What is going on with the Estate?

The Estate is very active. It's offering you re-releases of songs you already own multiple times over. It's offering you slippers and bed sheets and hoodies. What? You're not interest in that?

lurker316 said:

The Estate is very active. It's offering you re-releases of songs you already own multiple times over. It's offering you slippers and bed sheets and hoodies. What? You're not interest in that?

Harsh.

but very fair

Please come over here and join the enormous wave of orgers trying to change the purple world:

https://prince.org/msg/7/469373

Gooddoctor23 said:

What is going on with the Estate?

This is a very good question.

Well, they gave us the Syracuse BluRay so technically, there was a release this year.

But of course I know what you mean and this has been a very unspectacular Prince year.

Even the rumours concerning possible future deluxe editions have fallen silent.

They sit on an archive with (still) tons of unreleased songs, rehearsals, audio and video recordings of concerts. Not everything may be in perfect shape but I believe most of us would be very content with what we could get.

At least they could give us teasers. A little song here, a little video there, to keep us busy and anticipating.

Instead of that, I steadily get mails of big Estate sales of calendards and mugs (well spoken, lurker316)

I think none of us understands how this can be. I wonder if there are still legal issues but that non-communication is very disturbing. I do not want to sound unthankful for things like the Sign Of The Times Deluxe set and other things we already got.

But next year it has been 7 years until his passing and we all are 7 years older and the world keeps on turning, and his legacy seems to get weaker and weaker.

There is still so much I want to see + listen to from the vault before I turn 90 ys old ...

[Edited 12/3/22 0:42am]

Landonfunkmonkey said:

Sure "the something big is coming" is not u.....this is a scoop & the good one this time ...thanx for that Landonfunkmonkey !

soon to be announced: actual purple rain.

for several thousand dollars, you can pay to have real purple rain fall from a cloud.

pre-orders coming soon.

thenewfunkystuff said:

Gooddoctor23 said:

What is going on with the Estate?

This is a very good question.

Well, they gave us the Syracuse BluRay so technically, there was a release this year.

But of course I know what you mean and this has been a very unspectacular Prince year.

Even the rumours concerning possible future deluxe editions have fallen silent.

They sit on an archive with (still) tons of unreleased songs, rehearsals, audio and video recordings of concerts. Not everything may be in perfect shape but I believe most of us would be very content with what we could get.

At least they could give us teasers. A little song here, a little video there, to keep us busy and anticipating.

Instead of that, I steadily get mails of big Estate sales of calendards and mugs (well spoken, lurker316)

I think none of us understands how this can be. I wonder if there are still legal issues but that non-communication is very disturbing. I do not want to sound unthankful for things like the Sign Of The Times Deluxe set and other things we already got.

But next year it has been 7 years until his passing and we all are 7 years older and the world keeps on turning, and his legacy seems to get weaker and weaker.

There is still so much I want to see + listen to from the vault before I turn 90 ys old ...

[Edited 12/3/22 0:42am]

Meanwhile Questlove is bragging about listening to the "Prince no one has access to".

It's so sad to see them shoving Purple Rain over and over and over when Prince has left SO MUCH to be properly mastered and released.

I am 32 and I hope I can live long enough to discover and enjoy all this music but it's disheartening for life-long fans who are in the sunset of their lives seeing the same music being sold over and over and over.

Everybody wants to sell what's already been sold.

i checked out the prince store today for the first time in ages and was surprised just HOW MUCH merch they have lol. its actually astonishing, the sheer range. there must be some fans who really buy every single thing, every scarf, every mug. not knocking it, i cant afford to, plus idk i need that many prince mugs lol.

lurker316 said:

The Estate is very active. It's offering you re-releases of songs you already own multiple times over. It's offering you slippers and bed sheets and hoodies. What? You're not interest in that?

I'd seriously consider one of their assorted knick-knacks if they weren't all slathered in Purple Rain iconography. We can't get something Gold? The man liked gold, too. Purple, purple, purple, purple, purple, purple, purple.

fernandomachado said:

It's so sad to see them shoving Purple Rain over and over and over when Prince has left SO MUCH to be properly mastered and released.

I am 32 and I hope I can live long enough to discover and enjoy all this music but it's disheartening for life-long fans who are in the sunset of their lives seeing the same music being sold over and over and over.

Everybody wants to sell what's already been sold.

Him being juggernaut Top 40 mainstream for a year and a half doomed his posthumous career. Estate has no interest unless it's reaching for that unattainable puffy Mozart shirt zenith of '84.

WhisperingDandelions said:

fernandomachado said:

It's so sad to see them shoving Purple Rain over and over and over when Prince has left SO MUCH to be properly mastered and released.

I am 32 and I hope I can live long enough to discover and enjoy all this music but it's disheartening for life-long fans who are in the sunset of their lives seeing the same music being sold over and over and over.

Everybody wants to sell what's already been sold.

Him being juggernaut Top 40 mainstream for a year and a half doomed his posthumous career. Estate has no interest unless it's reaching for that unattainable puffy Mozart shirt zenith of '84.

Co-sign.

It's funny. People who know I'm a Prince fan assume Purple Rain is my favorite album, just because most non-fans reflexively associate Prince with that album. When I tell people it's not, they seem shocked. I quickly explain that I'm not one of those obnoxious people who's too cool to like mainstream stuff, or someone who feels I need to prove my hardcore fan credentials by picking an obscure album to be my favorite. Rather, it's a matter of math. Prince had 39 studio albums (albums that spanned the musical genre spectrum, at that). What are the odds that every Prince fan would have the same exact favorite album? What are the odds that his millions of diverse fans who can't even agree on what day of the week it is, would just happen to all select the same favorite album out of 39?

love2thenines2003 said:

Landonfunkmonkey said:

Sure "the something big is coming" is not u.....this is a scoop & the good one this time ...thanx for that Landonfunkmonkey !

I wish I had a doller for every "something big is coming!" tease I've seen on the org in the last 18+ years.

Some panned out, some didn't... While we wait to see how this one goes, click the link to read some fun but failed predictions.


https://prince.org/msg/7/...?&pg=1

lurker316 said:

Co-sign.

It's funny. People who know I'm a Prince fan assume Purple Rain is my favorite album, just because most non-fans reflexively associate Prince with that album. When I tell people it's not, they seem shocked. I quickly explain that I'm not one of those obnoxious people who's too cool to like mainstream stuff, or someone who feels I need to prove my hardcore fan credentials by picking an obscure album to be my favorite. Rather, it's a matter of math. Prince had 39 studio albums (albums that spanned the musical genre spectrum, at that). What are the odds that every Prince fan would have the same exact favorite album? What are the odds that his millions of diverse fans who can't even agree on what day of the week it is, would just happen to all select the same favorite album out of 39?

ha, yeah, nice depiction of how you gotta be on the defensive with more mainstream types when you dare say Purple Rain era isn't your favorite. Sometimes I get the same aghast looks immediately followed by roll-your-eyes "Oh, okay, so you just don't like what everyone else likes". Then they got me swearing the opposite, "look, it's a great album, it's in my top 5, I swear, it's just not my favorite". Mmmkay, King Pretentious, sure.

Prince sort of becomes even more niche in the present era where it's like pre-1960s single-centric culture where the concept of the album or the superior album cut is a lost relic like CRT TVs and AM radio. YouTube reactors taper out after the same 5-6 hits thinking they reached the bottom of the well....

WhisperingDandelions said:

ha, yeah, nice depiction of how you gotta be on the defensive with more mainstream types when you dare say Purple Rain era isn't your favorite. Sometimes I get the same aghast looks immediately followed by roll-your-eyes "Oh, okay, so you just don't like what everyone else likes". Then they got me swearing the opposite, "look, it's a great album, it's in my top 5, I swear, it's just not my favorite". Mmmkay, King Pretentious, sure.

Prince sort of becomes even more niche in the present era where it's like pre-1960s single-centric culture where the concept of the album or the superior album cut is a lost relic like CRT TVs and AM radio. YouTube reactors taper out after the same 5-6 hits thinking they reached the bottom of the well....

So it sounds like we're had the same experience.

Despite Purple Rain not being my favorite... and despite my being sick of it having heard it a billion times in my life... and despite all of the criticism I've directed at the Estate for being singlularly focused on that era to the near exclusions of all others... I wouldn't object if the next release was a properly done SDE of Purple Rain. The pervious version was good, but could have been evern better. And at this point I'll settle for any new or remaster music the Estate wants to releases. An expanded Purple Rain album is far more appealing than an expanded Purple Rain tee-shirt line.

Speaking of remastering, the Estate did released a remastered version of The Time's first album. I presumed more would be forth coming, to include The Glamorous Life or Romance 1600. Disappointed those have not materialized.

[Edited 12/5/22 9:16am]

U guys more faith in the Estate than I do.......

i wouldnt expect anything big for another year. or def not until mid 2023 at least.

Landonfunkmonkey said:

Of course something big will eventually come. Whether it comes within a reasonable time is the question.

So anyone can keep predicting "Something big is coming" and will eventually be proven right. It would be like me predicting every morning, "It's gonna snow." Eventually I'll be right by defult, not because I had some insider knowledge of the weather.

CAL3 said:

I think that since the average Joe doesn’t give a rat’s ass about The Vault (which is admittedly very understandable), it makes sense when they reissue something like the Syracuse show. . Which was a cool package. And much more likely to help grow the fan base than a $100-plus edition larded with unfinished leftovers. . I would imagine it has been very difficult growing the Prince fan base.

You're framing it as a binary: either they release stuff to lure in casual fans or they releease stuff to satisfy the hardcore fans. But thay can do both, and at times they have.

For example, when they released 1999 and SOTT super deluxe editions, they released multiple variants.

They released the core ablum by itself, remastered. That, in terms of both content and price tag, was meant to appeal to the non-hardcore crowd, reintroducing them to Prince classics.

At the same time, they released a version with all the bonus material which was meant, in terms of both content and price tag, to appeal to the hardcore fans.

This is what a successful, sophisticated stratgey would entail. A multifaceted approach that could target two audiences simultaneously.

Gooddoctor23 said:

What is going on with the Estate?

Nothing, people are spending a fortune on memorabelia and already released material, why would they care to put in the effort to get more Super Deluxe sets or unreleased music out?

lurker316 said:

leadline said:

Gooddoctor23 said:

What is going on with the Estate?

Nothing, people are spending a fortune on memorabelia and already released material, why would they care to put in the effort to get more Super Deluxe sets or unreleased music out?

I unfortunately am in agreement with u.

I doubt if we get more than 5 releases from the estate in the next 10 years.

By that time, I will be 70 and will care less about Prince or his estate.

I can clearly see why Prince didn't leave a will with these people in it.

The results are obvious.

CAL3 said:

Some folks seem to want a vault release to drop every other month.

There's enough unreleased audio and video material to release something much more often than that. Even if it's simply a single song on a streaming service. Evidently the estate is only interested in more profitable offerings, such as physical releases and the other merchandise.

CAL3 said: