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Thread started 02/11/25 6:54pm

Astasheiks

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Where any of you all ever a member on Prince's NPG Music Club website?

Just curious who was on there back in the day and still come here and post smile cool eye wildsign beret

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Reply #1 posted 02/11/25 7:37pm

NICKthebrick

I was.

I remember the day it opened.

My computer couldn't handle it. It made the monitor flicker so much it was unusable.

There was some good stuff but ultimately it failed to live up.to my hopes for it
[Edited 2/11/25 19:39pm]
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Reply #2 posted 02/11/25 7:50pm

happyshopper

I’d assume most here were members! 😃
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Reply #3 posted 02/11/25 7:51pm

FJODOR

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 lol disbelief


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Reply #4 posted 02/11/25 10:56pm

whodknee

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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.

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Reply #5 posted 02/12/25 5:33am

purplethunder3
121

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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 lol disbelief


Lotusflower was a weird site... lol

"Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything." --Plato

https://youtu.be/CVwv9LZMah0
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Reply #6 posted 02/12/25 7:20am

Gooddoctor23

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

Graycap23 was ME!
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Reply #7 posted 02/12/25 7:28am

olb99

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

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]

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Reply #8 posted 02/12/25 7:54am

jorge

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

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Reply #9 posted 02/12/25 9:03am

Kares

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olb99 said:

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

.
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).

Friends don't let friends clap on 1 and 3.

The Paisley Park Vault spreadsheet: https://goo.gl/zzWHrU
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Reply #10 posted 02/12/25 1:27pm

mattosgood

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.

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Reply #11 posted 02/12/25 2:23pm

skywalker

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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....

"New Power slide...."
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Reply #12 posted 02/12/25 7:14pm

nayroo2002

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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.

"Whatever skin we're in
we all need 2 b friends"
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Reply #13 posted 02/12/25 8:16pm

themanfromnept
une

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

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Reply #14 posted 02/13/25 9:26am

IanRG

Yes

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Reply #15 posted 02/13/25 11:40am

nxx

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.

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Reply #16 posted 02/14/25 1:48am

databank

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

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.

A COMPREHENSIVE PRINCE DISCOGRAPHY (work in progress ^^): https://sites.google.com/...scography/
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Reply #17 posted 02/14/25 1:51am

databank

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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.

A COMPREHENSIVE PRINCE DISCOGRAPHY (work in progress ^^): https://sites.google.com/...scography/
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Reply #18 posted 02/14/25 9:15am

TheEclecticEle
ctric

Kares said:

olb99 said:

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

.
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! biggrin

+e
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Reply #19 posted 02/14/25 9:17am

nxx

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

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Reply #20 posted 02/14/25 3:05pm

Germanegro

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Yes!
>
It was wonderful, with the access to top-notch concert seating and soundcheck access, the variety of "rooms" to wander around and play in, nice merchandise access--rare and vintage--at reasonable prices, and the guaranteed music features sent to your home were brilliant! I loved the Ahdio Shows, but those and whatever downloads came from them were excruciating to try and download over a CREEPING telephone modem and mostly didn't happen for me. That was a tech limitation of the day for a lot of people. I could stream a lot for a novelty listen, though. I was able to download the Xenophobia collection it its entirety and also copy it onto CD--all of that still works for me! Dumb luck, I guess--or maybe just simple-tech perseverance.
>
There was SO much potential for music distribution here, community networking, you name it! I was so shocked when it all came to a halt after the copyright to "NPG" was discovered to have been secured by a different media agent.
>
I'm happy that another of his contemporaries, Sananda Maitreya fka TTD, was able to adopt his own version of an online presence in the early 2000s and really run with such an online presence in his own style. All love, baby! heart
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Reply #21 posted 02/14/25 3:20pm

olb99

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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. hmph!

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Reply #22 posted 02/14/25 3:46pm

DarkKnight1

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Yes, the concert seat early options were pretty great.
(Insert something clever here)
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Reply #23 posted 02/14/25 5:26pm

nxx

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

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Reply #24 posted 02/14/25 7:10pm

onlyforaminute

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Yep.
Time keeps on slipping into the future...


This moment is all there is...
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Reply #25 posted 02/14/25 8:47pm

purplethunder3
121

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

"Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything." --Plato

https://youtu.be/CVwv9LZMah0
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Reply #26 posted 02/14/25 9:24pm

OnlyNDaUsa

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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.

"Keep on shilling for Big Pharm!"
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Reply #27 posted 02/14/25 10:01pm

Kares

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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. smile

Friends don't let friends clap on 1 and 3.

The Paisley Park Vault spreadsheet: https://goo.gl/zzWHrU
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Reply #28 posted 02/14/25 11:08pm

databank

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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. hmph!

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 rolleyes

A COMPREHENSIVE PRINCE DISCOGRAPHY (work in progress ^^): https://sites.google.com/...scography/
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Reply #29 posted 02/15/25 7:27am

Trufunksoulja

Yesss I loved the NPGMC! woot!

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.

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