Prince to give away new album for FREE! F.U. Record Industry!

[mr.Curmudgeon]

http://www.prince.org/msg/7/232610/Prince-to-launch-album-as-free-UK-newspaper-giveaway   

[ChadTower]

In other news - since it's not 1989 anymore - no one would have bought it anyway.  People wouldn't buy a new Prince album if it cost $2 and had a $5 bill in it.

[mr.Curmudgeon]

That's cold-blooded.

[ChadTower]

I really liked his stuff until all that weirdass Diamond and Pearls crap.  Saw him in concert once - great great performer.  Tries to go too far out of the box with his commercial stuff and it comes off stupidly.

[shardian]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machina_II/The_Friends_%26_Enemies_of_Modern_Music

The Smashing Pumpkins gave away their entire 2 cd album in 2000 for free because their label was being a ---smurfette---.

[ChadTower]

Notice that it's acts that aren't really anticipating huge dollar revenue from the content doing this.  If they were sitting on a triple platinum album you can bet they wouldn't be giving it away.

[shardian]

Speaking of the Pumpkins, they have a new cd coming out in a few weeks. The new single is awesome. They ditched all the weird crap and went back to their old sound.

[mr.Curmudgeon]

Notice that it's acts that aren't really anticipating huge dollar revenue from the content doing this.  If they were sitting on a triple platinum album you can bet they wouldn't be giving it away.

Sure. Part of it is marketing. But there are plenty of less-than-stellar acts that would never do anything like this. So, I think it's a commendable statement against the often heavy hand of the record industry.

Prince, in particular, has had an ongoing feud with the suits for a long time now. Originally, that's why he changed his name to "Symbol" or "Artist Formerly Known As Prince". It was genius, if you know the story.

[ChadTower]

It wasn't genius nearly as much as it was his lawyer telling him "if you want out of your deal, this is what you have to do".  It was a freakin' PR disaster, too, making him the butt of jokes for a decade and destroying the artistic credibility he was trying to preserve in the first place... if you believe that was ever his motive.

[CCM]

I've never been a huge Prince fan, but his last two CD's sold tons of copies.  So saying no one would bye a new Prince album is a little far-fetched.

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/9547627/princes_3121_tops_the_chart

http://billboard.biz/bbbiz/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000500662&imw=Y

Seems like he has made a pretty strong comeback with his last few releases.

[RayB]

You guys are really naive if you think Prince isn't getting any money for this deal. The newspaper it's being distributed through is paying for them. They're getting all this publicity and anticipating higher than normal sales of the paper. This also means they can charge more for the advertising within.

So yeah, to the end-user it's "free" but to the artist and the paper, this is actually a very smart business deal.

[SavannahLion]

Prince, in particular, has had an ongoing feud with the suits for a long time now. Originally, that's why he changed his name to "Symbol" or "Artist Formerly Known As Prince". It was genius, if you know the story.

That the reason I stopped listening to Prince in the first place. The whole experimentation thing was too out of whack, even for me.

[Joystick Jerk]

I've never been a huge Prince fan, but his last two CD's sold tons of copies.  So saying no one would bye a new Prince album is a little far-fetched.

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/9547627/princes_3121_tops_the_chart

http://billboard.biz/bbbiz/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000500662&imw=Y

Seems like he has made a pretty strong comeback with his last few releases.

There has a been a bit of controversy over the sales numbes of Prince's, and other artists, albums. Prince has "given away" his last couple of albums to fans who buy tickets to his concerts. BUT, the cost of the album is actually tacked on to the price of the ticket, so in effect people are buying the album. And since the people that buy tickets to his concerts probably already bought the almbum in question beforehand, then sales of the album are technically doubled right there. Since the Best Selling charts don't care where sales of the album came from, you can really pad your total albums sold number by using this tactic.

[koolmoecraig]

In other news - since it's not 1989 anymore - no one would have bought it anyway.  People wouldn't buy a new Prince album if it cost $2 and had a $5 bill in it.

Well nobody really buys albums anymore but Prince is far from a washed-up relic of the 80's.  His tours consistently sell out to large crowds.  His albums DO sell quite well actually when you consider that he gets absolutely no radio support due to the pop crap that the record companies are spoon feeding to the public.

He is hugely talented.  He plays something like 30 different instruments and I believe he is still #2 on the list of most prolific songwriters behind the great Willie Dixon.  Of course, none of that means anything unless his music is good.  Listen to his newer stuff and you will see that it is as good if not better than his old stuff.

His performance during the Super Bowl halftime show left no doubt that he still has "it".

[ChadTower]

His performance during the Super Bowl halftime show left no doubt that he still has "it".

Did you not notice when I said pretty much that about 45 seconds later?

[Glaine]

His performance during the Super Bowl halftime show left no doubt that he still has "it".

Did you not notice when I said pretty much that about 45 seconds later?

He only didn't see it because just like a little red corvette, this thread was moving way too fast.