was by far the best promotion Prince ever did for an Album. Ther promotin was Stellar..Great interviews, specials, live streaming in theaters of the First Show on the tour etc..What was the impetus and why do you all feel he didnt put that effort into all releases

Although Prince never stopped recording, Musicology was seen as a "comeback album" by people other than die-hard Prince fans. I think it was successful because it was somewhat more commercial than the albums right before it. I also feel that since he was married to Mani at the time, he was probably somewhat inspired and positively urged by her to be more present in the public eye as "Prince." Although he had reclaimed the name years before, I feel Musicology was the general public's reintroduction to "Prince" instead of "The Artist."

He made a brilliant decision with Columbia to distribute the album and the marketing of the album/first show of the tour with the movie theaters was ingenious. It had never been done before in that manner.

In my humble opinion, it was the combination of all of these things, coupled with the notion that mainstream music was moving, in his estimation, an "artificial" direction, that caused Musicology to be different than what he had done before. Prince harped a lot on artists refusing to play live and utilizing technology to tune their voice. Musicology was his answer to what "real music should be."

In the eight years following 1996's Emancipation, it could be argued that Prince had released only one mainstream studio album (1999's Rave...). With such a long break from full on public exposure, and a new generation of young stars now filling the airwaves, I think Prince around the time of Musicology had gone through that transitional period where the truly great longstanding current artists on the commercial downturn, become the elder statesmen, and with that a new public perception is born. They are no longer judged by chart statistics, or held up against modern stars, they enter an exclusive club of artists who become legends and exist in an almost otherworldly place.

Prince was now more fondly thought of by the public at large than he had been for years. He was now entering a stage where he was revered by multiple generations... and I think the stars aligned and the timing was right for Musicology. I guess Prince felt re-energized by both his personal life and also the time away from the slog of mass promotion

Why didn't he do that all the time? Well, during the time he was releasing albums year in year out, it would have been impossible logistically to put in that amount of time, planning and effort. He would literally have been ending one round of press and shows and then the day after beginning again with the next album. Wasn't that part of the problem with WB? Had Prince released one album every three or four years, and put in that level of press work and promotion, he would undoubtedly have sold many millions more records than he did, but the flip side is that we would have far less Prince to now enjoy. One can only imagine how big TGE would have been as an album had Prince released nothing in the four years since Diamonds & Pearls, and he put in all the promotion and touring to back it up. You'd probably have been looking at a 7-8 million seller worldwide, but we would have missed out on so much great material inbetween. Also, Prince released many albums that were never going to be huge mainstream hits and were not intended to be. It would have been foolish to spend all that time and money on promoting albums that were not going to give a return.

In 2004, the public was ready to turn out for Prince, buy his album, watch his interiews, give him awards and call him an inspirational legend...and the material was commercial enough to give the whole project some legs. The marriage was perfect...the public wanted Prince, and Prince wanted the public. There have been parts of Prince's career where at least one of those two factors were not present.

Or maybe it was all down to the fact that Prince didn't wear off the rack jeans from Walmart, and his lifestyle required a certain amount of income to maintain it, and Prince hadn't scored a mainstream top 10 album in almost a decade.

[Edited 5/15/16 4:43am]

[Edited 5/15/16 4:44am]

[Edited 5/18/16 13:17pm]

I just love the whole Musicology era, he was so stylish and I love that album too. He was glowing. Not that he hasnt always been stylish mind you ...........

Yewdale said:

In the eight years following 1996's Emancipation, it could be argued that Prince had released only one mainstream studio album (1999's Rave...). With such a long break from full on public exposure, and a new generation of young stars now filling the airwaves, I think Prince around the time of Musicology had gone through that transitional period where the truly great longstanding current artists on the commercial downturn, become the elder statesmen, and with that a new public perception is born. They are no longer judged by chart statistics, or held up against modern stars, they enter an exclusive club of artists who become legends and exist in an almost otherworldly place.

Prince was now more fondly thought of by the public at large than he had been for years. He was now entering a stage where he was revered by multiple generations... and I think the stars aligned and the timing was right for Musicology. I guess Prince felt re-energized by both his personal life and also the time away from the slog of mass promotion.

Why didn't he do that all the time? Well, during the time he was releasing albums year in year out, it would have been impossible logistically to put in that amount of time, planning and effort. He would literally have been ending one round of press and shows and then the day after beginning again with the next album. Wasn't that part of the problem with WB? Had Prince released one album every three or four years, and put in that level of press work and promotion, he would undoubtedly have sold many millions more records than he did, but the flip side is that we would have far less Prince to now enjoy. One can only imagine how big TGE would have been as an album had Prince released nothing in the four years since Diamonds & Pearls, and he put in all the promotion and touring to back it up. You'd probably have been looking at a 7-8 million seller worldwide, but we would have missed out on so much great material inbetween. Also, Prince released many albums that were never going to be huge mainstream hits and were not intended to be. It would have been foolish to spend all that time and money on promoting albums that were not going to give a return.

In 2004, the public was ready to turn out for Prince, buy his album, watch his interiews, give him awards and call him an inspirational legend...and the material was commercial enough to give the whole project some legs. The marriage was perfect...the public wanted Prince, and Prince wanted the public. There have been parts of Prince's career where at least one of those two factors were not present.

Or maybe it was all down to the fact that Prince didn't wear off the rack jeans from Walmart, and his lifestyle required a certain amount of income to maintain it, and Prince hadn't scored a mainstream top 10 album in almost a decade.

[Edited 5/15/16 4:43am]

[Edited 5/15/16 4:44am]

He had the trifecta of live TV performances as well in a relatively short time doing something different for each : Beyonce at Grammy's, RNRHOF, the the joint, VH!, MTV, BET simulcast with band and acoustic, plus Reflection with Wendy on Tavis and I just love the CNBC unterview where I am positive, he made the money honey, Maria Bartiroimo cum in her pants ..

[Edited 5/15/16 6:00am]

Alan Leeds said it the best. It was all about the timing. He was finally being recognized as a musical icon and the Grammys was the kickoff. Not to mention the "P.R" 20th anniversary. That was a good year for him.

It shows if Prince does the promotion he gets the numbers.

Diamonds & Pearls and Musicology were the best promotion.

Diamonds & Pearls sold over 6.7M worldwide and Musicology sold over 3m worldwide. Excellent prommotion... But we all know how much Prince despises these long promotional ways...

Listening back to it, it's as if he was trying to make an album for children. This is a good thing! The melodies, lyrics and arrangements are as simple as possible. It's back to basics at a time in history when the charts were REALLY bad. Something needed to be a hit that had some old-school aesthetics to it. I hate to use the term "real music" but... yeah. 2004 was not great.

After so many indulgent albums like The Rainbow Children (which I love, but it's deliberately pretty diffcult), it was a really wise decision on Prince's part to do something that most people would actually like.

Also, my first concert was Prince in Sydney in October 2003. At the time it was just called "The Aussie Tour", coming here for no apparent reason, with an all greatest-hits setlist unconnected to an album. This was pretty confusing at the time, given that his last release was N.E.W.S. and nobody thought he would have a big album again. In hindsight, he was using Australia as a giant rehearsal space for the Musicology band and tour format which he dropped on the US a few months later. We even got to hear "On the Couch" before it was released. It was an interesting time to see him and I feel lucky to have been there.

I was also 13 years old and inspired by the whole tour and album to pick up instruments and make a lot of my own music, just as he clearly intended. I still play today. Thank U Prince!

[Edited 5/23/16 2:21am]