Why would giving your music away make you a 'great capitalist'?
For one thing, the record companies have traditionally kept a big chunk of the album sales take, while artists reap more of the profits from concert performances.
By giving the album away, Prince reaches audiences that he may have trouble reaching otherwise. It builds buzz, it gets him positive press coverage.
Prince is shaking things up, the music industry is broken, and fans are disconnected from the artists, this might help repair the disconnect some.
The fanatics (like me) will buy the album when it comes out, even if there'll be a bunch of illegal mp3s floating around. Prince's concerts have been more profitable than any other time in his career, other than his absolute zenith.
He has remained much more relavent than a lot of his peers, and the music he puts out is still pretty awesome. Looking forward to Planet Earth when it hits stores July 24th. Lucky ducks in the UK who pick up their Sunday Daily Mail will get a head start, but that's OK, they can enjoy it, and spread the love.
The labels are pissed at this move, but screw them, not like Prince needs a lot of help from the labels to get people to notice what he's up to.
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FSJ:
In addition to being a genius musician, Prince is a sharp little businessman too.
So this new thing. I think it's smart. You may have noticed that the only ones howling about it are the retailers. They're threatening not to stock any Prince albums as a form of pay-back. Here's the thing. Would you really want to do business with people whose chief form of negotiation is blackmail? Point B: These idiots are all dying anyway, so who cares what threats they make? In a few years they won't be stocking anyone's music. Prince knows that.
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