I am not a massive fan but I certainly can appreciate his music and his showmanship. He is generally regarded a s a creative genius and his guitar playing is incredible. I saw him in London a long time ago and it was unbelievable. He may be weird but so what? At least he's not boring or predictable.
Here the thing, If I heard he was playing tonight down at the corner club/pub/bar I'd go drop a $100+ on the evening and have a damn good time and would probably love it and talk about it for weeks. But I have a few Prince CDs that I have not listened to in 20+ years nor have I seen fit to rip them to iTunes. I just don't see the strong demand for his albums unless you are making an 80s montage in a family slideshow.
I grew up in the "Prince" era, and had the _Purple_Rain_ album on vinyl. Not such a big fan. However, I saw some more recent live footage of him playing guitar, and darn, he was good. Really good.
He always knew how to knock out some good stuff on the guit-fiddle - problem was in his day it was much more difficult to get your music played anywhere (not that it is not still quite a feat today) without having some kinda freak show shit going on e.g., Lou Reed, Squeeze, Tubes, Bowie, Alice Cooper (earlier), AC/DC. The tiny pimp act worked great for him -- he was one of those artist like Marilyn Monroe,Tina Turner, etc... that became a hit in the gay community and although not a huge record buying demographic (that I know of) it was great to have a group that felt you were their Champion (e.g., Freddy Mercury). Whatever it took short of whipping it out on stage like Morrison most artist travel a long hard, road before becoming an "instant hit". Ask Boston, ZZ Top, Aerosmith, a surviving Beatle -- many years of long, days and low pay.
Here the thing, If I heard he was playing tonight down at the corner club/pub/bar I'd go drop a $100+ on the evening and have a damn good time and would probably love it and talk about it for weeks. But I have a few Prince CDs that I have not listened to in 20+ years nor have I seen fit to rip them to iTunes. I just don't see the strong demand for his albums unless you are making an 80s montage in a family slideshow.
Not arguing with that (though I am sure he'd be offended by your suggestion he might be playing down at the local pub or bar , but the same can be said of many past greats. I have no idea what his popularity is or what the demand for his music is anymore.
Nah, not the point. It's not about how Apple looks having or not having some huge artists who sell out arenas and have large catalogs but don't sell much audio these days It's about what the pie will look like in a few years when it's been sliced differently, if it's starting now. If enough people like Prince start throwing in with other services and NOT Apple, then by 2020 that could easily work out to be a common option for everyone else. I can easily envision a service that so dominates their niche (heavy metal, gospel, whatever) that they're the first thing you think of when that genre is mentioned, and they will only do business with you under a certain exclusive manner. If the Death Metal version of Prince does the same, it's not unreasonable to envision XYZ being the place to go for DM bands and they won't be on Apple.
A band like Fleetwood Mac can have their new album sell terribly but do a reunion tour and the sales of the entire catalog goes through the roof. They could easily figure they'll sell the same amount of albums no matter who sells them. The tour is the big factor, not Apple. As long as it's an easy transaction for the consumer why not let the catalog be where better terms are available?
It all depends on who is the gorilla in the room. That's pretty much it.
I've been following Prince since 1983. IF I pay for a streaming service, it will be Apple Music. If Prince is not on Apple Music he is punishing me and other Apple Music subscribers.
Will it impact my opinion of Prince and therefore my likelihood to support him? Probably.
I'm not a subscriber (yet), but as a fan, I could actually hardly care less: Most of the stuff of his I care about, I have in my iTunes Library, so I can access that anyway, regardless of what he makes available to stream.
Prince is *notoriously* fickle about online rights management and distribution, so it's unsurprising that he isn't on Apple Music. The terms really aren't that good for musicians at this point, and he can certainly afford not to agree to anything not entirely up to his expectations.
I'm sticking with CD's and the iTunes Music Store. It's a better future.
EDIT: And before you say "those are going to die" I point to the resurgence of vinyl.
Haha!
The "resurgence" of vinyl is actually completely insignificant. Yeah, they're seeing like 40%, 50% growth, but 50% of almost nothing is still almost nothing.
Comments
I am not a massive fan but I certainly can appreciate his music and his showmanship. He is generally regarded a s a creative genius and his guitar playing is incredible. I saw him in London a long time ago and it was unbelievable. He may be weird but so what? At least he's not boring or predictable.
Here the thing, If I heard he was playing tonight down at the corner club/pub/bar I'd go drop a $100+ on the evening and have a damn good time and would probably love it and talk about it for weeks. But I have a few Prince CDs that I have not listened to in 20+ years nor have I seen fit to rip them to iTunes. I just don't see the strong demand for his albums unless you are making an 80s montage in a family slideshow.
I grew up in the "Prince" era, and had the _Purple_Rain_ album on vinyl. Not such a big fan. However, I saw some more recent live footage of him playing guitar, and darn, he was good. Really good.
He always knew how to knock out some good stuff on the guit-fiddle - problem was in his day it was much more difficult to get your music played anywhere (not that it is not still quite a feat today) without having some kinda freak show shit going on e.g., Lou Reed, Squeeze, Tubes, Bowie, Alice Cooper (earlier), AC/DC. The tiny pimp act worked great for him -- he was one of those artist like Marilyn Monroe,Tina Turner, etc... that became a hit in the gay community and although not a huge record buying demographic (that I know of) it was great to have a group that felt you were their Champion (e.g., Freddy Mercury). Whatever it took short of whipping it out on stage like Morrison most artist travel a long hard, road before becoming an "instant hit". Ask Boston, ZZ Top, Aerosmith, a surviving Beatle -- many years of long, days and low pay.
Lmao
No. Prince. AppleMusic. is. DOOMED.
30+ million tracks is nothing without Prince.
/s
THIS. ^^^
Well said.
Nah, not the point. It's not about how Apple looks having or not having some huge artists who sell out arenas and have large catalogs but don't sell much audio these days It's about what the pie will look like in a few years when it's been sliced differently, if it's starting now. If enough people like Prince start throwing in with other services and NOT Apple, then by 2020 that could easily work out to be a common option for everyone else. I can easily envision a service that so dominates their niche (heavy metal, gospel, whatever) that they're the first thing you think of when that genre is mentioned, and they will only do business with you under a certain exclusive manner. If the Death Metal version of Prince does the same, it's not unreasonable to envision XYZ being the place to go for DM bands and they won't be on Apple.
A band like Fleetwood Mac can have their new album sell terribly but do a reunion tour and the sales of the entire catalog goes through the roof. They could easily figure they'll sell the same amount of albums no matter who sells them. The tour is the big factor, not Apple. As long as it's an easy transaction for the consumer why not let the catalog be where better terms are available?
It all depends on who is the gorilla in the room. That's pretty much it.
HARDROCKLOVER …man, it's good
O(+>
Apple, get your negotiators out to Minneapolis
…or it's Tidal time
I've been following Prince since 1983. IF I pay for a streaming service, it will be Apple Music. If Prince is not on Apple Music he is punishing me and other Apple Music subscribers.
Will it impact my opinion of Prince and therefore my likelihood to support him? Probably.
I'm not a subscriber (yet), but as a fan, I could actually hardly care less: Most of the stuff of his I care about, I have in my iTunes Library, so I can access that anyway, regardless of what he makes available to stream.
Prince is *notoriously* fickle about online rights management and distribution, so it's unsurprising that he isn't on Apple Music. The terms really aren't that good for musicians at this point, and he can certainly afford not to agree to anything not entirely up to his expectations.
I'm sticking with CD's and the iTunes Music Store. It's a better future.
EDIT: And before you say "those are going to die" I point to the resurgence of vinyl.
Haha!
The "resurgence" of vinyl is actually completely insignificant. Yeah, they're seeing like 40%, 50% growth, but 50% of almost nothing is still almost nothing.
Don't kid yourself.
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2015/01/20/vinyl-comeback-really-looks-like
(I say this as a person with a full Linn deck and a 4000-disk vinyl collection at home.)
Prince dropped a single just for Spotify fans!