So I found this on princevault, on the page about TMBGITW. Anyone heard this before?

From princevault:

It became Prince's first UK number one single, although there were allegations that Prince's organization had bought thousands of copies of the single around the world to ensure its success.

Allegations ≠ fact.

TrivialPursuit said:

Allegations ≠ fact.

I know that, I just wondered where princevault got this from, if this was a real allegation that surfaced from back then or if it was just pulled outta their ass?

MattyJam said:

TrivialPursuit said:

Allegations ≠ fact.

I know that, I just wondered where princevault got this from, if this was a real allegation that surfaced from back then or if it was just pulled outta their ass?

I've read it before on the org, no one has ever been able to source it AFAIK, so IDK. I haven't heard it at the time when it was pre-internet.

MattyJam said:

TrivialPursuit said:

Allegations ≠ fact.

I know that, I just wondered where princevault got this from, if this was a real allegation that surfaced from back then or if it was just pulled outta their ass?

It's why I typed that. I'm not sure why Princevault would even put that on their site. I would also assume that the story, if it were true, would have surfaced in the past 23 years more prominently.

I've read this several times over the years from various sources, but, its always reported as an allegation never with any evidence.

WB went around spreading this rumor.

I was at Tower Records the day it went on sale and I was the last one to get a copy and I got there at 9:02 am.

muleFunk said:

laurarichardson said:

muleFunk said:

WB went around spreading this rumor.

I was at Tower Records the day it went on sale and I was the last one to get a copy and I got there at 9:02 am.

__That would not surprise me I doubt P had the kind of time or money to run around the world buying the CDs. Also remember it receiving a lot of radio play. I would assume WB wanted it to fail as they saw not one dime and never will. [Edited 2/22/17 17:48pm]

Sounds like a butthurt WB planted rumour to start a sh*tstorm against P, that never gained traction.

Aw. Poor WB.

Back in those days I was headed into the music biz and went to a lot of WB parties. I started seeing a change in the way WB marketed Prince from the Lovesexy/Batman/Graffitti Bridge to Gold.

Huge drop off occured after the Diamonds and Pearls album to the Symbol Album.

[Edited 2/22/17 18:29pm]

The Greatest Hits seemed to be a major sticking point as Prince wanted to put Come out as an EP and drop Gold in 1994 and that's when all Hell broke loose. Prince didn't want to promote the Greatest Hits Box and WB didn't want Come/Gold.

petalthecat said:

Anything is possible. I remember quite a few allegations of chart rigging in the early to mid nineties. I think people were surprised that Prince, who had been off the radar for a while was suddenly selling like hotcakes. It's more likely, in my opinion, that it just got picked up for super heavy radio rotation because some genius decided to release it right before Valentine's day.

He wasn't "OFF THE RADAR" You have to remember his "commercial" appeal in the late 80's started to fluctuate. From 82-86 he was selling solid numbers world wide, 1999 over 6 million, Purple Rain over 25 million to this date, ATWIAD 3 million alone in the U.S. Parade over 4 million...

It was with Lovesexy and GB which the numbers were very low in the U.S. both only going GOLD despite Lovesexy pushing over 2 million world wide... However Batman gave him that commercial clout again when it was released...

So TMBGITW was released on Valentines Day 1994, before COME which was released in August...

Up to 1994 Prince was still very much on the radar, and on the charts. Don't forget the release of D&P in 1991 became the 2nd biggest selling Prince album, pushing just under 7 million world wide... Love Symbol went multi platinum and THE HITS, 1,2/ B-SIDES all went multi platinum as well. So he was still selling strong and on the charts...

TMBGITW hit #3 in the U.S. #1 in the U.K. and sold over 750,000 in the U.S. alone...

It is actually right after the release of TMBGITW is when the friction starts and when he has that over 10 year sales slump which is revived by MUSICOLOGY and the tour in 2004.

With COME, THE BLACK ALBUM, TGE, CHAOS & DISORDER, etc... He was off the charts, and never went PLATINUM again until 2004, not counting THE VERY BEST OF PRINCE which was certified Platinum in 200, and not counting EMANCIPATION which only sold 500,000 but the RIAA counted it as two shipments as it was a triple album.

[Edited 2/22/17 19:07pm]

The USA Top 100 charts at the time were a mix of radio aiplay and sales. I think 50:50 but perhaps more heavily on radio that that as it wasn't a big time for singles sales. I remember it doing very it did well on the radio chart with no noteworthy disparity between the radio chart and sales chart. In fact, it would be hard to plot a bunch of people buyng the single unless you had a big group every single week buying a bunch of the singles. Often a big single like TMBGITW would peak about the 9th week on radio, so there would have been a big push for the fake buyers in the 8th or 9th week, which would have resulted in an extreme jump on the sales chart that would have been seen as being very suspicious. I don't recall any such matter. I also remember the single getting a high level of requests on radio though I just sampled a few stations at the time. So, there doesn't seem to be any conspiracy here!

gandorb said:

The USA Top 100 charts at the time were a mix of radio aiplay and sales. I think 50:50 but perhaps more heavily on radio that that as it wasn't a big time for singles sales. I remember it doing very it did well on the radio chart with no noteworthy disparity between the radio chart and sales chart. In fact, it would be hard to plot a bunch of people buyng the single unless you had a big group every single week buying a bunch of the singles. Often a big single like TMBGITW would peak about the 9th week on radio, so there would have been a big push for the fake buyers in the 8th or 9th week, which would have resulted in an extreme jump on the sales chart that would have been seen as being very suspicious. I don't recall any such matter. I also remember the single getting a high level of requests on radio though I just sampled a few stations at the time. So, there doesn't seem to be any conspiracy here!

Right, and like I stated in my above post, PRINCE was still burning up the charts with Platinum and Multiplatinum albums and singles...

From 91 - 93 he sold over 13 million albums world wide with D&P, LOVESYMBOL, THE HITS 1,2/THE HITS THE B-SIDES.

And from 91 - 93 he had

3 TOP TEN singles.

I distinctly remember at the time there was controversy about it charting on the American charts; it had to do with it being priced for only 99 cents.

sro100 said:

I distinctly remember at the time there was controversy about it charting on the American charts; it had to do with it being priced for only 99 cents.

I don't doubt you but even with this issue it doesn't seem that major. I believe that singles have always been under $2.00 except for maxi singles and perhaps the 12 " singles. It was certified as gold and not platinum so again the sale didn't seem out of keeping for a song that did so well on the radio.

gandorb said:

sro100 said:

I distinctly remember at the time there was controversy about it charting on the American charts; it had to do with it being priced for only 99 cents.

I don't doubt you but even with this issue it doesn't seem that major. I believe that singles have always been under $2.00 except for maxi singles and perhaps the 12 " singles. It was certified as gold and not platinum so again the sale didn't seem out of keeping for a song that did so well on the radio.

At the time some were making a deal out of it; I remember Jon Bream talking about it in his column. If I remember correctly, I think CD singles were like $3.49 or so at the time? Prince discounted at the specific time/cycle when it peaked at #3 on Billboard charts. I remember, the NPG store in MPLS had a whole bunch of 'em on sale.

petalthecat said:

Anything is possible. I remember quite a few allegations of chart rigging in the early to mid nineties. I think people were surprised that Prince, who had been off the radar for a while was suddenly selling like hotcakes. It's more likely, in my opinion, that it just got picked up for super heavy radio rotation because some genius decided to release it right before Valentine's day.

I assume that by "for a while" you mean... 3 months?

Prince had been nowhere near to "off the radar" in February 1994. D&P and and their respective singles had been all over TV and radio over the course of the last 2 years, with videos on heavy rotation on MTV and several major hits, there had been several notable TV appearances in the US, Prince had just completed 2 successful world tours in a row and The Hits/The B-Sides had just been released with much fanfare, including another single that was played a lot with Peach. Not to mention that there were Prince compositions disseminated on a lot of records by other acts outside of the Paisley Park sphere. One can say whatever they want, WB did a lot of work promoting Prince's music from mid 1991 to late 1993, he was literally all over the place.