OK so I'm a little confused about this. It goes back to August 31 and September 01 when I saw Prince in Paris. I could swear that the queuing audience was given a French WB promo flyer for the upcoming Hits video collection and that it basically featured twice as many videos as what we finally got. I still vaguely remember how that flyer looked, I remember being very excited about it and totally disappointed when the video came out with only 15 videos on it.

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Now Princevault says the video was released on September 14 so unless there was a big communication problem between WB US and WB France and the latter got a tracklist that was already long shelved, this is not possible. I lost this flyer long ago, probably only a few years after the fact, so I've got no evidence of it and IDK whether I hallucinated this or it really happened.

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Thing is it made sense. The Hits video collection is 1 hour long. VHS could easily contain over 2 hours of content so I never really understood the rationale for featuring 15 videos when it could have been 30. I just counted and P had released 49 promotional MVs by 1993, so maybe that would have been a little too many. But a 2 hours video with 30 would have made more sense and would have been more appealing than this cheap little 15 MVs collection (2 of which had just been released on the D&P video collection that we'd all purchased, to add insult to injury!!).

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So my question is, does anyone who attended Act II in Europe, particularly the Paris shows, or anyone following the fanzines at the time, remember a 30 or so video collection being announced alongside the Hits compilation, or did I dream this??

databank said:

So my question is, does anyone who attended Act II in Europe, particularly the Paris shows, or anyone following the fanzines at the time, remember a 30 or so video collection being announced alongside the Hits compilation, or did I dream this??

I don't remember any announcement or promotion of any kind for The Hits Collection video at the Act II shows I attended.

The only thing about The Hits Collection video I can find after a quick look in Uptown, is a brief announcement in issue 11.

It reads:

Home video... A video compilation, The Hits Collection, accompanies the record releases. It features 15 clips; “Peach,” “Uptown,” “1999,” “Alphabet St.,” “Sign O’ The Times,” “Diamonds And Pearls,” “Controversy,” “Dirty Mind,” “I Wanna Be Your Lover,” “Little Red Corvette,” “I Would Die 4 U,” “Raspberry Beret,” “Kiss,” “Cream,” and “7.”

databank said:

Ramzoo said:

databank said:

OK so I'm a little confused about this. It goes back to August 31 and September 01 when I saw Prince in Paris. I could swear that the queuing audience was given a French WB promo flyer for the upcoming Hits video collection and that it basically featured twice as many videos as what we finally got. I still vaguely remember how that flyer looked, I remember being very excited about it and totally disappointed when the video came out with only 15 videos on it.

.

Now Princevault says the video was released on September 14 so unless there was a big communication problem between WB US and WB France and the latter got a tracklist that was already long shelved, this is not possible. I lost this flyer long ago, probably only a few years after the fact, so I've got no evidence of it and IDK whether I hallucinated this or it really happened.

.

Thing is it made sense. The Hits video collection is 1 hour long. VHS could easily contain over 2 hours of content so I never really understood the rationale for featuring 15 videos when it could have been 30. I just counted and P had released 49 promotional MVs by 1993, so maybe that would have been a little too many. But a 2 hours video with 30 would have made more sense and would have been more appealing than this cheap little 15 MVs collection (2 of which had just been released on the D&P video collection that we'd all purchased, to add insult to injury!!).

.

So my question is, does anyone who attended Act II in Europe, particularly the Paris shows, or anyone following the fanzines at the time, remember a 30 or so video collection being announced alongside the Hits compilation, or did I dream this??

I'm so glad that U highlight it as I totally confirm (I already mentioned it in a post). I don't have the flyer but I got it in Paris. I remember it was a 2 K7 set.

Ha! So I'm not insane?!

Why in the world didn't we keep this flyer. Now what we need is to find someone who kept it for evidence (and I'd love to see the tracklist again, I believe G&B at least was in it).

I didn't remember it was a 2 cassettes set. Pretty awkward in terms of costs (why not a single cassette)?

RODSERLING said:

I have always been baffled about the lenght and content of this video too. . But remember that the History Music Videos vol 1 from MJ was just one hour long too. It was supposed to mirror the music videos of the CD 1 of History. . It included only short versions for Bad ( 4 min instead of 18) and The Way You Make Me Feel ( 6 min instead of 9 ). It also excluded the music videos of Man In The Mirror and She s out Of My Life... . It is to be noted though that the longer versions of Bad and TWYMMF replaced the shorter versions for the dvd release in 2001. .So why all this had been skipped for the VHS release? Because : . 1) It was too boring for a domestical entertainment use 2) the VHS format made it uncomfortable to rewind 3) It was cheaper to produce...but not to sell. . Same for Prince video. Maybe you re right if you didn't confound with the CD releases. . But when you think about it, it only lacks music videos that were in the movies, such as Purple Rain, When Doves Cry, Let's Go Crazy, U Got The Look, Thieves in The Temple, not even talking about Batman music videos... . So maybe it was logically thought of to be 2 volumes at the time, but for rights concerns it was scrapped. And maybe it was too much releases at the time ( 3 Versions of the CD/ cassette, + 2 VHS...) [Edited 8/3/20 20:46pm]

WB music, WB film and DC comics all belonged to the same parent company at the time, so rights couldn't possibly be too much of a hassle.

I fail to see how 30 MVs were more boring than 15. Lovesexy and Double Live, in their second editions, were 2 hours long concerts on a single tape and anyway rewinding was never much of a issue with VHS: mmany movies were also 2 hours long, I never heard anyone at the time saying "OMG, I renounced using my VCR because I can't stand the 3 minutes it takes to rewind my movie". Let's be serious for a minute, shall we?

Cost may be the issue there, as even if it was a single cassette I guess the less tape you put in it the cheaper it was to produce (but you could sell it for the same price). Now Ramzoo remembers it too, but says it was announced as a two cassettes combo, which makes little sense to me costs-wise but maybe was a trick to increase retail sales, before WB backed off and opted for a cheap option out of fear the whole greatest hits package would be too much of an expense for casual fans?

K7 the video label?

mb71 said:

K7 the video label?

No it's phenetics for "cassette" in French (k = "ka", 7 = "sept", pronounced "set").

I wonder how many of us here are French. Until recently I didn't know about Bonatoc, and only today do I learn about Ramzoo.

Studio !K7, the German label that evolved from the K7 video label, is probably my favorite label of all times, though

[Edited 8/4/20 9:04am]

databank said:

mb71 said:

K7 the video label?

No it's phenetics for "cassette" in French (k = "ka", 7 = "sept", pronounced "set").

Thanks for the info.

databank said:

databank said:

So, we have two vague recollections of a flyer being handed out at a gig in France, but so far no other evidence. Could the flyer have been for a bootleg release?

databank said:

I wonder how many of us here are French. Until recently I didn't know about Bonatoc, and only today do I learn about Ramzoo.

(American, but living in France. And with any luck, I'll be French next year.)

mb71 said:

RODSERLING said:

databank said:

WB music, WB film and DC comics all belonged to the same parent company at the time, so rights couldn't possibly be too much of a hassle.

I fail to see how 30 MVs were more boring than 15. Lovesexy and Double Live, in their second editions, were 2 hours long concerts on a single tape and anyway rewinding was never much of a issue with VHS: mmany movies were also 2 hours long, I never heard anyone at the time saying "OMG, I renounced using my VCR because I can't stand the 3 minutes it takes to rewind my movie". Let's be serious for a minute, shall we?

Cost may be the issue there, as even if it was a single cassette I guess the less tape you put in it the cheaper it was to produce (but you could sell it for the same price). Now Ramzoo remembers it too, but says it was announced as a two cassettes combo, which makes little sense to me costs-wise but maybe was a trick to increase retail sales, before WB backed off and opted for a cheap option out of fear the whole greatest hits package would be too much of an expense for casual fans?

Obviously rights of the movies were in the contrary a huge concern, since none of even its #1 hits in the USA whose music videos were taken DIRECTLY from the movies( Purple Rain, Let s Go Crazy, When Doves Cry, U Got The Look, Thieves in The Temple, Batdance) were presented in the VHS. . So one must be really blind to not observe that... . Then, of course there were movies that were 2 or even 3 hours long in VHS. But they were produced in mass for a large audience and they were...movies, you know, entertaining things for the whole family. . Prince'Hits would have been too expensive to produce and too boring to watch for two hours for a domestic/family use. The Dangerous music videos released 3 months after Prince'hits was 2 hours long, but was obviously not viable enough. Because then strangely the next MJ video, History in 1995, is only one hour long when it could have been 100 min. But they choose to cut and excised some tracks, obviously for lenght and entertainment purposes. . There is also the commercial argument that 30 hits on one VHS is too much of a bargain for the consumer, at the expense of WB. . [Edited 8/4/20 20:57pm]

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rights issues and whatnot aside, i dont know if it was about cost or what, but 60 minutes really was the norm for music releases on VHS at that time. every vhs i have from that time period regardless of popularity of the artists clocks in on average at 60 minutes.

databank said:

I wonder how many of us here are French.

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Il y a des autres qui peuvent parler francais aussi.

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Do you count belgians as semi-french?

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(I'm neither, of course)

savagedreams said:

mb71 said:

So, we have two vague recollections of a flyer being handed out at a gig in France, but so far no other evidence. Could the flyer have been for a bootleg release?

Well all others debates aside (because IDK much more), no, this def wasn't any boot thing, it was totally WB.

mediumdry said:

databank said:

I wonder how many of us here are French.

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Il y a des autres qui peuvent parler francais aussi.

.

Do you count belgians as semi-french?

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(I'm neither, of course)

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Belgians are not semi-french.

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I'm Belgian, I speak Flemish (which is like Dutch for those who don't know what it is),

I speak French and German, the three official languages of our country.

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Let me explain :

(even there is wikipedia, if you like to check things )

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- 11,5 million Belgians, containing:

- 6,6 Flemish (flemish/dutch language)

- 3,6 Walloons (french language)

- 97.700 German-Speaking-Belgians (not Germans), mostly perfect tri-lingual, living in the Oostcantons.

- 1,2 million people living in Brussels the capital; 63% (French speaking), 11% (Flemish speaking) +26% multiple other languages. (these nrs are interpretable, so not fully correct. depends of which side you're at.)

English is a very important language in Brussels, due to the EU institutions, +loads of imigrants

in Brussels; more than 1 out of 3 is not Belgian;

- There are 179 different nationalities in Brussels;

- 414.000 foreigners out of a total of 1,2 million inhabitants;

- and among those 414.000 foreigners in Brussels, 275.000 people are from the 27 member states of the EU.

-

There ya go!

It's a love story.

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[Edited 8/6/20 0:32am]

Vannormal said:

Belgians are not semi-french.

-

There ya go!

It's a love story.

-

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I don't think anybody really knows what to do with Eupen and the surrounding countryside. (give it to Luxembourg?)

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But there is little love lost between the semi-dutch and semi-french in your country. Just look at the government coalition..

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And even though I don't feel very Dutch most of the time, I am still enough Dutch to find it hard to resist the urge to have some fun with Belgium. (much like Douglas Adams and many others)

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But let me just say, that from the crazy borderline in Baarle-Hertog to the outlet of Maasmechelen, from the pistes of Bak-de-Frituur to the western shores of De Panne. From Doel to Tihange, to even the border crossing at Arlon, I love Belgium.

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Now.. did they plan the longer video release in Belgium too?

[Edited 8/6/20 1:54am]

mediumdry said:

Vannormal said:

Belgians are not semi-french.

-

There ya go!

It's a love story.

-

.

I don't think anybody really knows what to do with Eupen and the surrounding countryside. (give it to Luxembourg?)

.

But there is little love lost between the semi-dutch and semi-french in your country. Just look at the government coalition..

.

And even though I don't feel very Dutch most of the time, I am still enough Dutch to find it hard to resist the urge to have some fun with Belgium. (much like Douglas Adams and many others)

.

But let me just say, that from the crazy borderline in Baarle-Hertog to the outlet of Maasmechelen, from the pistes of Bak-de-Frituur to the western shores of De Panne. From Doel to Tihange, to even the border crossing at Arlon, I love Belgium.

.

Now.. did they plan the longer video release in Belgium too?

[Edited 8/6/20 1:54am]

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Héhé.

Like in most countries; governamental situations barely tell the real story of the reflection of it's society.

I'm flemish, Live in Brussels, in a building with 17 other nationalities, and to be honest,

people get along with few problems.

Yep I have my fun with the Belgians too.

Border situations are in EVEVRY country bizarre in lifestyle and rules. Everywhere ! Check that out.

France with Belgium, Holland with Germany, Italy with Switserland, Denmark with Holland, Poland with Germany ànd Latvia, Ukraine... I can make the list of a thousand situations. ALways the same problems everywhere, national rules apply or mix in with the neighborhood ones.

ANd yep, I love Belgium Too. Wouldn't want to live anywhere else, and i've seen the world.

(...Baraque Fraiture?)

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To answer your question for 'longer video release for the Hits' in Belgium, I have no idea,

But I (used to?) have this VHS cassette compilation from 1986:

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https://www.discogs.com/Prince-The-Story-So-Far/release/6378525

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(probably somewhere stuck in my basement between loads of other stuff.)

I think my version even was probably a bootleg version as far as I remeber;

it wasn't well packed and executed as I remember well. The quality was more or less Ok.

Wish I could find it again.

-

RODSERLING said:

databank said:

WB music, WB film and DC comics all belonged to the same parent company at the time, so rights couldn't possibly be too much of a hassle.

I fail to see how 30 MVs were more boring than 15. Lovesexy and Double Live, in their second editions, were 2 hours long concerts on a single tape and anyway rewinding was never much of a issue with VHS: mmany movies were also 2 hours long, I never heard anyone at the time saying "OMG, I renounced using my VCR because I can't stand the 3 minutes it takes to rewind my movie". Let's be serious for a minute, shall we?

Cost may be the issue there, as even if it was a single cassette I guess the less tape you put in it the cheaper it was to produce (but you could sell it for the same price). Now Ramzoo remembers it too, but says it was announced as a two cassettes combo, which makes little sense to me costs-wise but maybe was a trick to increase retail sales, before WB backed off and opted for a cheap option out of fear the whole greatest hits package would be too much of an expense for casual fans?

So one must be really blind to not observe that...

The more I think of it, the more I think what you really wanted to say is: "Even Stevie Wonder could observe that".

Vannormal said:

...Holland with Germany ... Denmark with Holland

.

<pedant>Holland, of course, has no border with Germany, although the Netherlands does. Neither Holland nor the Netherlands borders Denmark though. On the other hand, the kingdom of the Netherlands does have a border with France, so we can bypass Belgium entirely. however, that border is somewhat inconveniently located some 7000km from the Netherlands. (St Martin) </pedant>

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Vannormal said:

But I (used to?) have this VHS cassette compilation from 1986:

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https://www.discogs.com/Prince-The-Story-So-Far/release/6378525

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I think my version even was probably a bootleg version as far as I remeber;

it wasn't well packed and executed as I remember well. The quality was more or less Ok.

.

Yeah, I've only seen that promo with collectors more connected than me. (I?) It was indeed very minimal with regards to what you'd have to call "artwork". I never even bothered to make a copy, as by then I had recorded almost complete videos from the different music stations and music programs. I have those tapes still somewhere. The VCR is with my parents though, they broke theirs.

databank said:

Do you count belgians as semi-french?[/quote]
No you cannot. (I'm a flemish speaking Belgian) don't know why Belgians are always automatically are associated with French.

RODSERLING said:

I hope so too. Even Prince could have releases his own "Hits vol.3" With a video compilation. The question is, why they ( Prince, WB, the estate) never did.

.

presumably, the sales numbers on those type of products are too low. Then again.. productions costs are over and done... any sale makes money, not much costs to recoup anymore. If there's one thing I know, Prince was never above trying to make a quick buck, so I can only guess those things aren't lucrative enough.