As much as I don't want to say it, a collection of Prince ballads would go a long way.

There are two albums that will sell to the average listener.

One is called Purple Rain.

The other is called The Hits/Ultimate/The Very Best Of Prince/4Ever (take your pick).

There are no other albums that are ever going to appeal to the average listener.

That ship sailed when Prince died. I will never, never, never understand why people get so het up about having to 'convert' more people to listening to Prince, or that he MUST have a hit again, or anything like that.

With VERY few exceptions, dead people don't have hits.

Average listeners don't care about Prince.

The estate doesn't need Prince to have massive hits in order to keep operating/releasing.

They just need constant stream of income.

Look at a legacy act like King Crimson. They release vast amounts of material from their vaults, all really well curated and managed. Granted, they're still able to tour, and make money from that, but generally, in terms of releases, they just handle the catalogue exceptionally well. So many live releases, deluxe albums, new mixes of albums, 'complete recordings' of eras.... they never, ever chase chart hits. And they do just fine.

This is the model the estate should follow. Trying to have hits or draw in 'average listeners' is a dead end street that is never going to work.

Rimshottbob said:

There are two albums that will sell to the average listener.

One is called Purple Rain.

The other is called The Hits/Ultimate/The Very Best Of Prince/4Ever (take your pick).

There are no other albums that are ever going to appeal to the average listener.

That ship sailed when Prince died. I will never, never, never understand why people get so het up about having to 'convert' more people to listening to Prince, or that he MUST have a hit again, or anything like that.

With VERY few exceptions, dead people don't have hits.

Average listeners don't care about Prince.

The estate doesn't need Prince to have massive hits in order to keep operating/releasing.

They just need constant stream of income.

Look at a legacy act like King Crimson. They release vast amounts of material from their vaults, all really well curated and managed. Granted, they're still able to tour, and make money from that, but generally, in terms of releases, they just handle the catalogue exceptionally well. So many live releases, deluxe albums, new mixes of albums, 'complete recordings' of eras.... they never, ever chase chart hits. And they do just fine.

This is the model the estate should follow. Trying to have hits or draw in 'average listeners' is a dead end street that is never going to work.

I agree with some of this. But I also think that a hit was waiting to be made last year when Forever In My Life was released from the SOTT box set. If that had been released to radio as an edit minus the outro vamp, I think it would charted. If only Warners had decided to take that course, I'm pretty sure it would placed.

Rimshottbob said:

There are two albums that will sell to the average listener.

One is called Purple Rain.

The other is called The Hits/Ultimate/The Very Best Of Prince/4Ever (take your pick).

There are no other albums that are ever going to appeal to the average listener.

That ship sailed when Prince died. I will never, never, never understand why people get so het up about having to 'convert' more people to listening to Prince, or that he MUST have a hit again, or anything like that.

With VERY few exceptions, dead people don't have hits.

Average listeners don't care about Prince.

The estate doesn't need Prince to have massive hits in order to keep operating/releasing.

They just need constant stream of income.

Look at a legacy act like King Crimson. They release vast amounts of material from their vaults, all really well curated and managed. Granted, they're still able to tour, and make money from that, but generally, in terms of releases, they just handle the catalogue exceptionally well. So many live releases, deluxe albums, new mixes of albums, 'complete recordings' of eras.... they never, ever chase chart hits. And they do just fine.

This is the model the estate should follow. Trying to have hits or draw in 'average listeners' is a dead end street that is never going to work.

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All of this is pretty much true.

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The one thing I would add, or argue, or whatever, is that by keeping Prince's catalog in print - in both regular and SDE versions - there's a good chance that some younger non-fan will stumble across "Around The World In A Day" or "Lovesexy" and become hooked, like most of us on the Org were.

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Someone like Bob Dylan has published *dozens* of compilations from his own "vault", and at some point, one of them is going to grab the attention of someone who knows nothing about Dylan. The same thing could happen with Prince.