Just curious who was on there back in the day and still come here and post

Member from day 1 till it folded.

I loved the idea of this, but when it turned out that what we were getting were mostly
new songs and there was a problem with releasing older material, it went downhill for
the remainder of it's duration.

But it was fun while it lasted.

And it lasted longer than Lotusflow3r.com

I was a member. I didn't have many expectations for it so I guess that's why I don't feel let down. I got access to some songs I wouldn't have otherwise heard (at the time), it was my first exposure to artists like Ani Difranco and I got some sweet seats for a couple of shows. No complaints here.

FJODOR said:

Member from day 1 till it folded.

I loved the idea of this, but when it turned out that what we were getting were mostly
new songs and there was a problem with releasing older material, it went downhill for
the remainder of it's duration.

But it was fun while it lasted.

And it lasted longer than Lotusflow3r.com

Lotusflower was a weird site...

Yes. Enjoyed it until Prince jacked me on Lotus Flower. Paid $77 for something he sold for $12 at target.

Yes. It was exciting and at the same time, we complained all the time, as usual.

Well, at least it allowed me to shook Prince's hand at an afterparty. That was nice of him.

[Edited 2/12/25 7:30am]

I was. I remember waiting for hours for its music to finally download.

olb99 said:

Yes. It was exciting and at the same time, we complained all the time, as usual.

.
We complained rightfully. Prepaying $100 for a second annual membership and then having the club shut down after 1-2 months without any refunds was not cool. Getting terrible quality and copyprotected wma and mp3 files wasn't cool. I understand the technical challenges his team faced but he made a lot of money on the service yet their database was on post-it notes...
.
The whole thing was being run extremely unprofessionally – although I respect the fact that he trusted and routinely gave opportunities to people with no relevant experience. This also led to a few positive fuckups, like getting 2 copies of Crystal Ball sets, 2 copies of Rave In2 and a couple of other extras. (Returning them would've been cost-prohibitive as I'm in Europe).

Yeah, I was, after a few teething problems, what it ended up offering in terms of exclusive products, the NPGAHDIO formats (surely, a precursor to Podcasts) and access to tickets (i'm UK based) made for a fabulous fan/customer relationship engagement proposition - that many brands to this day would love to be able to offer.

I was. I loved it. The best part was early/easy access to the best seats at concerts. When I saw the Musicology tour I was in the first row for every show. It was well worth the membership....

Yes!

Unfortunately, napster was still legal, so Prince made all his music files "DRM".

If you somehow lost your downloads from NPGMC after napster lost it's legal rights,
there was no way to recover them.

Of course one can get all the files now, but back then it was frustrating!

There were a handful of songs from that era that had an original version, but later were changed for the 'Chocolate Invasion' compilation.
"Sexme?sexmenot" and "Vavoom" being two examples.

I was in the first edition (mp3 files) and second one (cds).

Yes

Yeah I'd assume most of us were. It was a bit of a bumpy launch, they're written a custom client app (maybe built in Quicktime or something very Apple-centric?) rather than a web client so it was all a bit messy to start with, stability issues, download issues. It was pretty awesome though, very ahead of its time, and the thing I felt was most promising was the NPG Ahdio shows, I really wish they'd kept that going but it became clear over time that Prince himself wouldn't always be available to get involved etc so it felt like it sort of fizzled out.

I was and I absolutely LOVED the first year, it was so exciting

Then of course from the second year onwards not much happened anymore, which was a pity, but those first 12 months were fabulous as far as I was concerned. I wish he'd kept that formula going.

Gooddoctor23 said:

Yes. Enjoyed it until Prince jacked me on Lotus Flower. Paid $77 for something he sold for $12 at target.

THAT was crazy. To this day I still have no idea what he was thinking. The website was gorgeous, it was so exciting on the day it opened. Then... vitually nothing for the rest of the year. He could effortlessly have dropped some new material every month. It was like purposedly trying to antagonize his most loyal fanbase. Weird.

Kares said:

olb99 said:

Yes. It was exciting and at the same time, we complained all the time, as usual.

.
We complained rightfully. Prepaying $100 for a second annual membership and then having the club shut down after 1-2 months without any refunds was not cool. Getting terrible quality and copyprotected wma and mp3 files wasn't cool. I understand the technical challenges his team faced but he made a lot of money on the service yet their database was on post-it notes...
.
The whole thing was being run extremely unprofessionally – although I respect the fact that he trusted and routinely gave opportunities to people with no relevant experience. This also led to a few positive fuckups, like getting 2 copies of Crystal Ball sets, 2 copies of Rave In2 and a couple of other extras. (Returning them would've been cost-prohibitive as I'm in Europe).

I have nothing to add to the conversation, just wanted to say your signature gave me a good chuckle!

This could be nostalgia talking but I wonder if a better way to distribute Prince's vault material could be more akin to the NPGMC subscription model.

The number of actual fans willing to part with money for unfinished Prince jams, alternate takes, demos, rehearsals, live shows etc... the audience for this stuff is small and shrinking all the time as we get older. Investing time in polishing up, mixing and mastering these materials and creating massive box sets just slows it down further.

If the Estate brought back NPGMC in some form, with a monthly digital drop of some Vault material both audio and video on the understanding that it is what it is, it's not finished or perfect... could be really amazing. This provides a "fast path" to monetizing the Vault material while there is still a fanbase, minimizing overheads, and anything uncovered along the way that merits a larger mainstream "slow path" physical release can still have that too.

Bring back NPGMC And bring back NPG Ahdio, with former band members and stuff. I'd be all over that.

Kares said:

This also led to a few positive fuckups, like getting 2 copies of Crystal Ball sets, 2 copies of Rave In2 and a couple of other extras. (Returning them would've been cost-prohibitive as I'm in Europe).

Nice!

Well, at least I got my Crystal Ball t-shirt.

Getting into the soundchecks was awesome. Really, although there were some technical hiccoughs, NPGMC was pretty great, I'd forgotten just how good.

Nostalgia's all that's left in Princeland...

YES! where is my shirt? and I bought tickets to a Musicology show and I found out I could not go and they did not issue refunds! So I tried to sell and got emails from...someone...saying they were cancled and I would not get a refund...After a few emails they gave up and I got them and YES I sold them for about the my cost.

OnlyNDaUsa said:

YES! where is my shirt? and I bought tickets to a Musicology show and I found out I could not go and they did not issue refunds! So I tried to sell and got emails from...someone...saying they were cancled and I would not get a refund...After a few emails they gave up and I got them and YES I sold them for about the my cost.

.
Probably I have your shirt. Or someone else's.

olb99 said:

Kares said:

This also led to a few positive fuckups, like getting 2 copies of Crystal Ball sets, 2 copies of Rave In2 and a couple of other extras. (Returning them would've been cost-prohibitive as I'm in Europe).

Nice!

Well, at least I got my Crystal Ball t-shirt.

I got 2 ONA Live and 3 ONA. I didn't realize they'd be worth money someday back in 2002, so I resold one ONA Live to a local record store immediately (prabably for peanuts), and gave away my 2 extra ONAs to a friend and a girlfriend... Silly me

Yesss I loved the NPGMC!

Especially during the ONA tour with the soundcheck access, effin amazing!

This was really special.

Also NPGAhdio was fun with new music and related artists.

Ofcourse P. got bored with it and made promises he did not deliver, like the albums which were mentioned in the NPGMC store book/flyer.

The Estate should really bring the NPGMC back.