doombilly
doombilly of illicitizen
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Prince Gets Even

Posted almost 5 years ago
Hahahahahaha.Fuck major labels.
In one fell swoop, Prince has trumped McCartney. The "Daily Mail" is going to deposit TWO MILLION CDS in the hands of old fans and potential new ones, AS A PREMIUM, essentially COMPLETELY FREE TO THE CONSUMER, the disc comes with the newspaper. What’s even BETTER, Prince is getting PAID FOR THEM, by the "Mail"!
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Comments (12)

  1. doombilly
    doombilly says

    Update: Record Store Lame-o Attempts Retaliation.

    BoingBoing.net
    Record store rep threatens Prince over free CD giveaway
    Mike sez, "Prince is giving away a free CD in a national British newspaper, The Mail. The music retail industry executives are viewing this as an attack and are threatening to 'retaliate'. 'The Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behavior like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores. And I say that to all the other artists who may be tempted to dally with the Mail on Sunday,' said Entertainment Retailers Association spokesman Paul Quirk. Mr Quirk also said it would be 'an insult' to record stores. Obviously the music industry views anything that doesn't result in a sale to be subversive or unfair. I say it's Prince's music and he can bloody well give it away if he wants to."
    Permalink posted 06/30/2007
  2. Rawkkiddoh
    Rawkkiddoh says funny, I just drove by his studio tonight gotta love the man
    Permalink posted 06/30/2007
  3. chucky
    chucky says Haha. Brilliant.
    Permalink posted 06/30/2007
  4. Lizziegreeneyes
    Lizziegreeneyes says Yet another reason for me to love the freak that is my beloved purple majesty !!!
    Permalink posted 06/30/2007
  5. Neill
    Neill says He is reportedly getting £250,000 ($480,000) from the Sunday Mail which is around the same as he has earned from his last release in the UK. . http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2114557,00.html
    Permalink posted 07/01/2007
  6. doombilly
    doombilly says Exactly Neill. So the Record stores can blow themselves. What can they offer him? The product they sell goes to support a lot of people who are not Prince.
    Permalink posted 07/01/2007
  7. Cody B
    Cody B says OK..there is a difference between record companies and record stores. This is the same Prince who gave an exclusive set (Crystal Ball) to Best Buy! I'm all for screwing record companies, but not record stores. Love Prince's music..hate his business practices.
    Permalink posted 07/01/2007
  8. doombilly
    doombilly says Well yes Cody, obviously there is a difference between a label and a store. But a record store should have no say in how an artist sells merchandise. Most independent stores would not really be effected by this sort of thing. For example the "Record Store" Amazon.com is a member of the Entertainment Retailers Assoc. As is Blockbuster. As someone who has spent a lot of time trying to get record stores to stock an artist's wares, I can say that they are just pushing Prince down to the level of unsupported local act. Which would work for the most part, except he's Prince and can recoup his money in the ticket price to his concert, and from Newpapers that want to "give" them away. BTW, I am not really a fan of Prince. But the link between Record store franchises, radio stations, and record labels has been to tight for a long time. That does suck about the Box set going exclusively to Best Buy. If you don't like that I would suggest not buying it. I didn't (course I don't own a single track by captain purple).
    Permalink posted 07/02/2007
  9. Cody B
    Cody B says In a lot of ways I applaud the out of the box thinking..And as I've said before, selling CD's right now is a crap shoot. For Prince, the thing he is doing makes sense, for him. As an indicator of how things are f..ed up, it scares me. I hate to think of music as an at-the-counter impulse buy, a free giveaway,and a front for big screen TV's. I would hope music would be strong enuf to have it's own retail space. Clearly that is going by the wayside, and I lament that, because I've had so many good things happen to me in record stores. To me the part you say about the tightness of radio,retail, and distro is what I don't see..To me each sector has gone for it's own and helped destroy the other. Now distro is dependent on people who don't give a shit about music to sell music (best Buy,Wal Mart), Commercial Radio has pretty mush abandoned music altogether (except country), Retailers are scrambling as the ship sinks..In the USA, the only national retail chain focusing on music is Transworld (FYE,wherehouse,Record Town), and as music sales decline they are giving less and less space to music and squeezing dollars out of any indies who want on the shelves (In their defense, it is kinda risky for them to carry low turning CD's). I guess, as when I was a kid over 30 years ago, music is gonna have a very small prescence in stores (i remember buying 45's at places like Walgreen's). Maybe things will turn around and stores will come back, but it doesn't seem like it now. Lefsetz is always talking about lowering the prices..but how low can you go, especially if established artists can give it away for free?
    Permalink posted 07/02/2007
  10. doombilly
    doombilly says As less middlemen, A&R wonks, "producers", consultants, and other marketing people are cut out of the picture, you can really offer the music up for very little and the artist not only gets a bigger %, he/she gets in some cases more money than had they done things the "old fashioned" way. Are things changing? Yes. Is it all for the best? Maybe not. In my town there used to be 5-6 good independent, or small chain record stores. Today there really only one. It still doesn't have a lot of disks I would buy because they are from the uk and they can only special order "imports." This is an antiquated business model. I visited Rasputin Records in San Francisco two weeks ago. I walked out with 5 CDs. None of which I could have found in my local brick-n-mortar store. Of course they would be happy to order them. But it is 2007. If I have to order it, Ima do it myself. I don't need them to place and order and mark it up. Does that represent anything but being "quaint?"
    Permalink posted 07/02/2007
  11. Cody B
    Cody B says I do recognize the changing model (and have lost my job because of it). Usually I am lamenting the loss of things I treasure(d). I have worries about the new model and I'm sure some will suffer and some will profit. I do think, that overall, the impact of music as a cultural force has been diminished. The music will always be there and I'm glad, but there will be some growing pains. Thanks for the discussion,Doombilly
    Permalink posted 07/02/2007
  12. doombilly
    doombilly says I concur that "music as a cultural force has been diminished." There is a lot of bad sh*t going down. I don't know how I feel about a lot of it. Thanks for giving me somethings to think about.
    Permalink posted 07/02/2007

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