Prince, the artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as… Prince, has once again angered the entire music industry, this time by distributing his brand spankin’ new album FREE with the purchase of a British tabloid magazine known as the Mail. The album, Planet Earth, will be packaged with Sunday’s edition of the Mail, priced at $2.80.
Prince has drawn harsh criticism across the entire music industry for his latest stunt. As we already know, the music industry is in the toilet facing rapidly declining CD sales. Not content to just rip fistfuls of cash from the hearts of fans, the biz has decided universally that they can’t afford a single artist to give away their work. This is being considered a “major blow” to the industry overrun with overpriced works from gimmicky boy- and girl-bands of all colors, genres, and levels of sucktitude.
Sony BMG UK, Princes’s local label, has cancelled their own sales release of the CD in Britain, saying it would be “ridiculous” to pursue it’s own sales launch there, but adding that they are still “delighted” to be working with Prince.
“The Artist formerly known as Prince should know that with behavior like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores,” said co-chairman of the Entertainment Retailers Association, Paul Quirk, “”It is an insult to all those record stores who have supported Prince throughout his career.” He added that the deal was “yet another example of the damaging covermount culture which is destroying any perception of value around recorded music.”
A covermount is a CD or DVD attached to the front of a magazine or other publication as a sort of pack-in bonus. The practice is common in Britain in an effort to combat declining publication sales, but they are usually compilation albums or samplers. Prince’s Planet Earth contains new music, as well as some classics, like the song Purple Rain. The Mail on Sunday declined to say how much it paid to secure the deal or how many copies of “Planet Earth” it planned to sell. Its average circulation is 2.3 million copies.
A publicist for Prince’s record label said he wasn’t doing interviews
International sales launch for “Planet Earth” is July 16, and the U.S. launch is July 24. Prince also plans to give away “Planet Earth” with each ticket sold for his 21-date London concert later this summer.
But the controversy doesn’t end with Prince!
Read more for the story on retail turncoats and my thoughts on this fiasco.
Continue reading “Prince loves his fans, Music industry not having it”
