Do we really need to go through this BS every other month? This ain't gonna happen unless a billionaire fronts them a fuckton of money and doesn't expect any sane ROI.

.

Also, $40/month for streaming? LMAO.

First: Fuck Tidal.

Second: folks are tired of another goddamn monthly fee. "Service providers" are nickel and diming everyone to death. What's the point of cutting the cable/cord if we're just in as deep or deeper with a gazillion other little services? That's a rant against the idea, not the OP.

Third: I don't trust Tidal or anyone outside of the estate to organize and get stuff together in any sort of cohesive way.

Not everyone wants to stream stuff all the time. Stuff like 1999 and SOTT SDE are much more magical in hand than just some random, impersonal digital file.

TrivialPursuit said:

Kinda beyond caring at this point.

I'm ok for digital files that we'd be able to buy but I don't care about streaming.

"Digital music disappears in the daytime". I want it with me all the time.

$40 PER MONTH!!!!!!

Hahaahahahahahahaha!!

Are you HIGH?

Streaming is bullshit already... who the hell is gonna pay $40 per month to rent music by one artist AND have to pay MORE to download it...

This might be the worst business model put forward on here yet...

The Estate just learned that there IS a market for this stuff, that you can produce 13LP/8CD sized sets and have them sell....

Screw streaming, screw crap quality.... let them release it properly or not at all.

TrivialPursuit said:

Second: folks are tired of another goddamn monthly fee. "Service providers" are nickel and diming everyone to death. What's the point of cutting the cable/cord if we're just in as deep or deeper with a gazillion other little services? That's a rant against the idea, not the OP.

Not sure what else everyone expected to happen as more people cut the chord. Cable providers paid the content creators and amalgamated all the content in one place. Less people paying cable, less money to the content creators. So now they have to get their money in other ways.

TheEnglishGent said:

TrivialPursuit said:

Second: folks are tired of another goddamn monthly fee. "Service providers" are nickel and diming everyone to death. What's the point of cutting the cable/cord if we're just in as deep or deeper with a gazillion other little services? That's a rant against the idea, not the OP.

Not sure what else everyone expected to happen as more people cut the chord. Cable providers paid the content creators and amalgamated all the content in one place. Less people paying cable, less money to the content creators. So now they have to get their money in other ways.

You've missed my point. I don't care about who provides content. My point is that everyone who does is "just $9.99 a month," "all this for only $14.99 a month." It piles up. All that "just $X a month" ends up being just as much as having a larger service like full on cable, satellie, or Telco services. So to suggest another monthly fee of $40 is outrageous. It's a niche market, anyway. As someone stated, streaming shitty to begin with, but then to add all that stuff and know that it'd be 90% hardcore Prince fans debating whether to use it, and only a 50/50 chance at best with that. It wouldn't be worth it for anyone involved.

camilleisfunky said:

There's a market for everything in the vault. It's really annoying that they're not capitalising on it. .... Are they really this ignorant? Don't they want money? Unreal.

Not capitlising on it? Where you been???

Prince fans act like they're owed something, that everything should come out every six months or three months. Do fans think they aren't making money at $300 a pop on SOTT SDE vinyl alone? If they sold 100,000 units at that price point, that's $30,000,000. That doesn't even speak to the $1,500 jackets on the site, the cloud guitar replicas (all of which people are buying), 1999 Deluxe, Purple Rain Deluxe (which also included a re-release of all the 12" singles), Piano and a Microphone, all the Legacy reissues on purple vinyl (like the massive Emancipation/Versace/Chaos bundle which was just shy of $140 itself)... and so on.

Where exactly are they missing making money? Do tell!

TrivialPursuit said:

camilleisfunky said:

TrivialPursuit said:

Not capitlising on it? Where you been???

Prince fans act like they're owed something, that everything should come out every six months or three months. Do fans think they aren't making money at $300 a pop on SOTT SDE vinyl alone? If they sold 100,000 units at that price point, that's $30,000,000. That doesn't even speak to the $1,500 jackets on the site, the cloud guitar replicas (all of which people are buying), 1999 Deluxe, Purple Rain Deluxe (which also included a re-release of all the 12" singles), Piano and a Microphone, all the Legacy reissues on purple vinyl (like the massive Emancipation/Versace/Chaos bundle which was just shy of $140 itself)... and so on.

Where exactly are they missing making money? Do tell!

They could be making more money. It's my point. And fans are craving for more product. 1+1+1=3

First of all, they are limited by how quickly they can release sets because the restoration/remastering work that needs to be done.

Second of all, even if they could snap their fingers and instantly remaster everything in the vault, they would still want to stagger the releases. Otherwise they'd saturate the market. Fans only have so much disposable income. We can't buy everything at once, no matter how obsessive we are. We need a bit of time between releases to save up our money.

what restoration??? they turned the bass up on some cassettes and mp3s

AvocadosMax said:

Just create a huge online library powered by either TIDAL or the estate can make their own streaming site Where nearly everything from the vault is there, and the estate adds tracks every month or so (new finds or tracks they’re just getting to master) Have it organized by album, live shows, rehearsals, abandoned projects, side projects like Vanity 6, videos, year, etc. Fans get all that for $40 or so a month and we are able to download any albums/tracks for additional $ This is a great idea. This is how it should be done moving forward after they do the Parade SDE or whatever Thoughts?

Put it all on Bandcamp!

lurker316 said:

camilleisfunky said:

TrivialPursuit said: They could be making more money. It's my point. And fans are craving for more product. 1+1+1=3

First of all, they are limited by how quickly they can release sets because the restoration/remastering work that needs to be done.

Second of all, even if they could snap their fingers and instantly remaster everything in the vault, they would still want to stagger the releases. Otherwise they'd saturate the market. Fans only have so much disposable income. We can't buy everything at once, no matter how obsessive we are. We need a bit of time between releases to save up our money.

BINGO! You nailed it.

"fans are craving" = entitlement. No one is obligated to satisfy the thirst of the fanbase. It's just good business to stagger any release, especially ones with almost 70 bonus tracks beyond the album and its singles. I mean fuck, since when is $30,000,000 (for one format package) paltry? Prince wasn't even making that selling his typical 3 million copies per album.

He bragged about Emancipation going platinum. But do the math on that. Each disk in the set counts as one sale/release. So a 3-disk set only has to sell 333,334 copies to reach that 1,000,000 sales status. (Similarly, 1999 would have to sell only 500,000 in its day to be certified platinum; Crystal Ball with 4-disks would have to sell only 250,000 to make platinum.)

Even if you cut my earlier number of 100,000 copies in half, that's still $15M just for the CD box set that retailed for $299. That doesn't count the vinyl album, the vinyl expanded, the combo of the two, the 3-disk version w/ the singles disk included, the LP set w/ lapel pins, etc.

So to say they could be making more money is a falsehood. They could release more. That doesn't mean they're going to make more off the cuff. As Lurker said, you can't saturate the market, or bankrupt people who want this stuff. Plus it takes time to format, design, manufacture, package, ship, etc.

And to TrevorAyer: that's bullshit. No one is "turning up the bass on some cassettes and mp3s." That's obtuse, at best.

Less is more.

[Edited 11/14/20 11:01am]

LMAO the juxtaposition of that sentiment with that photo ^

AvocadosMax said:

Thoughts?

.

I do not stream audio very much but the idea is to great to be done by the Estate.

It is in the same corder as how they did the SDE releases until now (you know the deal), the speed, the completeness, the strategy, the vision, the plan...

It is all kinda bonkers in a bad way.

Not smart, sane, clear, effective.

They're leaving a lot of money on the table just owning that material and not making it available for a monthly fee. Any other media property with a backlog of content would be wise to monetize it immediately, totally independent of phsical releases (whole other animal)

Not to mention the fun and innovative features they could include. Live listening rooms to share with friends, interactive playlists, monthly live releases, custom channels where you program your own custom live station. Aspects that Netflix should have had years ago.

Well I'll be over dreaming about the Purple Music Romance Club... Fuck the other PMRC

Or just call it NPGMC again... it's the era of reboots after all.

I could spare $7.77 so long as that stimulus hits and they actually digitize and include everything in the vault including concerts, alternate versions, remixes, video, everything.

There are plenty of streaming services that would kill just to be first in line to negotiate a deal licensing the Prince name and content for something like this. It's absolute gold

[Edited 11/15/20 11:58am]

Number1Crush said:

I could spare $7.77 so long as that stimulus hits

.

The life suport you mention is just that.

It hides the unemployment and the decay of whatever was there.

If one needs to depend on such money then they should ready be in BTC to weather this storm.

The 'rebooted' NPGMC materials will leak to b00tleggars and the net.

So do not worry, you will get to hear those songs.

Number1Crush said:

Number1Crush said:

There are plenty of streaming services that would kill just to be first in line to negotiate a deal licensing the Prince name and content for something like this. It's absolute gold

.

LOL. Dream on. Prince's audience is tiny.