No and I'm glad I wasn't. The Crystal Ball "fiasco" proved the gross incompetence and carelessness ordering from Prince. | |
Reply w/quote - E-mail - orgNote - ![]() |
I find it incredible how unforgiving the community was (and still is) when it comes to Crystal Ball (which, BTW, had nothing to do with NPGMC, being 3 years earlier). This was a first attempt for Prince (or any other major artist, for that matter) to sell material directly to fans online. Was it clumsy and unfortunate to have the CDs in stores before fans received them? Yes. Was it such a crime coming from a literally home handled operation? IDK. + Prince apparently tried to make up for it by sending some customers free t-shirts or copies of The War. Now the anger regarding lotusflow3r.com I can understand. Prince had been dealing with websites and selling his material directly to fans for about 15 years, there had been several years of NPGMC to experiment and the technology had become easy to handle. He should and could easily have delivered. The way he handled this was a big "fuck you" to the fanbase. I was rather pissed myself. Even the anger towards NPGMC 2002's CDs eventually amounting to 3 comercially available CDs, one exclusive CD and one exclusive digital album I can understand given that something else had been promised (and how hard could it be? Worst case, we could have been given IDK, 8 digital albums to make-up for the fact that Prince may have realized it would be too costly to print physical CDs if that was his reason). I also was disappointed. But Crystal Ball, IDK. Admitedly I wasn't concerned as I hadn't ordered it online and happily got it from my record store on the day of release, but it was an understandable slip-up for a first time experience IMHO. A COMPREHENSIVE PRINCE DISCOGRAPHY (work in progress ^^): https://sites.google.com/...scography/ | |
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Any you all remember your Screen names on the NPG Music Club website? Mine was "SonofPrince"
Facebook.com/truefunk777 https://www.instagram.com/truefunk7
[Edited 2/21/25 21:31pm] | |
Reply w/quote - E-mail - orgNote - ![]() |
I enjoyed being a member. Sound checks and special concerts. Website (and the idea in general) was way ahead of its time. Plus, I received my tshirt! | |
Reply w/quote - E-mail - orgNote - ![]() |
I was a member and it was worth it to be third row center for his one night alone show in LA. Guaranteed great seats and experiencing Prince relaxed and sound checking for about an hour and a half before the show was well worth the price of the NPGMC. Also got moved up to third row for the musicology show in Bakersfield. It was the second show of the tour and Rhonda Smith was outside the tour bus fussing with her equipment. She seemed to just be waiting for someone to come and talk to her so my girlfriend and I did. We gave her her flowers as a bassist and she said what row are you guys in tonight, I said like 20th or something. She said let's see if we can get ya closer! She went to the will call with us and upgraded our tickets to third row! She then told us what song that they would let fans onstage to. What a great lady! | |
Reply w/quote - E-mail - orgNote - ![]() |
luv2tha99s said: I was a member and it was worth it to be third row center for his one night alone show in LA. Guaranteed great seats and experiencing Prince relaxed and sound checking for about an hour and a half before the show was well worth the price of the NPGMC. Also got moved up to third row for the musicology show in Bakersfield. It was the second show of the tour and Rhonda Smith was outside the tour bus fussing with her equipment. She seemed to just be waiting for someone to come and talk to her so my girlfriend and I did. We gave her her flowers as a bassist and she said what row are you guys in tonight, I said like 20th or something. She said let's see if we can get ya closer! She went to the will call with us and upgraded our tickets to third row! She then told us what song that they would let fans onstage to. What a great lady! I spoke to her very briefly after a show back in 98. She was very friendly and seems to be the nicest person indeed ![]() A COMPREHENSIVE PRINCE DISCOGRAPHY (work in progress ^^): https://sites.google.com/...scography/ | |
Reply w/quote - E-mail - orgNote - ![]() |
I joined minutes after being able to join and I was a member for all his online clubs. | |
Reply w/quote - E-mail - orgNote - ![]() |
Yes, fro day 1.
It was a very exciting time, on the edge of what technology could deliver. The Ahdio Shows (which we would now know as podcasts) would take 8 hours to download (all 60MB), or if I went into university, their superfast broadband could download it in 40 mins, which I would then have to transfer to a Zip drive.
Getting monthly releases was an amazing thing, along with the soundcheck and aftershow access. | |
Reply w/quote - E-mail - orgNote - ![]() |
My recollection is that we got 320kbps mp3 files, which are pretty good quality for most uses (althouhg the Ahdio Shows were 128, presumably because the files were 'huge').
The second year ran it's full course and we received at least 4 CDs. The third year is when it went down to $25 and most of the goodies and exclusivity disappeared. | |
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Reply w/quote - E-mail - orgNote - ![]() |
For year 1, the NPG Ahdio Shows were 128-192 kbps and the individual tracks were 256 kbps. Nothing at 320 kbps. Weren't some early files re-released at higher bitrates when fans complained? Didn't we get some files at 96 kbps first? [Edited 3/5/25 7:45am] | |
Reply w/quote - E-mail - orgNote - ![]() |
Ah yes, 256.
At some point there were files with DRM. | |
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Details about the NPGMusicClub sites, downloads etc. can be found at PrinceVault: ALT+PLS+RTN: Pure as a pane of ice. It's a gift. | |
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Cool! | |
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. Friends don't let friends clap on 1 and 3.
The Paisley Park Vault spreadsheet: https://goo.gl/zzWHrU | |
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Almost all of the tracks have subsequently been available in lossless (or close to lossless) formats. But it would be great to get the Ahdio Shows and videos in top quality. | |
Reply w/quote - E-mail - orgNote - ![]() |
yep same, was a great time to be a Prince fan!
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