Prince Podcast

Prince once again breaks new avenues in promotion and the ‘middle man is not happy’. Prince is giving away 2 million copies of his upcoming album ‘Planet Earth’ with the UK newspaper ‘The Mail On Sunday’, before it’s retail release on July 16th. The UK music industry cries foul.

Here is a taste of the hate:

Entertainment Retailers Association co-chairman Paul Quirk says, “It would be an insult to all those record stores who have supported Prince throughout his career. It would be yet another example of the damaging covermount culture which is destroying any perception of value around recorded music.”

Quirk also hinted that record stores may now boycott Prince’s back catalogue, quipping, “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behaviour like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores.”

Source: Guardian
Sony BMG has ripped up its UK contract to release Prince’s (pictured) new album, Planet Earth, after it emerged that his management company has agreed a deal to give it away as a free covermount with The Mail On Sunday.

The newspaper’s Stephen Miron confirmed to Music Week today that the album will be offered to all readers, even before it ships to retailers in the UK. “The first time anyone will be able to hear Planet Earth will be exclusively through The Mail On Sunday,” he said. “No artist has ever given away a new album by launching it free with a newspaper and clearly the music retailers will be up in arms.”

Explaining the decision to renege on the deal, a spokesman for Sony BMG says, “Before the deal [to release his album through Columbia in the UK] was set in place, [Prince and his management] had a number of other deals in place, including the deal to give away the album to people attending his shows at the O2 in London.

“At that time the Mail On Sunday deal was not something that we were aware of - that came to light a few days ago. With that in mind it, we decided it was ridiculous to have a UK deal when 2m albums are going out free with papers. We don’t want to muck around our retail partners, so out of respect for them we’re not going to release the album over here.”

“It doesn’t change the fact that we’re delighted to be working with him though,” the spokesman adds, “and the global deal remains unaffected; this is a UK-only exemption.”

News of the initiative caused widespread anger among many music industry executives at today’s London Calling conference in London.

Entertainment Retailers Association co-chairman Paul Quirk says, “It would be an insult to all those record stores who have supported Prince throughout his career. It would be yet another example of the damaging covermount culture which is destroying any perception of value around recorded music.”

Quirk also hinted that record stores may now boycott Prince’s back catalogue, quipping, “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behaviour like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores.”