https://www.yahoo.com/music/s/prince...010001716.html

What the hell is this douche's problem? Having control of your property is one thing, but hoarding it away like some self-important miser is another. The guy has made his living with music, and everything he has is because of his fans who have loved his music and image(s) over the decades, and now all he seems to want to do is keep everything from everyone at all costs.

I have news for him. If he's wanting to remain any degree of relevant, you don't keep yourself out there by keeping yourself from being out there.

He hasn't been relevant for twenty years, except amongst his core fan base.

Agreed. I've been a casual fan for a while and the last thing I really enjoyed of his was a hair over 20 years ago at this point. I had listened to a bunch of his stuff on Spotify, but since that and YouTube aren't options anymore, I guess I'm done.

"If I pull my music off of streaming services, that will motivate people who want to listen to BUY it!"

People actually believe this. In 2015.

He's not Taylor Swift. Nobody's going to call his bluff.

This.

All this will do is drive people back to piracy for his music or paying a few cents/dollars for used copies on Amazon or eBay. Both options result in $0.00 for him.

Hmm. Two irrelevant entities doing irrelevant things together, in the most irrelevant way.

I've been trying the free trial of Tidal and it's actually not as bad as I expected it to be.

That being said, I think Prince is coming off as petulant here. He's already made the bulk of his money from his catalog.

People keep using that term. What exactly is "relevant" supposed to mean in this kind of sentence? You mean his songs/albums aren't chart-toppers like they used to be? Not as popular?

I believe they are saying that he isn't relevant to popular music anymore. There was a time where you couldn't turn on the radio or MTV without hearing a song either completely by Prince, written by Prince, backup vocals by Prince, or influenced by Prince.

He was everywhere for a good 15 years. The Gold Experience was my last album of his that I really loved and that was released in 1995.

I thought the recent 3rd Eye Girl album was the best thing he has done in years.

His music isn't critically or commercially successful, or even widely discussed outside of his core fan base.

He gets more press for stunts like this.

Hmmmm

To call Prince irrelevant is silly to me. He's a musical icon, and while not at the pop music vanguard like he was in 1984, dude can still pack arenas in a matter of days. If you aren't being played on top 40 radio you're irrelevant now? C'mon.

Prince has always made it hard to access his music, so I'm no fan of how he lords over his catalog. But it is his catalog, and he should feel free to offer it up however he wants.

I use Slacker and he's not on there anymore. I won't get to listen to his music when I play the 80's and 90's stations. I would like to hear every possible 80's hit and 90's hit when I listen to decade stations but it won't get me to switch to Tidal.

Well of course not, fuck Tidal.

Yeah, if any music artist believes that they are very much out of the loop.

Yeah, but how many of those asses in those packed arenas are there to hear the latest album tracks? No one discusses Prince until he pulls a stunt like this. Icon or not, these days he remains irrelevant.

If you consider your Billy Joels, Paul McCartneys, Garth Brooks, and like acts of the world irrelevant, then I won't argue with you. We just have a different view on this, or are using the same word but have different definitions.

I also won't argue that Prince is on the lips of people the way Kanye West, Taylor Swift, or Beyonce are today. But, whether people go to see him just to hear the hits or not, the fact that a guy can sell out arenas with only a few days notice speaks to the interest people have in him. I went to the show here in Baltimore, and I expected it to be all old heads, but I was pleasantly surprised to see a good mix of young and old people there having a ball.

If you feel like humoring me, what's an older act that you would still say is relevant? U2? Anyone else?

I'd rather be irrelevant Prince than relevant Justin Beiber any day or any other current top 100 artist. It's stupid and short sided to use that term when it comes to Prince.

The thing that pisses me off about Swift and now Prince(although he's put up this fight for decades) they want to blame the steaming services when as Prince himself pointed out days before he did this is the record companies own or have stock in the streaming services, basically making it they found a way to pay themselves twice for the same content. They been robbing artist literally blind for half a century but where is Swift's outspoken stupid ass about record companies and how they're bending people over...

Yea fuck the fans and blame them instead of where the blame really lies, right back at the doors of record labels.

Aside from the fact that it's now Jay-Z's company, why the hate for Tidal? I used the free trial and the lossless music sounded great, there were some good playlists, and also some good articles. The price for the lossless sub is too high ($20/month), and the iOS/Chrome web players had their technical snafus, but it was actually a more polished service than I was led to expect.

As for Prince, I do think he's relevant today but more as a living legend/inspiration to younger musicians. People still pick up his classic albums and revel at the creativity. Young musicians to this day mimic Prince and his sound ("Uptown Funk" anyone?). And yes, the fact that he can do 21 Nights at the LA Coliseum and sell damn near every night out shows that he's still a huge draw.

That being said, his new music hasn't made an impact in 10 years, since Musicology, although I think 3121 is his best newer album. Compare that to Paul McCartney, whose newer albums get a lot more attention and who just did a single with Kanye and Rihanna and recorded songs with "Nirvana". Both McCartney and Prince have been making interesting music in their later years, but McCartney has been way better at remaining relevant since Flaming Pie in 1997 than Prince has done since Musicology.

Billy Joel is wholly irrelevant in that I can't think of any modern musicians who seem to have taken an influence from him and he isn't even bothering to record new music. He still can pack the Hollywood Bowl though, so there's that.

U2 is still relevant, even if it's just as the band everyone loves to hate.

By the way, this isn't a put down on Prince. He does exactly what he wants when he wants, and I think he's a literal musical genius. But the days where he could just toss off songs and they become #1 hits, either for himself or other artists, is long over.

For the record, I wasn't making a statement for or against Prince's relevancy in my post which seems to have started this debate with my use of the term. I was only saying that if.....IF.....his intention is to be ANY kind of relevant, then, in my opinion, you don't withhold your product from public exposure. It's like starting a pizza place and not letting anyone eat your pizza, but once every so often you cook some for a select few people and let them each nibble a little. It just doesn't make sense.

Frankly, I don't know and don't care about Prince's level of relevancy. All I was saying is that he's being a little douche.

Same here. I really don't give a shit about Prince anymore.

I think the main problem was how it was rolled it. I don't even know why it being Jay-z's thing makes Tidal a negative, but presenting Tidal as this thing to help the poor artists isn't going to engender a lot of love from a consumer base. If Tidal was first to market that would be one thing, but using the sympathy plea to get people to switch over from Spotify was the wrong move. They needed to show people why Tidal was the better option, which they are trying, but lossless doesn't mean as much to people as they think it does.