The new album by Prince is being launched as a free CD with a national Sunday newspaper that has drawn widespread criticism from music retailers.
If you study the history of Prince, you will realize that he took full reigns of his career. If he failed, it was because of him alone.
In the beginning, he signed a three-album deal and blew the budget for all three albums on the first one, and this after insisting that he play all the instruments himself, record all the vocals himself – and produce it himself. He had assumed full artistic control from the off and he has never relinquished it.
Prince also had a bizarre fashion sense. He performed in Y-fronts and fishnet stockings, and took the stage once wearing a violet mackintosh, black pants and stockings and stiletto ankle boots.
Why is Prince Giving his new CD away?
A spokesman for Prince said: ‘Prince feels that charts are just music industry constructions and have little or no relevance to fans or even artists today. Prince’s only aim is to get music direct to those what want to hear it. Prince famously took a stand against Warner Records in the Nineties when he went on strike and appeared with the world “slave” drawn on his cheek. Subsequently, he regained control of the publishing right to his work and broke down the existing system through his innovation.’
He never really took to the traditional label-artist relationship.
In 1995 he told an interviewer: ‘Once the internet is a reality the music business is finished. There won’t be any need for record companies. If I can send you my record direct, what’s the point of having the business? I don’t even have a manager any more. Would you want somebody living off your work?’
When record company executives warned him against releasing Sign O’ The Times as a double album, he ignored their wishes and it became his most critically acclaimed work.
‘These are the same people who would tell Mozart he writes too many notes or say that Citizen Kane is a long movie,’ he said at the time
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