"We need something to announce at Celebration... Quick, let's throw a few randome tracks together and call it an album."

[Edited 6/23/26 13:16pm]

Such incompetence makes me grind my teeth

I don't know if this is relevant, but a lot of shipping companies are still clearing backlog caused by the Iran war and the subsequent diesel spike. I live near a big port and I know that a lot of these ships are waiting just outside in the shipping lanes for the price of diesel to come down before they refuel.i reckon September might be optimistic and that'll be something the Estate or Sony won't be able to influence.

[Edited 6/23/26 14:44pm]

jungleshot1 said:

I truly believe the estate and SONY music wasted a lot of momentum with the release date of the upcoming TIMELESS release. The announcement made in June did not have a release until late August. Totally stunted the momentum and I believe the sales of this release. 2 months later might as well be Christmas time. Just imagine the sales they would get it. The time to release would be by the end of June or better yet that we got it at the celebration. One would have all the attendees basically buying that CD and then you would get the publicity tied into that as well. This leads me to believe that this release was a last-minute addition to the schedule. Terrible marketing.Dealing with a legacy artist the number one thing is publicly and marketing.

I agree with this. The general consensus here is that they aren't thinking/planning with a whole lot of smarts. Also who knows if they even had the album pressed & packaged in time for Celebration? I for one don't believe that it's even ready at all, hence the rather weird release date change. I don't really have a lot confidence in the August release date either.

cfluid said:

jungleshot1 said:

I truly believe the estate and SONY music wasted a lot of momentum with the release date of the upcoming TIMELESS release. The announcement made in June did not have a release until late August. Totally stunted the momentum and I believe the sales of this release. 2 months later might as well be Christmas time. Just imagine the sales they would get it. The time to release would be by the end of June or better yet that we got it at the celebration. One would have all the attendees basically buying that CD and then you would get the publicity tied into that as well. This leads me to believe that this release was a last-minute addition to the schedule. Terrible marketing.Dealing with a legacy artist the number one thing is publicly and marketing.

I agree with this. The general consensus here is that they aren't thinking/planning with a whole lot of smarts. Also who knows if they even had the album pressed & packaged in time for Celebration? I for one don't believe that it's even ready at all, hence the rather weird release date change. I don't really have a lot confidence in the August release date either.

I sincerely hope that SONY/WB can come to some sort of agreement to have a release timed for celebration 2027. So many positives to be gained from having CELEBRATION AND a release at the same time.The days of new releases being in the fall/winter are over especially for legacy artists. The estate should be actively preparing a release NOW for NEXT June.Plenty of time to compile if all the parties don't delay.

fredmagnus said:

Such incompetence makes me grind my teeth

Ain't no firing Charles F.Spicer.He OWNS a piece of the PRINCE LEGACY portion of the PRINCE ESTATE.

According to Funkatobia we won’t get the 3121 Box set until the first part of 2027, so I guess Timeless is this year’s only release.

jungleshot1 said:

The real question is--why do you guys keep trying to make THE ESTATE do what you want it to do and it won't? I still love Prince and his music but I have given up on the ESTATE. I finally got to see Prince in a small local club in 2014, my dream since the 1980s, with my son. I can never top that and I saw Prince 13 times that I will always treasure. I have vinyl and bootleg CDs and dowloads galore but it is time for me to move on at age 65. There are so many other artists and bands to discover in hopefully the next 20 years of my life. I'm sure Prince would agree, if he was still among us.

MIRvmn1 said:

According to Funkatobia we won’t get the 3121 Box set until the first part of 2027, so I guess Timeless is this year’s only release.

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As I've said before: Sony/Legacy ain't gonna compete with their own release. Perhaps if Timeless had come out at the end of July there would have been room for a release towards the end of the year, but once that release date moved to end of August it was done. No way anything would get released in the three months after, and by December it would have been impossible due to the end of year deluge.

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"Early 2027" is a joke as well, since apparently 21 April is some kind of sacred date that cannot be spoiled with a release in the weeks/months before/after. They should have release a P&AM concert around that date for maximum press impact, but instead they want to find the "perfect way" to release it, which is apparently placing a random track on a random compilation of studio tracks.

andrewm7new said:

I don't know if this is relevant, but a lot of shipping companies are still clearing backlog caused by the Iran war and the subsequent diesel spike. I live near a big port and I know that a lot of these ships are waiting just outside in the shipping lanes for the price of diesel to come down before they refuel.i reckon September might be optimistic and that'll be something the Estate or Sony won't be able to influence.

[Edited 6/23/26 14:44pm]

Nah, they use cargo planes at night for that, and/or other alternative posibilities. WHich takes less capacities for sure, but they use it. (I hear it here at night with our national airport. More traffic at night for sure.)

Considdering 'oil-deliveries' that are currently stuck in the Street of Hormous, for those who need that oil, they order it elsewhere. Or they use other energy sources.

Shipping retail always finds another way to get it where it needs to be, due to whatever problem there is, like weather, climate, or war due to politics. Nothing new.

All momentums are lost.

All official information so far is so poor, it hurts.

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- 'With This Tear' was released, without letting the world know that it was from a to-be-released new album/project.

- Celebration had a layout assuming it had something to do with 1986 Parade era.

- Celebration didn't focus all that much on the new release.

- Release date is too far away from announcement.

- Stone as a second single... no promotion whatsoever, no radioplay (at least here in Europe afaik)

- No interviews in magazines about new (upcoming) album or single release.

- no promotion done to radio stations.

- No video release for Stone.

- No artwork for the new release 'Stone' (on YT it only has the new album artwork)

- The title of the new album doesn't appeal all that much to all things Prince (imo). This title would've been better for a MJ project... (my opinion).

- Poor album artwork revealed for the new album, with no visible Prince (face), just a silhouet. How to attrack new young fans with that?)

- A very short album (since the last release of 2023), spanning 4 decades in only 10 songs?

- No mailing list to fans via official website about new release(s).

- No international promotion for the both released singles (afaik).

- Misse doportunity to have new singles remixed by newbies/others, to reach a wider audience for example...

- You open the official website Prince.com and it still is focused on Diamonds & Pearls, and Celebration 2023! Only when you go to SHOP, you get info about 2 vinyl copies, 1 CD version, and 9 merch items, related to the new release. No info on tracks and not even a list of tracks,

- Princevualt has more info on the new release than The Estate ever could've created themselves.

- No news on a third sigle release.

- Bad communication via twitter and facebook, etc with the fans.

- A short promotional clip on Tik Tok, Instagram and FB with the only song 'Stone', no snippets of new to be released tracks. (ie to warm up fans and the world).

- Instead, when you click for more information, you get a 4x repeating information from a crappy AI-generated text, repeating the same information 10 times, and 5 times the release of Stone, all in one text ???!!!

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Here one can learn how to go lower than low in spreading information for something new. :'(((((

[Edited 6/25/26 5:16am]

What part of this Estate is 100% trash is unclear?

jimino1 said:

The Estate have no idea (1) how to compile an album that will attract attention and (2) no idea how to market pretty much anything. Theyre dreaming if they think just releasing something will garner sales. They should have learned that with Diamonds and Pearls SD and ATWIAD. If they want to make an impact on Prince's sales they need to do more. Much more. Since they took over they seem to have no plan going forward. There's no communication with fans or even media. I dont think they have any idea what to do. Prove me wrong Charles and Londell!

Didn't you get the memo? They put "Purple Rain" in the finale of a huge Netflix show that everyone moved on from in less than two weeks, so now the estate gets to coast for the entirety of this year

bozojones said:

jimino1 said:

The Estate have no idea (1) how to compile an album that will attract attention and (2) no idea how to market pretty much anything. Theyre dreaming if they think just releasing something will garner sales. They should have learned that with Diamonds and Pearls SD and ATWIAD. If they want to make an impact on Prince's sales they need to do more. Much more. Since they took over they seem to have no plan going forward. There's no communication with fans or even media. I dont think they have any idea what to do. Prove me wrong Charles and Londell!

Didn't you get the memo? They put "Purple Rain" in the finale of a huge Netflix show that everyone moved on from in less than two weeks, so now the estate gets to coast for the entirety of this year

Your point remains entirely valid but Purple Rain remained in the upper echelons of the UK charts for an impressive five weeks.

First of all, the previous team was passionate about Prince's music and legacy. Michael Howe, Duane, and Trevor were all there for a reason: their love for Prince's musical work.

The current people in charge are just a bunch of fucking lawyers and music industry executives (from Sony and Primary Wave) who don't give a single shit about Prince or his music. You can clearly hear that they don't care whenever they talk about the "plans" they have.

While Comerica could put out a lavish box set almost every year, Sony & Co. seem to need several years to release one. WTF?

fredmagnus said:

First of all, the previous team was passionate about Prince's music and legacy. Michael Howe, Duane, and Trevor were all there for a reason: their love for Prince's musical work.

The current people in charge are just a bunch of fucking lawyers and music industry executives (from Sony and Primary Wave) who don't give a single shit about Prince or his music. You can clearly hear that they don't care whenever they talk about the "plans" they have.

While Comerica could put out a lavish box set almost every year, Sony & Co. seem to need several years to release one. WTF?

This release will be treated like the AROUND THE WORLD IN A DAY remaster by me. Strictly streaming for me.If the estate is being stingy with this bare bones release then I will do likewise. Not going to purchase a physical copy for something like this.NOW if they had expanded it and say had a 2 disc set of "timeless releases" with the first disc of unreleased songs over the decades coupled with the 2 disc of LIVE songs over the decades I would happily purchase a physical copy. This would be perfectly fine. This release to me seems hastily put together. Doing a 2nd disc of live perfomances over the years would require in their eyes too much work. A shame. SONY has the rights to release the PIANO & MIC live from PAISLEY . A ten year anniversery would have been great. They chose not too. Not sure why the estate didn't. Power move I guess. Can't blame NETFLIX anymore.

bizzie said:

FrankieCoco1 said:

Meanwhile Joy Division fans will be getting a fantastic 12 CD and 2 DVD release of live shows from 1979/1980. https://store.neworder.co...8933489718 Imagine a similar Prince set of live shows being released.

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We can only dream.

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Hell, just compare the pathetic Deluxe edition of ATWIAD to this: https://superdeluxeeditio...e-blu-ray/ . Seven streams, 25 bonus tracks, seven promo videos.

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