"The Prince Estate has a few different mountains to climb. One is the scale of the work. There’s a stereotype that Prince fans love to complain, and while there is some truth to that. If you ask 20 different Prince fans what the Estate should release next, you’ll likely get 20 different answers, because there’s just so much between vault material, live shows, remastering albums, protege material, licensing IP, films and documentaries, events, and the list goes on. Balancing the art and the commerce is the old adage, but that’s also true. Nobody should be surprised [that there is so much focus on] Purple Rain, because that’s where the money is, but as fans, we know there’s several dozen more released albums and just as much yet to be released. And there’s a lot of different decision makers and stakeholders involved. I think they’ll find a groove; it’s just taking a little longer than some fans would like. Everyone who makes Prince content on YouTube knows that the demographic skews heavily above the age of 45, whereas every new generation has discovered Michael one way or another at a young age. To their credit, the Estate is aware of this and has focused on sync deals, like having “When Doves Cry” and “Purple Rain” in the finale of Stranger Things.That did a lot to expose new audiences to his music. I talked to a teenager recently who discovered Prince via “I Would Die 4 U” being used in the Project Hail Mary movie trailer. Loosening up the reigns a little and getting his music placed in lots of different places is the key. Prince has so music to suit any mood or scene, so as long as they’ve got people intimately familiar with his catalog, there’s no reason why his music shouldn’t be popping up everywhere – video games, TV shows, more movies. And even though the original Netflix deal fell apart, I believe there are new documentaries in the works, which will help, too."
- Casey Rain [x]
