1 track - Bataclan - NPG in this funky house/All the critics love U in Paris 99c
5 tracks - C-Note - Copenhagen/Nagoya/Osaka/Tokyo/Empty Room 9.99
12 tracks - Musicology - 9.99
4 tracks - NEWS - 9.99
14 tracks - The Rainbow Children - 9.99
10 tracks - The Chocolate Invasion - 9.99 (NPGMC tracks)
10 tracks - The Slaughterhouse - 9.99 (NPGMC tracks)
9 tracks - Xpectation - 9.99
1 track - Controversy (Live Hawaii) 99c
[This message was edited Mon Mar 29 3:24:06 2004 by chopdog]

66 songs for $72....so the cost is really over a buck a track.

It just really irks me that they've been saying all along you can download tracks individually. They never mentioned anything about $9.99 per album, ever.

Bait and switch, man.

Se7en said:

Especially since some "members" sold their copies on ebay long ago, and others burned copies for friends, and even others "sold" burned copies.

chopdog said:

This is good news to me....I paid $17.00 for The Rainbow Children which someone liked so much they never returned it to me...now I can replace the album for 9.99

SensualMelody said:

wow it costs more than half the price at less than half the quality

what a good deal

NOT !

I'm burning Musicology right now.

Amazingly fast downloads. The quality must be minimal. It will do until I buy the cd.


Oh.. I know Prince is making good $$$ on me, but no one's forcing me to buy the songs twice. If I'm gonna be robbed blind, I'd rather Prince do it as opposed to a flava of the month artist out there.

Something's wrong here... I DON'T SEE ANY IGGNANT MIXES!

the dang thing wont work for me. it keeps saying downloads are not working for you. any ideas?

FunkyStrange said:

The help system says the files are 300Kbps WMA files - which, if WMA are equivalent to MP3 in quality - is probably pretty damn good. Will know tonight when I download the albums.

A good approach, Prince. If this system keeps his interest up, it could be excellent. He does have a habbit of losing interest in projects pretty quickly, so be encouraging and push for more and more content, rather than just slag it off. As Aerogram said "Oh.. I know Prince is making good $$$ on me, but no one's forcing me to buy the songs twice. If I'm gonna be robbed blind, I'd rather Prince do it as opposed to a flava of the month artist out there."

I quite agree.

chopdog said:

actually no.

the help file states this:

-----Our songs are 300kbps VBR WMA files (DRM wrapped). -----

If you knew what you were talking about - you would know VBR stands for VARIABLE BITRATE

the bitrate can go down as very low being variable

The average seems to be for these tracks - 190kps

hardly close to CD quality

The downloading works pretty cool... but I want artwork with my CDs too!
Where's the artwork??!!

I'm happy 4 Prince and his uprise again in the public eye. He is eversodeserving 4 staying true 2 himself. But, I am truly sad at the same time and feel like our intimate relationship he has had with long time npgmc members is lost forever.

Gone will be the 3 to 4 rows up front at the stage he sets aside for the Fams. Gone will b the free entries 2 his after parties and being made 2 feel important.

Those days are gone. Be ready to shell out some cheese.

I am in mourning yet still I ride in the great purple chariot and go 2 length 2 see his purple highness.


True Love Is Unconditional!

SensualMelody said:

Or you could go down to Best Buy and buy the uncompressed, CD quality version, with a booklet, a picture CD, lyrics and liner notes!

For $10 they should at least fucking tell you who plays on what, and maybe when it was recorded? Is that too much to ask? Lazy, lazy, lazy - as always.

oh yeah, I'm totally happy I can download it for less but I like getting the cd with the book and the pictures.

I must have the pictures....but I'll settle for the $8 download online, can't wait till I get paid.

Sorry guys, but this is a suckers' game.

For a mere £8.99, you can buy Musicology in lovely CD audio quality from Play.com (in the UK). Or at least, you will be able to in a few weeks. When you have the CD, you can do what you want with it. Rip it, copy it, stick it on your iPod, whatever.

Or, for about the same price, you could suffer a world of DRM-induced pain and hassle.

Hmmm, which one would I choose?

In some ways I feel sorry for Prince... it seems like whatever techy folk have his ear just have the poor guy constantly sinking money into solutions that are unproven, unpopular or in their embryonic phase. Remember the original NPGMC client and what a mess that was? Now it's DRM and Windows Media Player... none of this stuff is a viable solution. People will get pissed off, and just buy the CD, and rip them into MP3s or whatever format that suits there needs. And yes, sure some of those MP3s will leak into the public domain and file sharing, but most fans who support Prince's music will buy it if they have the financial means to do so.

Sorry NPGMC, I won't be bothering with your download service. Sad to say that, bang for buck, CD audio is still be best deal for consumers. Less hassle, more control over how you enjoy your music, better audio quality, and it is no more expensive. Leave the expensive pay-per-tune solutions to people with money to burn (i.e. Apple) and see if it works out before betting the farm on it.
[This message was edited Mon Mar 29 14:03:36 2004 by ian]

ian said:

Mmm yeah, i wish you'd posted this five hours ago. that's all i've been experiencing. What a nightmare. I've got the files OK enough. I can listen to them fine, i've the latest version of WMP and yet can't burn them no matter what i do.

Sure, some people have been able to burn it to CD and now the mods over at NPGMC are advising those very same people to rip it to a format so that they can put them on their I-Pod's and MP3 players. Totally pointless format they chose then wasn't it.

No more downloads for me as long as they're in this restricitive format.

;_;

Have they put up any Iggnant Mixes yet?

Marrk said:

Yeah man, I hear you... basically the only time I get to listen to music nowadays is on my iPod so that's really important to me. Anyway I just got an order in with play.com, £8.99 with no delivery charge for the CD. Not bad huh? Just means waiting a few weeks, but I'm no hurry.

I bought the singles for 77 cents each. I think that's a good approach. Cuz in stores say u get a cd for $13 with 13 songs each song is $1. Ok it's not CD quality but it's live stuff with good sound (for now at least), plus the money is going to Prince. I wouldn't mind him putting up mp3 'singles' from time to time... it is a good solution to release songs when he doesn't feel like putting out a cd. The full length stuff... i dunno bout that tho. If you can get it in stores I'd say go get it in stores!

theblueangel said:

I have looked in all the stores around me...No TLC....
Even Best Buy had none...that's where I bought the first one.
I still have the cover and everything....just no cd.
By the way, I still cannot access the site...period!

Aren't we all supposed to get the CD for if we purchase a ticket for a concert..or is that only if you purchased via NPGMC. Why would I pay for it now? I'll wait a half a month or so...

I've just downloaded Musicology.. Listening right now.. Had to upgrade my Windows Media Player to be able to listen to the songs.

"A Million Days" - by the first listening I can allready tell that this will be one of my favourites!

Hi 2 All Prince friends

Just downloaded Musicology from NPGMC-Site!!!!

I can tell u I´ve been listening 2 Prince since early days. And I missed his magic last years.
Belive me I allready felt that old Atmosphere by first minute of Musicology.
Just Beautiful, New, Deep Sounds.

Buy It....

Download It....

Hear and feed your Soul with it....

Have Fun...

Hope 2 c u all in Concert (In Europe)

Ciao & bye

FunkyStrange said:

190 is still pretty good as I recall... good thing they aren't 150kbps files right? then we'd be looking at tape quality once they come through

is this for real?????