All in world wide sales
95-TGE- 856,023
95-Girl 6- 427,000
95-Chaos and Disorder- 682,034
96- Emancipation 742,030 (in us but counted as 2 million)
98- Crystall Ball- over 248,942
98- NPS- 322,0122
99- NPG New Masters- 350,234
99- Rave Un 2 The Joy Fantastic- 688,212 (world wide)
00- Very Best of Prince- 1 million world wide
01- TRC 289,045
02- ONA- 295,033
03- NEWS- OVER 90,000 (so far)

and?

lil, i know you love Prince and all just like we do but why are buggin' lately on sales figures?
what's your point? go ahead, just say it.

Look at any artist's record sales once they have disappeared from the commercial audience & you'll notice the same thing.

Its not as if Prince or any artist makes a record because it will sell X number of copies because thats not what music is about. Prince just makes music & whether people like it or not is up to them.

Even if N.E.W.S. was promoted like crazy, the sales would still be shit cuz it sucks.

EvilWhiteMale said:

90 thousand is still great for a instrumental jazz record, but its prince so he has a backround, but still, jazz records don't sell much. he must be getting respect some where.

All though steve vai's Passion and Warefare('90) album went platinum. but he was touring with whitesnake then, so he had promoted a lot.

That's mainly 90,000 of Prince's hard-core fans. No one else cares about it.

EvilWhiteMale said:

Damn, you're just kickin' ass here I see.

cloud9mission said:

Actually, that's not true - the Bee Gees sunk to as deep of depths as you could possibly sink as an artist. Their records were actually burned, stations promoted Bee Gees free weekends, stations went totally Bee Gees free. Sales plummeted and they barely get noticed by radio - since the 1970s, they've only had two hits in the US (One in 1989 and Alone in 1997) - despite releasing some awesome music in that time - songs like You Win Again, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Still Waters, This Is Where I Came In, etc. Yet despite lack of airplay, their sales have surged in the past few years.

Their 1997 studio album Still waters went platinum. After that, their live album One Night Only went platinum. After that their new greatest hits package, Their Greatest Hits - the Record, went platinum. Their live DVD of One Night Only went 2x platinum. Saturday Night Fever jumped from 11x platinum in 1984 to 15x platinum in 1999.

Also, the Bee Gees fought to gain ownership of their masters - they fought and won that battle before Prince even recorded Purple Rain. Maybe had Prince paid attention to the Bee Gees battle, he could have negotiated a better contract with WB and avoided the battle that led to his commercial downfall.

lildragon said:

What's your source for these figures?

alandail said:

Thanks for the Bee Gees info.As a huge fan of theirs,I was really disappointed with the way most of their 80s work was ignored.It's good to see they made a comeback in recent years.

You have to remember that the Bee Gees continued to sell in countries outside of U.S. during this period.

Cloudbuster said:

Point well taken.Too often,we act as if the U.S. sales are the only sales that matter...lol...

funkaholic1972 said:

yeah ill second that question. how can you know for sure, Rave sold 688,212 exactly world wide at time of print?? surely thats impossible!! plus, TGE only selling 856k? thats abit odd! i still like figures though, im abit of a sadcase for them! i think these are only USA figures though right?

ps, who cares if its only hardcore fans buying NEWS? its hardly a) commercial b) radio friendly how is it going to get to the mainstream? whos going to take a risk on buying an instrumental album with no single from an artist with such a recently chequered catalogue as prince?

the problem with u guys is u think his albums have sold more.. NO! these are the worlwide sales figures from 2003 my sources are nielson sound scan and electra which is an indusrty that certifies gold and platinuim albums!!

??n3?

n said:

'The Gold Experience' had to have sold more than 856,023 copies worldwide! That figure sounds like the total sales in the U.S.

DavidEye said:

Sure, but I was also talking US only sales for the Bee Gees recent releases as well. Somehow despite quite limited airplay, the Bee Gees sales in the US have been surging while Prince's sales of quite similar releases have floundered, despite having very strong reviews.

It's not surprising NEWS isn't a big seller - it's only been out a limited time and it's an instrumental, but how the heck could the first ever live album by Prince not even sell 300k copies?

Also, just looking at the post warners studio albums, I see two disturbing trends.

96- Emancipation 742,030 (in us but counted as 2 million)
99- Rave Un 2 The Joy Fantastic- 688,212 (world wide)
01- TRC 289,045
03- NEWS- OVER 90,000 (so far)

Trend one, sales diminish with each release

Trend two, after complaining for years about his output being limited, Prince's output of studio albums has plummeted. 4 albums in 8 years. that's half the rate they came out with WB (and that doesn't even count the lack of remixes, b-sides). Sure, Emancipation was a triple album, but the did have a couple of double albums with WB.

I think this has been the biggest disappointment for me in this post WB period. He could have done so much better. The lone bright spot was NPGMC year one, where we got a lot of otherwise unreleased music. Year 2 was a major disappointment. And year 3 has been even more disappointing.

What he should have done is release one major CD each year and spend the money to promote it. There's really no reason for Prince not to be able to get a platinum album every year. Then he could have had a club to release these side projects to die hard fans. Stuff like NEWS, Crystal Ball, New Power Soul, Xenophobia, club year 1 content, etc. could have been club exclusive CD releases.

Imagine this - a club with a new CD of Prince music every 2 months, either new studio projects like NEWS, or freshly mastered vault material. And a new studio album every year that's outside the club. The only way to get the club stuff is to join the club, but anyone can get the studio album, which is widely promoted. That's what should have happened - and had that happened these past 8 years, Prince would still be commercially relevant and the die hard fans would be plenty happy.

The major labels ask for a significant cut because they take the financial risk required to generate sales. Part of Prince's argument at the time was there was no financial risk on his music because it always sold well. Yet since the split with WB, Prince has been totally unwilling to take the financial risk required to make any of his albums a commercial success. That appears to be the only purpose of the club since year 1 - to pre fund his releases, thus eliminate the risk. It was only in year one where club members actually got exclusive music for their money.

first of all TGE only sold around 526,000 copies in the U.S. if you have the billboard sales figures in 95 which i have and in Alex Han's Possesed it tells u how many slaes figures... he aint selling over a million anymore just get that into your head...

lildragon said:

why are you even caring about how many copies of whatever is selling in the first place?

WHY CANT I

DavidEye said:

Maybe not. Had The Gold Experience been released in '94 (as originally planned) it probably would've done better business. But by the end of '95, the general public considered Prince a total fruitcake and a whining rich bloke who was pulling publicity stunts to cover up a decline in sales/popularity. In the UK, TGE hit no.4 but was off the charts after just five weeks. Even the release of Gold at the end of the year (which was a UK top ten single) couldn't generate interest in the album. In the US, the album hit no.6 but fell off the charts after just eight weeks. So those sales figures could be accurate.

lildragon said:

simple: it makes no sense to worry about such things, if you ask me...

TGE wasn't really promoted either. Prince was too stubborn to promote anything for WB, from Come on. Remember, when Come was released, Prince went on Letterman to play Dolphin. Then somewhere in there, he went on the Today show to play Love Sign instead of the current WB album - I forget now if that was when Come was released or when TGE was released.

Prince could sell a million copies - the sales of the Very Best of Prince show that. All he has to do to be relevant again is to play the game that's he unwilling to play. Actually go out and perform on stuff the VMA, the Grammies, etc. Remind people just how good he is.

THANK YOU AT LEAST SOME ONE UNDERSTANDS THE TRUTH!

lildragon said:

which is?

EvilSkittle said:

Prince is the one who needs his ass kicked already.

Cloudbuster said:

Hmmm,I always assumed that 'TGE' was kinda successful.As you pointed out,it hit Number 6 on the US charts (I think it debuted even higher on the R&B charts?).The single "I Hate U" got alot of radio airplay,and it peaked at Number 11,if I'm not mistaken.And finally,the album contained a massive hit from the year before ("TMBGITW").So,that's why I always assumed the CD did beter than it really did.Oh well...at least it went gold in the States,for what it's worth.

But yeah,I agree with you.If 'TGE' had been released in the summer of '94,it would have been a SMASH.I've always felt that Prince should have never released the lackluster 'Come' CD.He should have handed Warners 'TGE',with the songs "Days Of Wild","Interactive","Acknowledge Me",etc. With great videos and proper promotion,he could have had a major comeback,of sorts.

yep - Prince had some great music from the period when Come was released - had he either been able to go forward with his plan of a simultaneous independent release of tGE, or just put together one album, he could have sold a lot more copies. I don't know if I'd call it a comeback, though - as it would have been the followup to the 3 million selling symbol album.

no the symbol album did not sell 3 million... the symbol album sold 2.8 million world wide back in 93 now around 3 million yes but diamonds and pearls sold 2.8 million in the US alone and a total of 6.5 million world wide