5 ms·

Prince, a Master of Playing Music and Distributing It

67 points by erickhill 11y ago

exodust 11y ago
> "prince.org crashed.... The site is a remnant of an earlier Internet, with an ancient design not built for the speed and density of the modern online world." The author is unaware these "ancient designs" are lightweight and actually better suited to speed and traffic. The site crashing has nothing to do with an outdated design and everything to do with the hosting plan the site is on. The big story (IMHO) not mentioned here, is all the unheard and unreleased songs and videos he locked away in his vault. In a fascinating and hilarious story told by Kevin Smith, he describes how he briefly worked with Prince on a documentary. Smith met a Producer for Prince who told him she'd produced more than 50 Prince music videos of songs nobody has heard and videos nobody has seen. All locked away in the vault. I really like how crazy this is, and hope they are released. The story told by Smith is about 30 min long, but worth it if you're curious about how odd Prince was, and up for a laugh: https://youtu.be/8LhcParuzpc https://youtu.be/8LhcParuzpc If you just want to see a really good example of Prince doing what he does best, with awesome female drummer and rockin band, turn this up loud: https://youtu.be/nyyS0FSztKc https://youtu.be/nyyS0FSztKc
- danso 11y ago
  That Kevin Smith story is pretty hilarious. I don't begrudge Prince wanting to control his distribution. He wasn't some greedy executive trying to increase his bottom line, he wasn't cheating people out of what they paid for. He was an artist. Art is not completely different than any other resource, in that scarcity makes it more valuable, and not just in the monetary sense. To me, it's not much different than Bill Watterson exerting such tight control over Calvin and Hobbes, including refusing to license his artistic work for merchandise or creative spinoffs. As consumers, we think about how we're getting screwed out of not getting to experience more of what we loved and respected. But we aren't able to perceive how our love and respect for something would likely be diminished if that thing were commoditized. Think about the average respect people have for Peanuts...Peanuts merchandise and spinoffs have so flooded the mainstream market that it's unfathomable to me how it became one of Bill Watterson's most powerful inspirations.
- tamana 11y ago
  Those ancient pages could be hosted on a scalable CDN to hand the traffic. The hosting design is antiquated, not the pages.
  - exodust 11y ago
    I've never heard the term "hosting design" before! As a charitable gesture let's assume that's what was meant rather than "looks old so must therefore run like a 1974 Datsun".
    - exclusiv 11y ago
      I haven't heard that before either, but I think we engineers have associated design with the look and feel when it's broader than that.
- chubot 11y ago
  Wow both of those videos are awesome... the good and the bad side. The Kevin Smith story is funny, but also a sad example of what you can become when you are a coddled celebrity. It made me lose some respect for Prince.
- bryanrasmussen 11y ago
  I guess I read the ancient design as being an architectural comment, although it probably wasn't since how would the author know the architecture of the site? But maybe.
tzs 11y ago
In some ways, though, he was apparently a master of not distributing music. I heard a story today on my local NPR station where they interviewed the maker of the documentary "Hunting for Prince's Vault". Many years ago once of Prince's engineers set up a vault to keep all of Prince's unreleased material. (And they made it a literal vault...complete with the kind of door you find in banks). It was interesting. Prince was apparently pretty much always writing new songs, and making studio recordings of them, and promo videos for them...but then not releasing them. People would find him in the studio recording on holidays and ask why he was working on a holiday, and he'd tell them he wasn't working. From what it sounds like, he wrote and recorded music the way Isaac Asimov wrote. It was what made him happy and what he wanted to be doing all the time. As far as the documentary maker was able to figure out from talking to Prince's engineers and collaborators and such, the vault contains enough finished and recorded songs for over 100 albums, plus a couple full length movies, music videos, promo video, concert footage.
- hackuser 11y ago
  > From what it sounds like, he wrote and recorded music the way Isaac Asimov wrote. A more appropariate comparison: He wrote music with a passion and obsession similar to another great, iconoclastic, seminal American musician, Woody Guthrie.
- bherms 11y ago
  There's a good Kevin Smith story (though long) about Prince hiring him to make a documentary... Smith basically took time out of his busy schedule because he was star struck, spent a bunch of time with Prince, made a documentary and then asked his assistant what the plan was, when they wanted to release, etc... She laughed and just said essentially that it would never see the light of day and was just going into his vault with all the other stuff. edit: exodust mentions this below as well
vessenes 11y ago
I have a vague worry that Prince's estate will be instructed to destroy everything in the vault. That would be a major loss to 20th century cultural music heritage. But, it would be in keeping with Prince's MO, someone who largely did as he liked and stayed true to his artistic vision. Anyway, hopefully instead we'll have 10 years of new Prince albums as they go through the vault bit by bit.
grillvogel 11y ago
pretty much every prince everything is sold out on amazon.com right now.

67 points by erickhill 11y ago

> "prince.org crashed.... The site is a remnant of an earlier Internet, with an ancient design not built for the speed and density of the modern online world." The author is unaware these "ancient designs" are lightweight and actually better suited to speed and traffic. The site crashing has nothing to do with an outdated design and everything to do with the hosting plan the site is on. The big story (IMHO) not mentioned here, is all the unheard and unreleased songs and videos he locked away in his vault. In a fascinating and hilarious story told by Kevin Smith, he describes how he briefly worked with Prince on a documentary. Smith met a Producer for Prince who told him she'd produced more than 50 Prince music videos of songs nobody has heard and videos nobody has seen. All locked away in the vault. I really like how crazy this is, and hope they are released. The story told by Smith is about 30 min long, but worth it if you're curious about how odd Prince was, and up for a laugh: https://youtu.be/8LhcParuzpc https://youtu.be/8LhcParuzpc If you just want to see a really good example of Prince doing what he does best, with awesome female drummer and rockin band, turn this up loud: https://youtu.be/nyyS0FSztKc https://youtu.be/nyyS0FSztKc

danso 11y ago
That Kevin Smith story is pretty hilarious. I don't begrudge Prince wanting to control his distribution. He wasn't some greedy executive trying to increase his bottom line, he wasn't cheating people out of what they paid for. He was an artist. Art is not completely different than any other resource, in that scarcity makes it more valuable, and not just in the monetary sense. To me, it's not much different than Bill Watterson exerting such tight control over Calvin and Hobbes, including refusing to license his artistic work for merchandise or creative spinoffs. As consumers, we think about how we're getting screwed out of not getting to experience more of what we loved and respected. But we aren't able to perceive how our love and respect for something would likely be diminished if that thing were commoditized. Think about the average respect people have for Peanuts...Peanuts merchandise and spinoffs have so flooded the mainstream market that it's unfathomable to me how it became one of Bill Watterson's most powerful inspirations.
tamana 11y ago
Those ancient pages could be hosted on a scalable CDN to hand the traffic. The hosting design is antiquated, not the pages.
- exodust 11y ago
  I've never heard the term "hosting design" before! As a charitable gesture let's assume that's what was meant rather than "looks old so must therefore run like a 1974 Datsun".
  - exclusiv 11y ago
    I haven't heard that before either, but I think we engineers have associated design with the look and feel when it's broader than that.
chubot 11y ago
Wow both of those videos are awesome... the good and the bad side. The Kevin Smith story is funny, but also a sad example of what you can become when you are a coddled celebrity. It made me lose some respect for Prince.
bryanrasmussen 11y ago
I guess I read the ancient design as being an architectural comment, although it probably wasn't since how would the author know the architecture of the site? But maybe.

tzs 11y ago

In some ways, though, he was apparently a master of not distributing music. I heard a story today on my local NPR station where they interviewed the maker of the documentary "Hunting for Prince's Vault". Many years ago once of Prince's engineers set up a vault to keep all of Prince's unreleased material. (And they made it a literal vault...complete with the kind of door you find in banks). It was interesting. Prince was apparently pretty much always writing new songs, and making studio recordings of them, and promo videos for them...but then not releasing them. People would find him in the studio recording on holidays and ask why he was working on a holiday, and he'd tell them he wasn't working. From what it sounds like, he wrote and recorded music the way Isaac Asimov wrote. It was what made him happy and what he wanted to be doing all the time. As far as the documentary maker was able to figure out from talking to Prince's engineers and collaborators and such, the vault contains enough finished and recorded songs for over 100 albums, plus a couple full length movies, music videos, promo video, concert footage.

hackuser 11y ago
> From what it sounds like, he wrote and recorded music the way Isaac Asimov wrote. A more appropariate comparison: He wrote music with a passion and obsession similar to another great, iconoclastic, seminal American musician, Woody Guthrie.
bherms 11y ago
There's a good Kevin Smith story (though long) about Prince hiring him to make a documentary... Smith basically took time out of his busy schedule because he was star struck, spent a bunch of time with Prince, made a documentary and then asked his assistant what the plan was, when they wanted to release, etc... She laughed and just said essentially that it would never see the light of day and was just going into his vault with all the other stuff. edit: exodust mentions this below as well

vessenes 11y ago

I have a vague worry that Prince's estate will be instructed to destroy everything in the vault. That would be a major loss to 20th century cultural music heritage. But, it would be in keeping with Prince's MO, someone who largely did as he liked and stayed true to his artistic vision. Anyway, hopefully instead we'll have 10 years of new Prince albums as they go through the vault bit by bit.

grillvogel 11y ago

pretty much every prince everything is sold out on amazon.com right now.