Mail on Sunday Prince giveaway
- Thread starter Transpontine
- Start date
bassnation
the abyss
oh come on. warners provides promotion and admin, prince provides the raw talent - and warners are the ones that made him who he is? nonsense - seriously putting the cart before the horse. ok, hes shit now but hes still a genius and that is beyond dispute.
hmm, that makes it seem less punk and more like a cheap way of cashing in on Live Earth
crackerjack
Well-known member
A blatant publicity stunt on the part of the MOS - the paper is too cheap to qualify for the charts anyway. The chart peeps would have to break their own rules to allow it, not to mention extending chart return crediation to newsagents. It was never gonna happen.
I liked the MOS editor moping that it was a breach of Prince's human rights tho - these guys aren't overly concerned about being taken seriously are they.
first the poor music retailers get slapped around, then the MOS sales don't register with the charts, now Prince's human rights are violated
it's a bloodbathhmm, that makes it seem less punk and more like a cheap way of cashing in on Live Earth
what he *really* should have done is make the albums out of recycled cds (preferably from warners artists just to rub it in) then have the cds thrown out of purple airplanes circling the uk. that way, its not tooooo liveearth (still a bit of a carbon footprint) but hes cutting out the middleman altogether. hes been talking about cutting middlemen out and making the music free for years.
Charlie George
Member
No one seems to have picked up on the fact that Prince - these days being something of a religious man with a message to get across - will not have looked at this purely from a business angle (even though its a very smart move). He's very happy to have a couple of million people listen to his words about God, etc. I'd say that was a major factor.
More generally, in many ways things are going back to go forward. In the 50s and 60s many performers saw records purely as a way of promoting their live appearances. Given the fact that they would make little to nothing from their record deals it was playing live which actually sustained them. Prince is in a similar situation but rather than selling out chicken shacks he's selling out stadiums.
The bigger picture is that it is not some law of nature that people have always and will always be able to make money from selling records: most artists didn't until the mid 60s, just look at the Beatles first contract to see why.
The business is clearly changing once again and those changes effect everybody from the 18 year old who puts his/her music up on myspace, where once he/she may have got a record deal, to ex-80s mega stars like Prince.
Fascinating times and the Prince CD is just one of the more obvious manifestations.
More generally, in many ways things are going back to go forward. In the 50s and 60s many performers saw records purely as a way of promoting their live appearances. Given the fact that they would make little to nothing from their record deals it was playing live which actually sustained them. Prince is in a similar situation but rather than selling out chicken shacks he's selling out stadiums.
The bigger picture is that it is not some law of nature that people have always and will always be able to make money from selling records: most artists didn't until the mid 60s, just look at the Beatles first contract to see why.
The business is clearly changing once again and those changes effect everybody from the 18 year old who puts his/her music up on myspace, where once he/she may have got a record deal, to ex-80s mega stars like Prince.
Fascinating times and the Prince CD is just one of the more obvious manifestations.
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noel emits
a wonderful wooden reason
first the poor music retailers get slapped around, then the MOS sales don't register with the charts, now Prince's human rights are violated
I properly LOL'd at this.
mos dan
fact music
definitely - the digital age just means the music itself is a cheap-as-chips, often free commodity. that's definitely the challenge grime faces: how to use the music to sell other things (at the moment just boy better know t-shirts)..
so the songs become glorified adverts/jingles?
Charlie George
Member
I think you have to be very careful about over identifying music with the commercial context in which it comes to you, or, for which its used. I think for most people the important thing is whether they like the music.
Lots of great jazz, country and blues music from the 30s, 40s and 50s only exists because it it performed and recorded on radio shows whose sole raison d'etre was to flog the often very dubious products of the advertiser who was paying for the airtime. This stuff has always gone on.
The fact that Billie Holiday made a recording to sell Pears soap or cigarettes did not devaue the music because it's lived on. It's done so because its great music.
So in the current context I don't think giving away music or using it to sell other things devalues the music. What it devalues is music as a commercial product in its own right - which I don't really care about. Its the music not the product which is ultimately important to me.
fair enough - i care most about the music too, so hey, as long as the music is good then so be it. who knows, maybe the fact its not the main thing anymore will be a good influence on what gets made.
prince is a great artist but i saw him at koko earlier this year and he was like a vegas revue. really cheesy sounding, and even looking. i know hes always had dancers with him but the two he has now just look ridiculous.
prince is a great artist but i saw him at koko earlier this year and he was like a vegas revue. really cheesy sounding, and even looking. i know hes always had dancers with him but the two he has now just look ridiculous.
Charlie George
Member
One of my biggest regrets is that I didn't go to see Prince when he did the Parade tour in 1986.
I could have bought tickets but spent my money elsewhere instead: you know how its is when you're young. Then he missed the UK with Sign of The Times and didn't come back to play until 1988 with Lovesexy. I saw that tour but I sort of knew I'd missed him at his peak - I've been kicking myself ever since.
Best time I ever saw him was at the Town & Country club at an after show gig around 94/95. There was only about two hundred people there. He had his horn section lined up on the front of the stage to his left and Mayte to his right. Very stripped down but very funky. He played Honky Tonk Woman and at one point stage dived. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.
I could have bought tickets but spent my money elsewhere instead: you know how its is when you're young. Then he missed the UK with Sign of The Times and didn't come back to play until 1988 with Lovesexy. I saw that tour but I sort of knew I'd missed him at his peak - I've been kicking myself ever since.
Best time I ever saw him was at the Town & Country club at an after show gig around 94/95. There was only about two hundred people there. He had his horn section lined up on the front of the stage to his left and Mayte to his right. Very stripped down but very funky. He played Honky Tonk Woman and at one point stage dived. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.
yeah he's preaching to the converted going thru the daily mail ...
he's a jehovahs witness, and his complete conversion is in tandem to his music being dull nowdays imo.
noel emits
a wonderful wooden reason
Saw Prince in 1985 (I think, might have been '84) at Wembley Arena. First concert I ever went to.
bit of an old thread but just noticed this. I'd hardly call an artist washed up whos last three albums have gone Top 3 in the US charts....3121 actually went to No 1 and all except this free one went Top 10 in the UK too
crackerjack
Well-known member
Musicology 'sold' well because it was given away with gig tickets in the US. 3121 had a 'golden ticket' Charlie & the Chocolate factory-style comp attached.
OK, so he's not entirely washed up as a recording artist, but it's a pretty safe bet his albums sell unboosted only to a dwindling crowd of hardcore fans. It's his gigs that are the pull.