jaawwnn said:

Also, streaming largely skews younger, why would loads of them be listening to an oldster like Prince? Top 10 is pretty good for a one-take sketch tape!

Meh... It's a little lower than expected to be honest... All the rave about this album with the numerous reviews... I think the second week will be out of the top 15... So maybe in the U.S. it won't surpass 50k in sales total which would not look good for the estate at all...

[Edited 9/26/18 7:55am]

feeluupp said:

jaawwnn said:

Also, streaming largely skews younger, why would loads of them be listening to an oldster like Prince? Top 10 is pretty good for a one-take sketch tape!

Meh... It's a little lower than expected to be honest... All the rave about this album with the numerous reviews... I think the second week will be out of the top 15... So maybe in the U.S. it won't surpass 50k in sales total which would not look good for the estate at all...

[Edited 9/26/18 7:55am]

2 decades ago the best selling records of any given year would sell over 20M copies. Last year's #1 was 6M copies and was quite an exception with only one other record selling over 2M, and #10 hardly reaching 1M.

.

Besides, a new record calls for lots of production costs while except for Michael Howe's salary, P's vault is now there to use with only promotion and manufacturing costs. Archive releases are easy money for labels.

.

So IDK. If we get 50 to 100k worldwide for a 35 years old solo piano and voice recording with tape hiss without production costs, + massive critical acclaim, lots of hype and one of the songs in a major motion picture, I'd say it ain't that bad for the Estate.

And it still would probably make it one of the 50 or 100 best selling albums of the year (out of an easy 5,000 to 10,000 yearly releases, not even counting self-released albums).

.

I'm not sure why this constant anxiety over sales on the Org. Even if the industry was what it used to be, there would never be/have been another Diamonds And Pearls, let alone another Purple Rain. And it's OK. An artist doesn't need to sell millions of records to make a profit and keep on going. Most artists, the great majority of them in fact, do not and never did. And yet with every damn new record it's like "OMG Prince didn't sell 5M copies, he'll never get to release another record again, ever!". It's like a bad joke that never ends.

databank said:

feeluupp said:

Meh... It's a little lower than expected to be honest... All the rave about this album with the numerous reviews... I think the second week will be out of the top 15... So maybe in the U.S. it won't surpass 50k in sales total which would not look good for the estate at all...

[Edited 9/26/18 7:55am]

2 decades ago the best selling records of any given year would sell over 20M copies. Last year's #1 was 6M copies and was quite an exception with only one other record selling over 2M, and #10 hardly reaching 1M.

.

Besides, a new record calls for lots of production costs while except for Michael Howe's salary, P's vault is now there to use with only promotion and manufacturing costs. Archive releases are easy money for labels.

.

So IDK. If we get 50 to 100k worldwide for a 35 years old solo piano and voice recording with tape hiss without production costs, + massive critical acclaim, lots of hype and one of the songs in a major motion picture, I'd say it ain't that bad for the Estate.

And it still would probably make it one of the 50 or 100 best selling albums of the year (out of an easy 5,000 to 10,000 yearly releases, not even counting self-released albums).

.

I'm not sure why this constant anxiety over sales on the Org. Even if the industry was what it used to be, there would never be/have been another Diamonds And Pearls, let alone another Purple Rain. And it's OK. An artist doesn't need to sell millions of records to make a profit and keep on going. Most artists, the great majority of them in fact, do not and never did. And yet with every damn new record it's like "OMG Prince didn't sell 5M copies, he'll never get to release another record again, ever!". It's like a bad joke that never ends.

Some valid points and insight...

No one is insinuating that he will never release anothe record again due to sales, there was only one member who said that stuff time and time again and that is RODSERLING, especially after the AOA release he brought that whole discussion how Prince would never crack the Billboard 200 again, which was entirely false...

In terms of the sales today from the past, ofc... We all know the state of the music industry, the sales and the evolution of streaming, no one is expecting him to sell millions anymore.

Don't want to get into the logisitics of it all but basically you are saying that the supply and demand of a recording like Piano and a Microphone doesn't take that much money to make and due to the fact it's an archive release and easy money for labels... What I'm curious is do you think there is "enough" profit being made for a release like this if it only sells 50k... vs. a more promoted bigger commercial appeal release like a deluxe 1999 or something like that.

feeluupp said:

jaawwnn said:

Also, streaming largely skews younger, why would loads of them be listening to an oldster like Prince? Top 10 is pretty good for a one-take sketch tape!

Meh... It's a little lower than expected to be honest... All the rave about this album with the numerous reviews... I think the second week will be out of the top 15... So maybe in the U.S. it won't surpass 50k in sales total which would not look good for the estate at all...

[Edited 9/26/18 7:55am]

It will surpass 50k sales in US easily . You clearly don't follow charts. 4EVER debuted at #80 with 9k sales. It surpassed 170k sales in US according to last update.

TKO said:

feeluupp said:

Meh... It's a little lower than expected to be honest... All the rave about this album with the numerous reviews... I think the second week will be out of the top 15... So maybe in the U.S. it won't surpass 50k in sales total which would not look good for the estate at all...

[Edited 9/26/18 7:55am]

It will surpass 50k sales in US easily . You clearly don't follow charts. 4EVER debuted at #80 with 9k sales. It surpassed 170k sales in US according to last update.

Good to know about 4EVER, it also went Gold in U.K. with over 100k sold, so over 270k is actually not bad at all for that kind of release...

I do follow charts, I'm the one who'se been posting the chart updates for the last 4 years here for each release.

TKO said:

feeluupp said:

Meh... It's a little lower than expected to be honest... All the rave about this album with the numerous reviews... I think the second week will be out of the top 15... So maybe in the U.S. it won't surpass 50k in sales total which would not look good for the estate at all...

[Edited 9/26/18 7:55am]

It will surpass 50k sales in US easily . You clearly don't follow charts. 4EVER debuted at #80 with 9k sales. It surpassed 170k sales in US according to last update.

I'm the one who has made all the chart thread for each release for the last 4 years...

Here's the thread I made about 4 EVER:

http://prince.org/msg/7/435657

feeluupp said:

TKO said:

It will surpass 50k sales in US easily . You clearly don't follow charts. 4EVER debuted at #80 with 9k sales. It surpassed 170k sales in US according to last update.

I'm the one who has made all the chart thread for each release for the last 4 years...

Here's the thread I made about 4 EVER:

http://prince.org/msg/7/435657

But you said this album will debut with 39k sales and probably won't surpass 50k and that's impossible.

TKO said:

feeluupp said:

I'm the one who has made all the chart thread for each release for the last 4 years...

Here's the thread I made about 4 EVER:

http://prince.org/msg/7/435657

But you said this album will debut with 39k sales and probably won't surpass 50k and that's impossible.

Was a wrong estimate on my part...

Hopefully this release sells strong world wide with all the good reviews... Maybe it will sell as much as PR DELUXE, PR DELUXE debuted at #4 on the world wide charts with 94,000 first week sales.

Encouraging sales figures.

I hope the Estate doesn't take the piss again with a release like this, though.

72% in

i would have to imagine that a record company would much rather choose the less expensive option: spend next to nothing, make a profit.. lets say 100k pieces worldwide and they make $4 each = $400k for kind of little investment..

im kind of guessing at the $4 mark, just based on what i learned working at a record store in the 90's...

but that seems more sound than investing a ton of $ on production and promotion .. to have a relatively unsure result..

just my 2cents.

feeluupp said:

databank said:

2 decades ago the best selling records of any given year would sell over 20M copies. Last year's #1 was 6M copies and was quite an exception with only one other record selling over 2M, and #10 hardly reaching 1M.

.

Besides, a new record calls for lots of production costs while except for Michael Howe's salary, P's vault is now there to use with only promotion and manufacturing costs. Archive releases are easy money for labels.

.

So IDK. If we get 50 to 100k worldwide for a 35 years old solo piano and voice recording with tape hiss without production costs, + massive critical acclaim, lots of hype and one of the songs in a major motion picture, I'd say it ain't that bad for the Estate.

And it still would probably make it one of the 50 or 100 best selling albums of the year (out of an easy 5,000 to 10,000 yearly releases, not even counting self-released albums).

.

I'm not sure why this constant anxiety over sales on the Org. Even if the industry was what it used to be, there would never be/have been another Diamonds And Pearls, let alone another Purple Rain. And it's OK. An artist doesn't need to sell millions of records to make a profit and keep on going. Most artists, the great majority of them in fact, do not and never did. And yet with every damn new record it's like "OMG Prince didn't sell 5M copies, he'll never get to release another record again, ever!". It's like a bad joke that never ends.

Some valid points and insight...

No one is insinuating that he will never release anothe record again due to sales, there was only one member who said that stuff time and time again and that is RODSERLING, especially after the AOA release he brought that whole discussion how Prince would never crack the Billboard 200 again, which was entirely false...

In terms of the sales today from the past, ofc... We all know the state of the music industry, the sales and the evolution of streaming, no one is expecting him to sell millions anymore.

Don't want to get into the logisitics of it all but basically you are saying that the supply and demand of a recording like Piano and a Microphone doesn't take that much money to make and due to the fact it's an archive release and easy money for labels... What I'm curious is do you think there is "enough" profit being made for a release like this if it only sells 50k... vs. a more promoted bigger commercial appeal release like a deluxe 1999 or something like that.

feeluupp said:

databank said:

2 decades ago the best selling records of any given year would sell over 20M copies. Last year's #1 was 6M copies and was quite an exception with only one other record selling over 2M, and #10 hardly reaching 1M.

.

Besides, a new record calls for lots of production costs while except for Michael Howe's salary, P's vault is now there to use with only promotion and manufacturing costs. Archive releases are easy money for labels.

.

So IDK. If we get 50 to 100k worldwide for a 35 years old solo piano and voice recording with tape hiss without production costs, + massive critical acclaim, lots of hype and one of the songs in a major motion picture, I'd say it ain't that bad for the Estate.

And it still would probably make it one of the 50 or 100 best selling albums of the year (out of an easy 5,000 to 10,000 yearly releases, not even counting self-released albums).

.

I'm not sure why this constant anxiety over sales on the Org. Even if the industry was what it used to be, there would never be/have been another Diamonds And Pearls, let alone another Purple Rain. And it's OK. An artist doesn't need to sell millions of records to make a profit and keep on going. Most artists, the great majority of them in fact, do not and never did. And yet with every damn new record it's like "OMG Prince didn't sell 5M copies, he'll never get to release another record again, ever!". It's like a bad joke that never ends.

Some valid points and insight...

No one is insinuating that he will never release anothe record again due to sales, there was only one member who said that stuff time and time again and that is RODSERLING, especially after the AOA release he brought that whole discussion how Prince would never crack the Billboard 200 again, which was entirely false...

In terms of the sales today from the past, ofc... We all know the state of the music industry, the sales and the evolution of streaming, no one is expecting him to sell millions anymore.

Don't want to get into the logisitics of it all but basically you are saying that the supply and demand of a recording like Piano and a Microphone doesn't take that much money to make and due to the fact it's an archive release and easy money for labels... What I'm curious is do you think there is "enough" profit being made for a release like this if it only sells 50k... vs. a more promoted bigger commercial appeal release like a deluxe 1999 or something like that.

Oh I can assure you that many other orgers besides ROD have been saying that Prince would never find a label or a distributor again (when he was alive), or that the Estate would stop releasing anything because there was no market. Insane as it sounds it seems to be common belief. Probably because most non-artists do not understand the realities of the artistic world and economics. As a creative person myself I've often realized it when talking to non-artists. Many people believe that artists are either superstars who make millions or starving failures. And they do not seem to realize that the vast majority of professional musicians are in fact somewhere between those 2 extremes. , I guess those people are only aware of mass media mainstream music and do not realize that it's only a portion of the music market.

.

It's an established fact in the music industry that rereleases and archive projects are the golden egg because production costs have already been absorbed, and from that point on it's extra dough only. I think the point isn't really whether there's enough profit. Profit is profit. What fans need to understand is that now you have a company (Paisley Park Enterprise/NPG Records, most commonly known today as "the Estate", I'm not sure how P's venture is named on paper) that exists for the sole purpose of turning the Prince assets into money. Part of it includes licensing already released music for advertisements, TV shows, movies, circus shows and other similar bullshit; part of it is turning Paisley Park into a museum and organizing dumb events such as "The Gotham City Orchestra plays Prince on Ice"; part of it is selling caps and t-shirts. But this company's biggest asset is, by far and large, the music catalogue itself. Rereleasing old albums and anthologies is part of it but you can only rerelease and remaster 1999 every so often, it's not like they're gonna be able to do that every year. And even so it will only be of real interest to people if they add unreleased bonus material to the set. So in the end their biggest asset is all that music in the vault. Thousands of recordings that are here, free of charge and ready for release. The question is not "do they make enough profit with those assets?", it's "are they losing or making money?". As long as they make some money, we're good. They have to make profits. They cannot sit on the vault and wash their hands: they have to turn those assets into money because those assets are all they have. Labels have entire catalogues beyond Prince, the Estate has only Prince's catalogue to make money with.

.

So yeah trial and error may lead them to realize that live shows sell more than side projects or that remasters don't sell as much as recordings of Prince brushing his teeth and so on, but to think that the Estate is gonna pay Michael Howe to sort the vault out, then keep paying Iron Mountain to store it and do nothing with it is insane. Managing the Prince brand is this company's sole reason for being, those unreleased recordings are its most valuable assets, and they cannot lose money by releasing them.

.

[Edited 9/26/18 21:57pm]

Well, Michael Howe recently said in an interview that reissues of some of the classic albums may be coming "very soon": http://prince.org/msg/7/456610

Of course, plans may change, but it doesn't sound like deluxe issues are out of the question at all - it sounds like the team behind Prince's releases are discussing the possibility quite often.

This so called "album" might be a nice piece of history and I think it would have fitted perfectly to the Purple Rain Deluxe album. But putting this one out as the first release of the Vault is very disappointing. I hope the Tidal release brings some new music that we haven't heard before.

And I really hope new music will be released by the estate before the elevator brings us down!

Sales figures will be released tomorrow... But the world charts have been updated already and it's not on the TOP 10.

#12 in the UK.

Graciegirl719 said:

feeluupp said:

Hits Daily Double numbers are in:

http://hitsdailydouble.co..._streaming

34,993

The Billboard numbers are not in yet, so it should be a little higher.

The world wide numbers will be posted soon once they are all in.

[Edited 9/28/18 14:55pm]

itsjustaroundthecorner said:

i would have to imagine that a record company would much rather choose the less expensive option: spend next to nothing, make a profit.. lets say 100k pieces worldwide and they make $4 each = $400k for kind of little investment..

im kind of guessing at the $4 mark, just based on what i learned working at a record store in the 90's...

but that seems more sound than investing a ton of $ on production and promotion .. to have a relatively unsure result..

just my 2cents.

feeluupp said:

Some valid points and insight...

No one is insinuating that he will never release anothe record again due to sales, there was only one member who said that stuff time and time again and that is RODSERLING, especially after the AOA release he brought that whole discussion how Prince would never crack the Billboard 200 again, which was entirely false...

In terms of the sales today from the past, ofc... We all know the state of the music industry, the sales and the evolution of streaming, no one is expecting him to sell millions anymore.

Don't want to get into the logisitics of it all but basically you are saying that the supply and demand of a recording like Piano and a Microphone doesn't take that much money to make and due to the fact it's an archive release and easy money for labels... What I'm curious is do you think there is "enough" profit being made for a release like this if it only sells 50k... vs. a more promoted bigger commercial appeal release like a deluxe 1999 or something like that.

Not to mention that any "new" releases reinforce the established brand of Prince and his classic music.

It's pretty impressive that a 35 year old, 33 minute rehersal debuts in the top 10.

Maybe so, but I miss that dude way back when I mistook hearing him for the first time as Sylvester...

RODSERLING said:

In 2012/2014 Prince had great difficulty to find a label to distribute his masterpiece 3rd Eyed Girl album. Nobody wanted to release it, and Prince tried even in early 2013 or 2014 to attract attention in London, to no avail.

Except this is absolute bullshit made-up by you and Bart, without any evidence or source. I'm not sure what you mean by "trying to attract attention in London", whether it's in 2013 or 2014 or maybe was it 1998 since you're being so specific?, but to stop this BS being repeated so often that it'll become fact I'll say it 4 the people reading us: there is no evidence whatsoever to support any of this, there is no evidence that any label ever refused to release a Prince album at that time, on top of it all Prince actually did have a label to distribute Plectrumelectrum (Kobalt), and most likely is the one who dropped Kobalt to go back to WB and not the other way around.

.

So now unless you have solid, sourced new evidence to back-up your claims I'm gonna say it and say it only once:

STOP

SPREADING

LIES.

Thank you.

databank said:

RODSERLING said:

In 2012/2014 Prince had great difficulty to find a label to distribute his masterpiece 3rd Eyed Girl album. Nobody wanted to release it, and Prince tried even in early 2013 or 2014 to attract attention in London, to no avail.

Except this is absolute bullshit made-up by you and Bart, without any evidence or source. I'm not sure what you mean by "trying to attract attention in London", whether it's in 2013 or 2014 or maybe was it 1998 since you're being so specific?, but to stop this BS being repeated so often that it'll become fact I'll say it 4 the people reading us: there is no evidence whatsoever to support any of this, there is no evidence that any label ever refused to release a Prince album at that time, on top of it all Prince actually did have a label to distribute Plectrumelectrum (Kobalt), and most likely is the one who dropped Kobalt to go back to WB and not the other way around.

.

So now unless you have solid, sourced new evidence to back-up your claims I'm gonna say it and say it only once:

STOP

SPREADING

LIES.

Thank you.

It's really strange when ROD joined this site that is all he talked about. I even remember exactly when he posted that Prince wouldn't crack the BILLBOARD 200 anymore. The speculation that he wouldn't crack the BILLBOARD 200 anymore if he was alive is just absurd. ROD is really deranged.

feeluupp said:

databank said:

Except this is absolute bullshit made-up by you and Bart, without any evidence or source. I'm not sure what you mean by "trying to attract attention in London", whether it's in 2013 or 2014 or maybe was it 1998 since you're being so specific?, but to stop this BS being repeated so often that it'll become fact I'll say it 4 the people reading us: there is no evidence whatsoever to support any of this, there is no evidence that any label ever refused to release a Prince album at that time, on top of it all Prince actually did have a label to distribute Plectrumelectrum (Kobalt), and most likely is the one who dropped Kobalt to go back to WB and not the other way around.

.

So now unless you have solid, sourced new evidence to back-up your claims I'm gonna say it and say it only once:

STOP

SPREADING

LIES.

Thank you.

It's really strange when ROD joined this site that is all he talked about. I even remember exactly when he posted that Prince wouldn't crack the BILLBOARD 200 anymore. The speculation that he wouldn't crack the BILLBOARD 200 anymore if he was alive is just absurd. ROD is really deranged.

As long as he doesn't make up stories as he just did ROD can say what he wants, but I'm fed up of people making up shit, because other Orgers read it and trust them and repeat it and before you know it it becomes "common knwoledge" that Prince couldn't find a label for Plectrumelectrum or that he orchestrated the whole Black Album situation on purpose and so on...

.

As for Rod's motivations, he most likely has a hidden agenda/personal vendetta against Prince, as did/do many others here over the years. Is it because Prince really did something to them (I know of at least one fan whose GF slept with Prince after a show, so it might have happened to others)? Is it because they are so emotionally disturbed that they took it as a personal offense everytime Prince did something or released music they disliked? Is it some kind of a "kill the father figure" syndrome? IDK. But people don't spend hours on a board slandering their supposedly favorite artist without an agenda.

databank said:

databank said:

feeluupp said: