Prince continues to stick it to the music industry

[Ghoulish Delight]

http://www.knbc.com/entertainment/13675550/detail.html

Remember when we all thought he had completely lost it when he changed his name to a symbol? Little did we know he was a visionary of what was to come in the industry.

[Not Afraid]

I didn't think he completely lost it. I thought it was a brilliant way to get around his record industry contract.

[mousepod]

Prince is just plain wacky, but he's a maverick. So every once in a while, his ideas are genius, but quite often they're just crazy.

[Capt Jack]

theres a fine line between madness and genius

[Alex]

So this is giving away a CD with a newspaper?

I was watching some antique show on TV recently and one item they looked at were some flexible records that were apparently included inside magazine covers.

How are they different?

[innerSpaceman]

Perhaps he recognizes his own new CD just plain sucks ... and the giveaway is the best way to get anyone to listen.






Oh, and Alex ... you can play floppy LPs on a turntable, but you can't play floppy CDs anywhere.

[Alex]

Ok, but as a method of distribution is there some distinction that makes giving it away on CD in a newspaper more horrible than giving it away on LP in a magazine?

And similarly, if it is something that was done 50 years ago, is there something I am missing that makes it innovative for Prince to be doing it?

[mousepod]

What's "innovative" is that Prince is "giving away" his entire album in a lossless format before it goes on sale in stores (or not, as his label seems to have decided).

Ever since he got out of his deal with Warner Bros., he's retained the rights to all his own recordings. He's made several distribution deals with larger companies. Most of the time, they figure that a deal with Prince is still worthwhile because they'll at least make a couple of bucks on the release and have the publicity cache of working with an icon.

Two records ago, Prince decided that he would exploit a loophole in Billboard Magazine's US charts, and make a $1 purchase of his CD a mandatory part of the ticket price for his concerts. The initial result was hugely inflated album sales figures (each concertgoer received a copy of the disc in a simple cardboard sleeve as they entered the club or arena). The eventual outcome is that Billboard changed the rules about how such a deal would effect the album charts.

This latest bit is a great publicity stunt. I'm sure that he got a ton of dough from the newspaper to allow them to include his CD. Once the furor dies down, there will of course be copies in the record stores. And people in the US are actually talking about Prince and the fact that he has a new album.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by Alex

So this is giving away a CD with a newspaper?

I was watching some antique show on TV recently and one item they looked at were some flexible records that were apparently included inside magazine covers.

How are they different?

First off, I assume the records were 45's, singles. Prince gave away the whole album.

Secondly, the music industry is still standing in a sh.tstorm with its mouth open. They still have no clue what direction they're going in, still losing money, still sticking to the old rules, still fvcking with artists and moving about as fast as glaciers before global warming. Of course they're going to be pissed about this, as it's yet another dollar they didn't make, regardless of historical precedence.

I heard a tiny bit of a piece on NPR the other day about a Canadian music publisher that is now selling their music 2.5 months before the real release date - as a download. That in response to the fact that as soon as they send freebies to the radio stations, their music is being traded p2p.

[Prudence]

Remember the Bloom County book that came with the Billy and Boingers plastic record? Sorry, this just reminded me of it.