How do you think this will sell worldwide? I fear that it will not sell that well and that will be the end of the Deluxe treatment for his albums. If on the other hand I am wrong, what will be next, or what should be next.

Thoughts.

Im buying it but i know someone who isnt buying it. Honestly,i dont think it well get far. i hope im wrong cos then that will be the end for deluxe editions. Warner has never had any confidence in prince albums and that is the reason why theyve never remastered anything on cd or vinyl,its a shame cos if his albums were remastered i would buy them again.

I think it will sell well for a limited time. I'm of the understanding the next project is a DVD / live CD combo for later in the year hence the exclusion of the second live DVD as it was being saved for later.

.

If artists and musicians less well known than Prince can release deluxe albums why do some think it will be more of a problem with Prince deluxe albums. I have seen time and time again deluxe edition albums which i have never even heard of or those singing on them. Prince deluxe albums will sell fine. Prince is a legend. He's in the same category as those below.

Bruce Springsteen

MJ

U2

David Bowie

Madonna

The Beatles

Jimi Hendrix

Elvis

Stevie Wonder

etc etc sell ok why would it be any different for Prince ? Are some of you saying he ain't worthy enough.

Alexander O'Neal has had his top albums reissued surely Prince will at least get his top albums reissued PR, 1999 and Sign O The Times if not more.

[Edited 5/25/17 6:12am]

mynameisnotsusan said:

Should we try to make it #1? It needs to succeed so there will be more

What's this "we" business? Most are already buying two different formats (vinyl and 3CD/1DVD). If you're suggestion we all go buy more than one copy, or buy all available formats for the sake of a billboard chart, you're nuts.

Also, it's always interesting to me that Prince fans will balk at charts because Prince balked at charts, but then something like this comes up and everyone's sweatin' the Hot 100 or whatever.

You and I both know that being #1 doesn't mean much these days anyway. Records aren't even selling a million copies anymore. If they do, it's almost seen as an anomaly, not something normal.

Who knows? At least, the Estate/Warner Brothers are advertising it. I've seen multiple ads on Yahoo.com for a while, now.

Has anybody seen any advertising anywhere else, like TV?

PURPLE RAIN is currently at #18 on the billboard charts vinyl charts, so that means it is the 18th biggest selling vinyl in the U.S.

I just wish there would be better promotion, the estate is still in chaos...

williamb610 said:

TrivialPursuit said:

mynameisnotsusan said:

Should we try to make it #1? It needs to succeed so there will be more

What's this "we" business? Most are already buying two different formats (vinyl and 3CD/1DVD). If you're suggestion we all go buy more than one copy, or buy all available formats for the sake of a billboard chart, you're nuts.

Also, it's always interesting to me that Prince fans will balk at charts because Prince balked at charts, but then something like this comes up and everyone's sweatin' the Hot 100 or whatever.

You and I both know that being #1 doesn't mean much these days anyway. Records aren't even selling a million copies anymore. If they do, it's almost seen as an anomaly, not something normal.

Not true... As a matter of fact 2015 and 2016 saw the biggest increase of phsyical record sales in years...

Just in a year in a half...

ADELE 25 - over 19 million...

This year alone:

KENDRICK LAMAR sold over 1 million, DRAKE sold over 1 million, ED SHEERAN sold 5 million, BRUNO MARS over 1 million, BEYONCE over 1 million, JUSTIN BIEBER 2 million, BOWIE's BLACKSTAR 1.9 million. According to the Global Chart there was over 20 albums alone that sold over 1 million in 2016.

Also to add THE VERY BEST OF PRINCE was the #17 best selling album in the world and PURPLE RAIN the #37 best selling album in the world for the end of 2016 charts.

TVBOP sold over 1.1 Million copies in 2016.

PURPLE RAIN sold over 675,000 copies in 2016.

[Edited 5/25/17 10:59am]

I dont think it will sell much, they had multiple opportiunities on much better release dates than this one, and im not getting it either, i bought Purple Rain already in 1984

Q. "How well the Purple Rain Deluxe will sell?

My A: I know several people who say that they are buying it, outweighed by quite a few more people who are not planning to buy it.

Extrapolating, based on my personal experience, I expect that there will be quite a few people who will buy it, and a lot more who won't.

So I expect it will sell 'quite well'.

Q. What's next? [Possessive apostrophe added for pedantic effect]

My A: I predict another album.

I'm getting it. I hope it sells enough to at least make it to #1 on the Billboard Charts.

I expect it to sell more than decently due to the compelling bonus material, but don't get your hopes up too high -- that would actually be unfair to Prince. What he did was extraordinary, but the demographics that would fully understand that are OLD and don't buy that many records, so it would depend more on Prince's status as a legend to the younger folks and dot dot dot.

Guitarhero said:

If artists and musicians less well known than Prince can release deluxe albums why do some think it will be more of a problem with Prince deluxe albums. I have seen time and time again deluxe edition albums which i have never even heard of or those singing on them. Prince deluxe albums will sell fine. Prince is a legend. He's in the same category as those below.

Bruce Springsteen

MJ

U2

David Bowie

Madonna

The Beatles

Jimi Hendrix

Elvis

Stevie Wonder

etc etc sell ok why would it be any different for Prince ? Are some of you saying he ain't worthy enough.

Alexander O'Neal has had his top albums reissued surely Prince will at least get his top albums reissued PR, 1999 and Sign O The Times if not more.

[Edited 5/25/17 6:12am]

I agree with you completely. I have purchased Deluxe releases / remasters from pretty much all of the above named artists, including Alexander O'Neal, so I'm certainly part of the target market, and I think Prince re-issues are a no-brainer.

Even an artist like Belinda Carlisle has had extensive re-releases with some very well compiled Deluxe Editions, and I'm sure that there must be more people on this planet who would want to buy a Deluxe Edition of Sign O The Times than there were those who clamoured for a Deluxe Edition of that all time great Belinda album 'A Woman and a Man' (that struggled to sell more than 200,000 copies worldwide back in the 90's).

The returns on these reissues might not be huge, but they are big enough to warrant practically every major artist (and many very minor ones) to go through a programme of such releases, and while the odd very high profile re-issue might chart, the vast majority never get anywhere near the charts again, and yet they still keep getting released.... so I wouldn't worry too much about how Purple Rain performs.

Like someone else said on this thread, I bought my first copy on vinyl in '84, then I bought it on C.D some time in the early 90's and I'll still be snapping up my copy. But i'm one of those people who has jus spent £109 on buying the new Sgt Pepper Deluxe Edition, so maybe I'm just gullible

feeluupp said:

Also to add THE VERY BEST OF PRINCE was the #17 best selling album in the world and PURPLE RAIN the #37 best selling album in the world for the end of 2016 charts.

TVBOP sold over 1.1 Million copies in 2016.

PURPLE RAIN sold over 675,000 copies in 2016.

[Edited 5/25/17 10:59am]

I wonder how many more people buy it this year. Presumambly most of the ones who bought it last year won't buy it again this year. It still might sell well.

twinnies said:

SPOOKYGAS said:

How do you think this will sell worldwide? I fear that it will not sell that well and that will be the end of the Deluxe treatment for his albums. If on the other hand I am wrong, what will be next, or what should be next.

Thoughts.

depends on what WB still has in THEIR vaults

TrivialPursuit said:

BOX sets, deluxe sets etc are very popular, especially for the veteran artists alive/diseased

It will sell very well

Will the Syracuse video be available for purchase digitally?

I ain't too excited at the notion of buying it physically and having to rip the DVD in both audio and video formats.

Guitarhero said:

If artists and musicians less well known than Prince can release deluxe albums why do some think it will be more of a problem with Prince deluxe albums. I have seen time and time again deluxe edition albums which i have never even heard of or those singing on them. Prince deluxe albums will sell fine. Prince is a legend. He's in the same category as those below.

Bruce Springsteen

MJ

U2

David Bowie

Madonna

The Beatles

Jimi Hendrix

Elvis

Stevie Wonder

.
Now that you mention Stevie Wonder, one of the few true giants who have never released a deluxe edition even though deluxe editions of his classic 70's albums would sell really well – I'm wondering whether he had an influence on Prince in that regard. Both of them seemed to be far more focused on creating new music than on looking back – yet Prince, for a long time, was rather careless about leaking unreleased recordings, while Stevie has successfully guarded his own vault.

It looks like Stevie, for some reason, is very much against releasing any outtakes, and as they were friends, they might have had talks about this.

Guitarhero said:

Having listened to the Beatles Sgt Peppers's 50 Year Deluxe release, I feel the longing for a Prince release in this style, ie. him and the band talking before and after, even during takes! That would blow my mind! Missed oportunity, same old music, that we all have ( albeit in varying degrees of quality). Warners and Prince estate get your shit together.

I think the diehards like me for sure will buy it.

The casual fan? I dunno ... half a million copies of the Purple Rain album were bought during the past year, and the 4Ever album (includes the Top 5 Purple Rain songs) was just released less than 6 months ago. Chances are the casual fan has already gotten their Purple Rain fix during the past year, and probably won't want to spend the money again for basically the same songs. I don't think the unreleased material will sway the casual fan into buying again, hope I'm wrong though.

Honestly, I think the 4Ever album shouldn't have included the 5 Purple Rain songs knowing full well Purple Rain Deluxe was coming less than 7 months later.