Recently a few notable artists have resurfaced, David Bowie has a new record and so does Justin Timberlake (his first in 6 years). I was quite happy to see/hear both of them but I was REALLY happy to see that PRINCE has new music on the way.
I have been a Prince fan since the 80s (and I still have Purple Rain on cassette). All through the 80s, I bought every Prince record and all his spin-off bands as well as anything from any artist he worked with or wrote for (Sheena Easton, Kenny Rogers and more). I have made sure to catch him in concert whenever he is anywhere near where I am. Five hour drive…NO PROBLEM!
I stood by him when he had his battle with his record label that made him change his name to a symbol. I purchased his Crystal Ball album from his website waaayyy before artists were creating and distributing their music online. He eventually settled with his record label and reportedly gave them a metric crap-ton of music to fulfill a ten album contract.
Now, as I await his new album, I wonder what happened to all those tracks he gave the label back then. There was one album back in 1999 called The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale, but we have not seen any more since. Prince has a loyal group of fans that would buy pretty much anything he puts out so I wonder why they are waiting to release this material. Most would say that they are waiting for Prince to die but that can’t be it. Prince ain’t Michael Jackson; the world is not going to mourn when he passes (hopefully a long time from now in a peaceful fashion). His fans will be heartbroken but I don’t think his back catalog will sell as well as Michael’s did so why are they holding out on us?
If I ruled the roost over there I would piggy back his old stuff on his new stuff. I am going to buy the new album, and if another new album of old stuff came out at the same time I would buy that one too. I am sure many of us Prince fans would do the same. But alas, I do not “rule the roost” so I will just purchase the new Prince album when it comes out and wait patiently for the old stuff to see the light of day.
– Submitted by Jose Brown, Music Design