Prince Estate Signs Deal With Sony Music to Re-Release 35 Catalog Albums

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by MemoInPR, Jun 27, 2018.

  1. Rimshottbob

    Rimshottbob Forum Resident

    Location:
    Eastbourne
    I agree with both points of view above, here (EVOLVIST and Joker to the thief), but unfortunately, there's no law that says the price of something has to be reasonable (other than the law of diminishing sales returns!). There's also a relatively small number of people who care about a new album from Prince made in 2010... as much as he is lauded and everyone loves to say what a genius he was, most of those people certainly weren't listening in in the early 2000s when he was putting out these records, or in 2014/2015 when he put out his last... only some of them will be listening now. Considering the limited interest to the general public of a new Prince album from 2010, there's an even smaller number of people who actually care about owning a show from that era on BluRay.... physical media is not at its healthiest, as we all know... some casual fan might watch 20 minutes of it, if it's on YouTube... some might even make it through the whole thing... but how many of those would even consider purchasing a hard copy of that show, even if it was $10? They're not going to bother, for the most part... so it fall to those who care greatly about music in general, and collecting music in particular, and about Prince's music specifically, to want to buy a 2011 concert on BluRay... that limited number of people is the deducing the label has to do in terms of how many copies to press, vs. the cost of prep and production.... which leads to their price point, which is also affected by balancing the books of the huge investment they've made in Prince's catalogue....

    I'm kind of thinking out loud here, but is all this wrong?

    I mean, don't get me wrong, although there's limited appeal for these things in a wider, market sense, I'm someone who wants them to release absolutely everything, in well-put-together, thoughtful packages, and if it all got released tomorrow I wouldn't be complaining.... and of course, I want every release to be successful, so that there will be more... and the Bluray is pricey, but considering its limited appeal beyond a pretty small hardcore group, I'm not that surprised by the pricing.

    But, as mentioned earlier, I managed to get the deluxe set and the single from the US Prince store, for £94, including shipping.... so while it seems crazy in one sense to be paying that much for essentially one album plus a couple of extra bits, it's also par for the course at this point.
     
  2. joe1320

    joe1320 Forum Resident

    Location:
    dublin, ireland
    Amazon France has new box set at €79
     
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  3. noname74

    noname74 Allegedly Canadian

    Location:
    .
    Some people seem to be picking the most expensive option to attempt to prove their point. This thing is $107CAD (85US/63GBP) at Amazon Canada.
     
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  4. noname74

    noname74 Allegedly Canadian

    Location:
    .
    I am with you...I will pay the tax to keep this program moving. And let’s be real here...the album which is the main course is very reasonably priced.
     
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  5. Joker to the thief

    Joker to the thief Forum Resident

    Location:
    London, UK
    I don’t want to bog this thread down in discussion of value more than what I already have, but gbp150 (roughly 258 Canadian dollars) isn’t the most expensive option it’s the lowest it’s available domestically in the U.K. - I’ve chosen to import (which comes out more expensive than the gbp63 you quote because you have to add on VAT, import duty and shipping which would take it closer to £90 - roughly 155 canadian dollars -and the risk that it will attract further customs handling fees and likely significant delays due to the current problems at the U.K. border). I’d happily pay 63gbp for the set and not think it outrageous (a little pricey but still reasonable) but it’s deeply irritating that the U.K. Sales price is more than double other territories for no discernible reason
     
  6. IHeartRecordsAz

    IHeartRecordsAz Forum Resident

    Location:
    AZ
    I guess it depends on how much of his future he had mapped out prior to his death, as she alluded to in that article. If he listed out and/or approved Welcome 2 America and a bunch of other projects/ideas as music he wants to have released, and that’s what she means by “every single solitary thing,” then I’m fine with it. The dude recorded a ton of music, and while he most likely wouldn’t want everyone to hear everything, I wouldn’t be surprised if he mapped out a lot of recordings that he wanted released, or wouldn’t mind the public hearing
     
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  7. Thats just the way international commerce works, though. I can't tell you how many times I've taken a financial screwing when ordering something from the UK and the EU. Even when I don't have to pay VAT, if they decide to arbitrarily slap me with an import fee at customs, I can end up paying twice the cash. It's happened to me before! It's the same with a Japanese import. Australia? Forget it!

    This is nothing new to the common man like me and you, though. I mean, in 1773 the Tea Act, with England exorbitantly taxing American colonies for tea, became a catalyst for war, for chrissakes!

    I'm not saying that you have to eat sɥᴉt and like it. I'm merely trying to provide context, as it swims both ways across the Atlantic. It doesn't feel good, yet for all of the aforementioned reasons, record companies - any record company - knows that if the consumer wants it bad enough, they'll buy it.

    If we look around, it's not even close to being just about Prince; this is happening with many artists, and it's going to continue for those who put a premium on physical products. Because I'm sure that record companies are also factoring in the profit loss once the Russians get ahold of it and start throwing it out on torrents.
     
  8. I think Tyka is playing revisionist, though I can't be 100% certain. I'm fairly certain, though, that Prince had very little, if anything mapped out beyond future plans for a Purple Rain boxset for WB and the still unreleased album that he had given Tidal. These two releases were the only two mentioned at the time of his death, and the talks about the Tidal album mysteriously vanished from the internet once the courts barred Jay-Z from releasing it. I can't find the article any longer where the estate brought suit to Tidal and Jay-Z counter-sued. But somewhere along the way something was settled, because Tidal got, what was it, a one week exclusive stream for the Piano & Microphone '83 album? Therefore, I imagine that the estate got the album, which will be released at sometime in the future as Prince's final album before he died.
     
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  9. IHeartRecordsAz

    IHeartRecordsAz Forum Resident

    Location:
    AZ
    I believe that was Originals, which Tidal got to stream exclusively for two weeks before anyone else and which Jay-Z helped to shape the track list for (specifically insisting that “Love...Thy Will Be Done” be included).

    But I agree that Prince seemed like a very forward-thinking artist who didn’t like to look back to much. But he was beginning to write his memoirs before he died, and he had the foresight to lay out his intentions to turn Paisley Park into a museum once he passed, as well. So it’s very possible that, even if he didn’t meticulously plan out every detail for 1-2 dozen releases, he at least organized everything and pointed out which material/sessions/songs he thought could be used for releases.
     
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  10. Yes, Originals. Thanks! That was the story.

    And you're right. We don't really know. At one time Prince mused that he might have his vaults destroyed upon his death. It's very difficult to know what was going on in his mind, unless we have something in writing. And even then, it seems that changing his mind was like most people change their socks.
     
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  11. englishbob

    englishbob has left the SH Forums...19/05/2023

    Location:
    Kent, England
    The fella never looked back. He didn't even have a will, never mind a plan for the Vaults
     
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  12. Rimshottbob

    Rimshottbob Forum Resident

    Location:
    Eastbourne
    That was definitely the story he fed throughout his career, and was for the most part true... but sometimes he did look back... he would pick old tracks out of the vault and give them a contemporary recording/release (Xtraloveable, 1000 Xs and Os, etc.), and then there's the nods to his past on the HitNRun albums, the last ones released in his lifetime, that reference (or sample) the songs 'For You', '1999', 'Let's Go Crazy', 'Kiss' and 'Sexy Dancer', from much earlier in his career. And of course, him beginning to write his autobiography... certainly in the last years of his life, he was more prone to looking back, as he most likely knew he didn't have that long left. I don't think it's likely that he planned out any releases - he did say on that extended Arsenio interview that 'someone else can take care of all that when I'm gone' (I'm paraphrasing), referring to his vault of music - but it wouldn't be surprising to discover that he left some projects in, perhaps, a more clearly deliverable state than others? Thinking that they would probably be released at some point... No one really knows, of course.
     
  13. IHeartRecordsAz

    IHeartRecordsAz Forum Resident

    Location:
    AZ
    He reminds me of Neil Young in a lot of ways. Both were forward-thinking, recorded a lot of music and amassed a ton of material in their respective vaults, had their own home recording studios where they could record whenever they wanted, would cherry-pick songs from past sessions and put them on new albums, and were prone to changing their mind and overthinking/second-guessing projects. The only difference was that Neil has always been been very vocal about what he has in his vault, his plans for his archival releases, and when he would change his mind on releasing them and why. Prince, on the other hand, was very reserved and didn’t talk about his stash of material very much at all, so we don’t know what plans, if any, he had for his vault. Or is he was as active in preserving and organizing his archival work as Neil is.

    Personally, though, I think Tyka and his estate have a lot of material to work with before they need to scrap any barrels. The guy was his own one man band who recorded non-stop; essentially he was like Jimi Hendrix, someone else who recorded virtually every note he played, but instead of a four year career, he had a career spanning nearly four decades. So if anything comes out in the next decade or two that feels like they’re just milking his catalogue, then they’re clearly doing something wrong.
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2021
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  14. appearcomposed

    appearcomposed Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ithaca
    Next decade or two? Barely took 3 years!
    [​IMG]

    (Only slightly joking. They've corrected course since then, can't be too hard on them anymore. Such is life)
     
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  15. DolphinsIntheJacuzzi

    DolphinsIntheJacuzzi Forum Resident

    Location:
    Houston, TX
    Prince had said, in a various interviews, that one day, people would get to hear more of what was in the vaults. So, let's not pretend that he never had plans to release anything else. He almost certainly would have gone back and done more vault releases. He even worked with Warner's to prepare the Purple Rain deluxe.

    Now, is everything they're ever going to release exactly what Prince would have wanted to release? Probably not. But how are we to know? He left no will. And to the best of our knowledge, he may not have even left plans for the next slate of releases, including Welcome 2 America.

    So, I'm tired of the whole "This is not what Prince would have wanted" argument. We can't possibly know what he would or would not have wanted. But so far, the Estate has been extremely tasteful, judicious, and unerringly accurate in what they've chosen to release. I have gotten immense enjoyment out of the 1999 & SOTT boxes, as well as Originals, and yes, even Piano & a Microphone.

    So, I see no reason to prematurely badmouth the Estate or Tyka at this point. YMMV.
     
  16. Lance LaSalle

    Lance LaSalle Prince of Swollen Sinus

    Me too. They have done a stellar job.

    He may not have left a release schedule but I believe Prince was very organised and tidy in general and I bet his vault is no different.

    He knew how great he was. And he knew he had great stuff that was unreleased (as we have already seen.)
     
  17. Rimshottbob

    Rimshottbob Forum Resident

    Location:
    Eastbourne

    I get where you're coming from, and no doubt Prince knew he had something special, but.... 'tidy' and 'organised' are two words I would never associate with Prince! :D;)

    Did you see those pictures of the Vault after he died? There was stuff everywhere!
    Tape boxes strewn about, randomly stacked here and there. Some of it was apparently water damaged. In fact, the vault was full and there was stuff piled in the hallway outside it!

    So while I do think he expected others to release his music once he was gone, and he certainly did look back here and there, to dip into that vault, (and he did prep the Purple Rain Deluxe Edition with Warners, but really only so that they would release his latest two records), he certainly didn't take care of his past material like someone who was in the mindset of curating releases going forward.

    All that said, I too think the Estate have done a great job so far... of course, they haven't released enough for me, but what they have released has been great. And I think Piano And A Microphone 83 is a great little release in its own right.
     
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  18. Lance LaSalle

    Lance LaSalle Prince of Swollen Sinus

    I haven’t seen them but I imagine quite a lot of that material has been digitised anyway. But I’ll concede that I could be wrong.
     
  19. Rimshottbob

    Rimshottbob Forum Resident

    Location:
    Eastbourne
    I'm a little hazy on the details, but from what I remember, almost none of it had been digitised when Prince died. That, I think, was why they had to move the contents of the vault to Iron Mountain, or whatever it's called, in California, so that it could all, first - be kept in a temperature controlled atmosphere, to prevent further deterioration (which it hadn't been at Paisley Park), and second - be properly organised, digitised and preserved for future releases, etc.
     
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  20. I get people don’t like these new prices but physical is small and expenses and labor are way up. This ain’t ten years ago and Prince is a premium artist.
     
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  21. This is a fantastic record. It’s beautiful .
     
  22. Gavaxeman

    Gavaxeman Take me back to dear old Blighty...

    Location:
    West Midlands U.K.
    Seconded ..that’s a great late night lights down listen
     
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  23. 12stringbassist

    12stringbassist Location: Irrelevance.

    Location:
    Manchester UK
    I'm sure I've read that lots of tape boxes are unmarked, so that some tapes have to be examined for contents and that he hadn't got the Vault that tidy or organised.
     
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  24. MemoInPR

    MemoInPR Señor Memo Thread Starter

    From 60 Minutes aired today, April 11, 2021

     
  25. MemoInPR

    MemoInPR Señor Memo Thread Starter

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