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Are we living in the same world? Prince's catalogue was not and presently is not available! Tell me exactly how someone right now can get "20ten"? How about "N.E.W.S"? What about "Xpectation"? Show me how the public can enjoy "One Night Alone...Live!"

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Sure the Warner Brothers releases can be and always have been enjoyed by music listeners. But the above albums and 90% of Prince releases post-Warners can not "be enjoyed for decades to come." You couldn't even enjoy them in the decade they were "released"! It took me six years to finally say, "F-it, Prince is not releasing "20ten" to the general public, I'm going to just illegally download it."

.

Friend, do you have a record store that has "Rave In2 The Joy Fantastic" in stock? Give me the address, please. Then, as you claim, we can all enjoy Prince's music. As for now, it's pretty damn hard for the public to enjoy the man's music because it ain't out there! It was barely out there when it was being officially released. That's the entire point of this thread.

We were equally difficult. Just look at this site? We are the reason big fans of his do not come here to post, but we get mad at them, not at how fanatical we are or can be.

Prince may have been confused at our reactions to his music. One person saying Jughead is great, another saying it is total shit. The same with other songs like Planet Earth, Musicology, Get On The Boat.

Bart and his ilk didn't help either. Now he is gone and we are all lost.

2freaky4church1 said:

We were equally difficult. Just look at this site? We are the reason big fans of his do not come here to post, but we get mad at them, not at how fanatical we are or can be.

Prince may have been confused at our reactions to his music. One person saying Jughead is great, another saying it is total shit. The same with other songs like Planet Earth, Musicology, Get On The Boat.

Bart and his ilk didn't help either. Now he is gone and we are all lost.

Bart posted today on another thread.

Bohemian67 said:

And by the way 'No one forces you to download music for free'. That is a personal choice. Take responsiblity and stop blaming Prince.

.

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You tell me exactly how a person in America was to add Prince's new album "20ten" to their Prince collection.

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Cloreen said:

Bohemian67 said:

His catalogue will go on and be enjoyed for decades to come.

.

Are we living in the same world? Prince's catalogue was not and presently is not available! Tell me exactly how someone right now can get "20ten"? How about "N.E.W.S"? What about "Xpectation"? Show me how the public can enjoy "One Night Alone...Live!"

.

Sure the Warner Brothers releases can be and always have been enjoyed by music listeners. But the above albums and 90% of Prince releases post-Warners can not "be enjoyed for decades to come." You couldn't even enjoy them in the decade they were "released"! It took me six years to finally say, "F-it, Prince is not releasing "20ten" to the general public, I'm going to just illegally download it."

.

Friend, do you have a record store that has "Rave In2 The Joy Fantastic" in stock? Give me the address, please. Then, as you claim, we can all enjoy Prince's music. As for now, it's pretty damn hard for the public to enjoy the man's music because it ain't out there! It was barely out there when it was being officially released. That's the entire point of this thread.

At the time only 20ten was hard to get, but it sure seemed like everyone had it on this site. Wasn't he simply using that album as a promo for the concerts in London? ONA live was a boxed set I bought at a local record store, and I saw it in stiock for a while. NEWS and Xpectation all available through his website at the time, weren't they?

Sure, now, they are not in stock, but at the time, it wasn't like he didn't make all kinds of material available through various means. Rememember he first released Musicology with the public live broadcast of the opening concert at movie theaters. It didn't even have a cover yet. He was pushing to get material out there in many ways.

Also some of those things wouldn't have appealed to a general public, so no need to sign a deal with a major distributor. He did go through major distributors for those projects designed for a the general public.

Rave was a major release, with an appearance on MTV and then a live New Years concert. It was everywhere in stores back then.

So think you're a bit off saying he was difficult with fans at the time of the releases.

ufoclub said:

Rave was a major release, with an appearance on MTV and then a live New Years concert. It was everywhere in stores back then.

So think you're a bit off saying he was difficult with fans at the time of the releases.

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No, that's "Rave Un2..." not "Rave In2..."

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And you make it sound like joining an internet club, paying a membership fee, then paying annual fees, then paying for the product you want, then downloading it, then printing your own labels and CD covers and lyric booklets is an easy accessible thing to do?. All those internet releases were relatively difficult for hard core fans to get. Now imagine how the casual music fan who simply wanted to buy the latest from Prince must have felt.

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Look, numbers show there are just under a million hard core Prince fans who did what we all did -- jump through hoops to get his latest album. But remember "Purple Rain"? Fourteen million people bought that record. Thirteen million of them were no way in hell going to go through what I described above just to hear the latest Prince album. He made it unreasonably difficult for people who just wanted to buy a Prince album. There was a larger audience out there who would have liked to sample Prince music. But he sure removed himself from them. As I stated in my first post -- just look at the emotional outpouring of love for the guy. Had Prince had some records on amazon.com instead of NPG Music Club, those people would have bought some Prince records throughout the 2000s.

http://www.phoenixnewtime...es-6611739 These are the 20 albums everyone is speaking of.Is everyone fam with this magazine?

PaisleyShark said:

I can't understand the ungratefulness and false sense of entitlement you see on here in the face of a man's death. Freeing his music surely meant freeing it for himself, not making it free for everyone

As for hard-to-find releases, he's not alone in having out of print albums. It happens.

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1. Where do you get the idea that people want FREE Prince music?

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2. True, artists have out of print records. But name one superstar artist who has an out of print record a year after the thing was released!

.

You really think Prince releasing music on his own worked brilliantly? The guy's stuff can not even be purchased right now. If you didn't get it fresh off the press back then you were sh!t out of luck, forget about getting an album from five years ago.

Cloreen said:

ufoclub said:

Rave was a major release, with an appearance on MTV and then a live New Years concert. It was everywhere in stores back then.

So think you're a bit off saying he was difficult with fans at the time of the releases.

.

No, that's "Rave Un2..." not "Rave In2..."

.

And you make it sound like joining an internet club, paying a membership fee, then paying annual fees, then paying for the product you want, then downloading it, then printing your own labels and CD covers and lyric booklets is an easy accessible thing to do?. All those internet releases were relatively difficult for hard core fans to get. Now imagine how the casual music fan who simply wanted to buy the latest from Prince must have felt.

.

Look, numbers show there are just under a million hard core Prince fans who did what we all did -- jump through hoops to get his latest album. But remember "Purple Rain"? Fourteen million people bought that record. Thirteen million of them were no way in hell going to go through what I described above just to hear the latest Prince album. He made it unreasonably difficult for people who just wanted to buy a Prince album. There was a larger audience out there who would have liked to sample Prince music. But he sure removed himself from them. As I stated in my first post -- just look at the emotional outpouring of love for the guy. Had Prince had some records on amazon.com instead of NPG Music Club, those people would have bought some Prince records throughout the 2000s.

Again, Prince didn't believe artists were treated fairly by music corps; he distributed the music in a way that he felt better compensated himself, the artist. There were plenty of opportunities to get Prince's music if you wanted it. You might miss a handful of official releases, mainly by your own ignorance of their availability, or your decision not to join a club. 2010, which you keep focusing on (1 album out of 39 official), is really the only one that was really "difficult" to get. It's amazing to me that rather than focus on the awe of ANY one artist officially releasing 38 official albums, you want to fixate on the 2 or 3 of those that were "difficult" to obtain.

Again, to one of your original points, the music was not and is not hard to find.

[Edited 5/7/16 14:27pm]

Thanks to all who uploaded the videos, shows I missed out on seeing for the last 20 plus years

Being a hardcore fan I,ve missed out on a lot, it's great people can see him as the genius we knew.

To me, since he did'nt care about a will he's endorsed all fan's etc to do as we please with his material.

Maybe its his gift to us for making it so hard to be a fan, I don't even have 20ten and the NPG Club stuff, I should'nt have had to miss out.

Bitter sweet Phase 2 arrived at my door the day he died.

Thanks Prince, for the last 31 years of albums I have.

Toadlips said:

Rave In2 was the remix thru NPGMC

Cloreen said:

PaisleyShark said:

PaisleyShark said:

I don't see many artists who peaked (commercially) in the 80s/early 90s shifting records like they used to. Look at U2 or REM - very fan-friendly - but their sales plummeted (much earlier for REM than U2). No amount of fan-friendliness would have sold 14m copies of 20Ten!

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But we'll never know.

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Look, realistically he wasn't going to sell 14 million copies of an album ever again. The current stars of today (Beyonce, Bieber...) aren't even doing that. But to say just because R.E.M. or U2 are not selling in great numbers now means Prince wouldn't either I think is wrong. As I said, would "20ten" sell 14 mill? No. But why not give it the old college try and give it a go? What was Prince up to releasing his stuff only in Europe or for limited time on his web club? Why remove oneself from the game? Why not take a shot? I feel he would have released something eventually that would have knocked everyone out again, but he hindered those chances by having his albums so removed from any public exposure.

Selena4641 said:

To tell the truth, I started losing interest when he wrote Slave on his face. I'm sorry but a Slave is not someone that was paid $100 million dollars and then became unhappy because because he couldn't release music the way he wanted. That's a slap in the face to people that were Slaves. I wonder if he wrote Slave on his face in the last year if people would call him out on it now, because we are living in a very PC world now.

That's an good point... two actually.

It's funny - the people who worked for Prince couldn't eat what they wanted or sleep anywhere near the time or number of hours they wanted or be guaranteed an uninterrupted evening for sexy time or to play with their children. But the guy who signed the contract twice and had big money backing to help him become rich and famous, he was the face of the downtrodden.

If the artists of the past had had Prince's stance on intellectual property, he wouldn't have had access to much of the material that inspired and influenced him.

Eileen said:

If the artists of the past had had Prince's stance on intellectual property, he wouldn't have had access to much of the material that inspired and influenced him.

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Touche. Excellent point.

ufoclub said:

Cloreen said:

.

Are we living in the same world? Prince's catalogue was not and presently is not available! Tell me exactly how someone right now can get "20ten"? How about "N.E.W.S"? What about "Xpectation"? Show me how the public can enjoy "One Night Alone...Live!"

.

Sure the Warner Brothers releases can be and always have been enjoyed by music listeners. But the above albums and 90% of Prince releases post-Warners can not "be enjoyed for decades to come." You couldn't even enjoy them in the decade they were "released"! It took me six years to finally say, "F-it, Prince is not releasing "20ten" to the general public, I'm going to just illegally download it."

.

Friend, do you have a record store that has "Rave In2 The Joy Fantastic" in stock? Give me the address, please. Then, as you claim, we can all enjoy Prince's music. As for now, it's pretty damn hard for the public to enjoy the man's music because it ain't out there! It was barely out there when it was being officially released. That's the entire point of this thread.

At the time only 20ten was hard to get, but it sure seemed like everyone had it on this site. Wasn't he simply using that album as a promo for the concerts in London? ONA live was a boxed set I bought at a local record store, and I saw it in stiock for a while. NEWS and Xpectation all available through his website at the time, weren't they?

Sure, now, they are not in stock, but at the time, it wasn't like he didn't make all kinds of material available through various means. Rememember he first released Musicology with the public live broadcast of the opening concert at movie theaters. It didn't even have a cover yet. He was pushing to get material out there in many ways.

Also some of those things wouldn't have appealed to a general public, so no need to sign a deal with a major distributor. He did go through major distributors for those projects designed for a the general public.

Rave was a major release, with an appearance on MTV and then a live New Years concert. It was everywhere in stores back then.

So think you're a bit off saying he was difficult with fans at the time of the releases.

Well said. And throw in the number of tracks that Prince put out there on the net for free. Lotusflow3r was a triple album priced likea single album in a major retail chain store - who else does that?

I also look at some of those releases that were for loyal fans that he could not have done under contract (Crystal Ball, Xpectation, NEWS (which won a Grammy nomination), the special version of Rave, even the Mayte and NPG albums). Instead of crying about these releases not being easy to download (steal), real fans appreciate the amount and frequency of material that no other major artist has ever equalled.

FUNKYNESS said:

Instead of crying about these releases not being easy to download (steal), real fans appreciate the amount and frequency of material that no other major artist has ever equalled.

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How about this: Instead of saying every single thing Prince did was brilliant, real fans can say Prince was rather obtuse with the way he released his albums after he left Warner Brothers.

Cloreen said:

Bohemian67 said:

And by the way 'No one forces you to download music for free'. That is a personal choice. Take responsiblity and stop blaming Prince.

.

.

You tell me exactly how a person in America was to add Prince's new album "20ten" to their Prince collection.

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I own every album he's officially released, EXCEPT that one. I refuse to pay someone on Ebay for a CD they got for free, and I absolutely LOVE Laydown after finding an audio link on the net years ago.

Pokeno4Money said:

I own every album he's officially released, EXCEPT that one. I refuse to pay someone on Ebay for a CD they got for free

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More power to you. I held out for six years. Was always bothered by that gap in my Prince collection. With his passing I just said, "F-it" and downloaded the darn thing.

Cloreen said:

Pokeno4Money said:

I own every album he's officially released, EXCEPT that one. I refuse to pay someone on Ebay for a CD they got for free

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More power to you. I held out for six years. Was always bothered by that gap in my Prince collection. With his passing I just said, "F-it" and downloaded the darn thing.

I'm old school ... or actually, just plain old. If it ain't on vinyl or CD, I ain't got it. LOL

The only boots I have are the Black Album on vinyl, and Dream Factory on CD ... both purchased in small music stores when I was young and naive, thinking they were just new album releases.

Cloreen said:

FUNKYNESS said:

Instead of crying about these releases not being easy to download (steal), real fans appreciate the amount and frequency of material that no other major artist has ever equalled.

.

How about this: Instead of saying every single thing Prince did was brilliant, real fans can say Prince was rather obtuse with the way he released his albums after he left Warner Brothers.

100% Cloreen. Just about all counter arguments on tis thread are from the viewpoint of a hardcore fan. But I totally understand where you're coming from. A casual listener (especially nowadays) would not be interested in Prince. Why? Because they cannot easily obtain his music.

Oh, right now they can? Because of the publicity his death has created. An yeah, I know it's difficult for some to talk in this light, but it's the reality. HIs death is a very strong form of advertisement for the artist. With so many other artists doing their thing to honor him, and so much adoration (newfound or not) for the man. It works in putting his name out there, from a business standpoint. He's broken records recently.

Again, this is not meant to be rude, only truthful. If he had allowed this much exposure when he was alive he may have reached more ears. He may not have cared so much about the money, but I would be hard pressed to believe he didn't want more people to hear his music.

Yes, he was very obtuse in his release methods, and if this slaps the rose colored glasses off some people's eyes then so be it. I don't apologize for that, at least I can see the reality of it.

Thank you, Cloreen.

1nonly said:

Thank you, Cloreen.

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Hey, I wasn't trying to be provocative with my thread. I was just stating something that in light of current events, is pretty evident.

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It was all the outpouring of emotion that made me see, "Prince, ya blew it by being so obtuse with the release of your music." The interest and love for Prince we can now see was always out there. But requiring them to join clubs, pay membership fees...why? Hard core fans would. Casual music buyers (the guy/gal who is walking around "Best Buy" and sees a new album and happily buys) sure wouldn't and didn't.

I have no issues with it...it was his music/art and he did what he wanted with it yes it may have cost him fans/money, but looking at all those people mourning him people still knew he was talented and loved him for that and for standing up for his beliefs against the record industry. Prince will never be forgotten just for that alone.

Cloreen said:

Bohemian67 said:

His catalogue will go on and be enjoyed for decades to come.

.

Are we living in the same world? Prince's catalogue was not and presently is not available! Tell me exactly how someone right now can get "20ten"? How about "N.E.W.S"? What about "Xpectation"? Show me how the public can enjoy "One Night Alone...Live!"

.

Sure the Warner Brothers releases can be and always have been enjoyed by music listeners. But the above albums and 90% of Prince releases post-Warners can not "be enjoyed for decades to come." You couldn't even enjoy them in the decade they were "released"! It took me six years to finally say, "F-it, Prince is not releasing "20ten" to the general public, I'm going to just illegally download it."

.

Friend, do you have a record store that has "Rave In2 The Joy Fantastic" in stock? Give me the address, please. Then, as you claim, we can all enjoy Prince's music. As for now, it's pretty damn hard for the public to enjoy the man's music because it ain't out there! It was barely out there when it was being officially released. That's the entire point of this thread.

.

Bolded available on Tidal, including Planet Earth (also newspaper give away). 20Ten, Raveand TRC originals were easy to get via a second hand site. If you wanted the music, were in the loop and were looking for it, you'd find it. His distribution methods were alternative, like he was, but I doubt you've read why by researching the suggested thread. So I stick by my opinion. He blew nothing. Prince honoured his artistic output and knew that in the throw away easy come easy go society, it would be less appreciated by just being readily available. Whether the enjoyment of that art was to be now or later (time didn't matter to Prince) he knew it would eventually be out there, but on his terms. Nothing wrong with that, it gave him the freedom he desired. Control over his work.

Cloreen said:

ufoclub said:

Rave was a major release, with an appearance on MTV and then a live New Years concert. It was everywhere in stores back then.

So think you're a bit off saying he was difficult with fans at the time of the releases.

.

No, that's "Rave Un2..." not "Rave In2..."

.

And you make it sound like joining an internet club, paying a membership fee, then paying annual fees, then paying for the product you want, then downloading it, then printing your own labels and CD covers and lyric booklets is an easy accessible thing to do?. All those internet releases were relatively difficult for hard core fans to get. Now imagine how the casual music fan who simply wanted to buy the latest from Prince must have felt.

.

Look, numbers show there are just under a million hard core Prince fans who did what we all did -- jump through hoops to get his latest album. But remember "Purple Rain"? Fourteen million people bought that record. Thirteen million of them were no way in hell going to go through what I described above just to hear the latest Prince album. He made it unreasonably difficult for people who just wanted to buy a Prince album. There was a larger audience out there who would have liked to sample Prince music. But he sure removed himself from them. As I stated in my first post -- just look at the emotional outpouring of love for the guy. Had Prince had some records on amazon.com instead of NPG Music Club, those people would have bought some Prince records throughout the 2000s.

Yes, downloading the music by joining an online club is easier than ordering and getting a delivery or driving out and buying a CD. The state of things now proves this, and that was the flow of consumer behavior in the 2000's. Packaging unfortunately was also phasing out, so all those other steps you described of printing labels and CD covers were becoming extinct in terms of popular music. That was not what casual mainstream music fans cared about. And it is all truly extinct now. Young people actually make fun of buying CD'. Or any discs for that matter like DVD or blu-rays.

Prince's internet releases were extra output on top of his traditional album releases through distributors. He was exercising the freedom of putting out more material on whatever schedule and means he wanted. Basically, Prince did have albums on Amazon in the 2000's in addition to having material online through a club.

The fact is, even if he had put out Xpectation, One night Alone, or NEWS through a major distributor, at the same time as ONA live, and Rainbow Children, it wasn't like the new generation of top 40 teenagers were going to buy it or even take notice in that mature vein of output (in the past generation it was a majority of teens who bought up Purple Rain). Purple Rain had pop singles with lyrics that teenagers could identify with, plus music videos, and a lotto win hit movie that was also aimed at a teenage level of plot. All that combined drove up the sales. His planned album "High" might have been intended for the teen/tween audience bu that was dropped. So the biggest loss in terms of fans was the material from that and the two albums culled from the online club output. But that's it besides 20ten, right? Every other album was in stores.

And you brought up yourself that you are referring to Rave Un2 which was a specialized partial remix of an album he had already put out through traditional mainstream channels and promotion.

The emotional outpouring now is proof that he didn't cause any serious damage by being difficult to fans. It's proof that he won out in the end. This explosion of testimonials and the online deluge of videos and music is more than any marketing firm could have engineered. It's also more than what happened with Elvis, Kurt Cobain or John Lennon in terms of suddenly work unveiled dramatically (both charitable, personal, and artistic). Inadvertently, he created a full knuckle punch of a wake. A wake up. Almost like how a tidal wave works.

In my opinion the most difficult years of public relations with casual fans were in the late 80's when he was seen as aloof and weird (hence his dropping sales with each album until the tie in with Batman). His PR scandal with We are the World and bodyguard incidents combined with teenage alienating albums caused a very observable effect and backlash.

and then the next most difficult time would have been the mid 90's with the name change at a time when he didn't have any hit singles on the charts, although the glow of the symbol album and the single "7" were to completely faded.

If anything he was trying to turn that around in his later years by putting out some material with more pop oriented beats and lyrics such as the recent HitnRun phase 1. He went through a huge phase of friendly interviews during Musicology unlike any time in the past. How many interivews or talk show sitdowns can you find from the 80's? He was making a big effort to be a relatable and a "friendly" from the Celebrations onward.

The very first sentence of your post: "In the wake of Prince's passing, something has dawned on me: Prince and his offbeat behavior with the caretaking of his music really cost him an opportunity to be a very special and extremely beloved entertainer." is false. Did you see what happened in Los Angeles? On the charts? He IS a special and beloved entertainer in the pop universe. One that is now passed away in real life.