Does Prince Have A Point About The Internet???
When Prince went on a rant the other week about the internet being finished, people basically just looked at him with a blank stare and thought “here is a guy who is out of touch”. Prince was quoted as saying “The Internet’s completely over,”. “I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won’t pay me an advance for it, and then they get angry when they can’t get it.” He went on to say that the internet was like MTV which was outdated.
I understand why this statement would leave most thinking that the Pop legend had flipped his lid. But I believe I understand exactly why he made this statement. Of course there is no way that the internet is over, but there is a method to the madness of Prince. Prince had long ago passed the prime of his Purple Rain days when he made an unexpected comeback in April 2004 with his CD Musicology. Prince earned the number 3 position on the charts for his first week and started a buzz. He did this in part by doing a tour based on his old music and giving away his current CD as part of the ticket price. This way every time he sold a ticket, he sold a CD. In the late 90’s, Prince was able to get out of his Warner Bros. contract by dropping his name for a symbol and calling himself “the artist formerly known as Prince”. During that time he sold his music exclusively on the internet and received all the royalties. In 2007 he gave his CD to the British paper The Mail as a free giveaway. He in turn was paid half a million dollars up front. Three million CD’s were distributed. In terms of music survival, this man is far from out of touch and more of a genius.
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What I interpreted Prince’s internet statement to mean was that making money from selling CD’s on the internet was outdated. In that case I believe he is somewhat correct. While digital sales are on the cusp of overtaking physical sales, it can’t be denied that music is selling poorly overall. Just look at the Roots, the Dream, and Big Boi from the platinum selling group OutKast. All three artists have released CD’s that in their first week couldn’t break 60,000 units. How does the internet factor into that? Well with all the downloading, uploading and blog giveaways, who needs to purchase a CD anymore? We purchase music strictly out of support for the artists these days. The internet has taken all the power from the artist and landed it straight in the hands of the consumers. We the consumers decide when albums are coming out by leaking them. Drake’s Thank Me Later CD hit the net two weeks prior to its release date. The same thing happened to Jay-Z’s Blueprint III. Both CD’s sold well, but not as many copies as they may have sold without the leaks. Prince refuses to enable the internet bootleggers and thieves the power of giving away his product for free. I can’t call a man crazy for that.
-Jay Billion | follow me @hotterthanmost
