Prince’s unreleased music for sale

Prince’s estate advisers Charles Koppelman and L. Londell McMillan are shopping all unreleased tracks in his musical vault for up to US$35 million, a source told Billboard.

The three major labels Universal Music, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music are among those in talks.

Prince was a prolific writer and recording artist over his 40-year career, and it’s not known how many thousands of tracks have been left unreleased. Also included are videos, concert footage, jam sessions and movies recorded.

Part of the problem is that Prince did not leave a will and just who will control his estate is not known yet. So no-one has gone through cataloguing the assets since his death on April 21 at the age of 57.

Billboard also added that it would be difficult to know who owns the copyright of some of the tracks. He was signed to Warner Bros between 1977 and mid-1990s and after that went into brief relationships with a number of labels including Epic, Arista and EMI.

Coming out later this year is a Greatest Hits set, while the long awaited deluxe version of Purple Rain – with live versions and demos – will be here in 2017.

Since his death, Prince has sold 1.95 million albums and 4.9 million song downloads in the United States, according to Nielsen Music.

Michael Jackson has sold 13.2 million albums since his death. In the five years before he died, he sold only 3.9 million. Elvis Presley is said to have sold 1 billion although this is yet to be an officially sanctioned figure.

In Forbes magazine’s 2016 list of earnings by dead celebrities, published yesterday, Prince was estimated to have earned $25 million since April 21.

Michael Jackson made $825 million, David Bowie $10.5 million, John Lennon $`12 million, Bob Marley $21 million and Elvis Presley $27 million.

Meantime, there is also a question mark over Prince’s 55,000-square-foot Paisley Park studio complex in the town of Chanhassen, which was to have been opened in early October to the public as a museum.

But after three days it was closed when the city council voted against a rezoning that would allow it to operate as one.

Local residents were concerned that an expected 600,000 fans visiting a year would create nightmarish traffic jams and congestion in the small suburb of 24,000. The studio has been asked to come up with a detailed plan on how to handle these issues.