Prince: the internet's completely over
Prince, the 52-year-old music icon has pronounced the internet dead, refusing to use any digital platforms to distribute his music.

By Emma Barnett, Technology and Digital Media Correspondent
Published: 10:30AM BST 06 Jul 2010


Prince also criticised the advent of gadgets and computers Photo: REX FEATURES
Instead the artist has opted to release his latest album 20Ten in CD format only as a cover-mount free giveaway with The Daily Mirror this weekend.

Talking to The Mirror, Prince said: “The internet is 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.”

The best things in life are free, or are they?He went on to say: “The internet’s like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated.

Prince also criticised the advent of gadgets and computers: “All these computers and digital gadgets are no good.

"They just fill your head with numbers and that cant be good for you.”

Prince has taken his war against the internet one step further by shutting down his official website. His battle began in 2007 when he famously announced his intention to file lawsuits against eBay, YouTube and the Pirate Bay for the misuse of his music. Ever since he has banned such sites from using his music in any fashion and refused to work with legal paid-for options like iTunes, 7Digital or eMusic.

His new album is his 27th release and may be distributed via Warner Brothers in the US – but there will be no downloads available in the world.

[www.telegraph.co.uk]

wow...sounds pissed his career is in a death spiral.

I used to buy his albums too...too bad!

I'll get one tomorrow morning... free with a weekly mag (sad).

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treaclefingers
wow...sounds pissed his career is in a death spiral.

I used to buy his albums too...too bad!

you do know since the late 90's prince has probably received at least 25 million dollars in one off up front deals with record companies and the distribution deal with target. wish i made at least 25 million in a decade and had what i did for a living called dead.

i can bet ITUNES will change the way it gets new albums within the next 2 years. prince is not the only artist laying into the internet and ITUNES right now

He has a couple of good points, but he's also an idiot, a drama queen and a hypocrite. He says, "I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else."

Well, Princci Darling, if you keep turning out drivel like the shite you call your last 2 albums, you WON'T have to worry about even selling it, much less giving it away.

He had nonstop genius records for the better part of 2 decades, and only ONE good album in the last 15 years (Musicology). So much like the MTV he (rightfully) berates, at one time he was hip and suddenly he's kind of outdated.

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keefriffhard4life

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treaclefingers
wow...sounds pissed his career is in a death spiral.

I used to buy his albums too...too bad!

you do know since the late 90's prince has probably received at least 25 million dollars in one off up front deals with record companies and the distribution deal with target. wish i made at least 25 million in a decade and had what i did for a living called dead.

i can bet ITUNES will change the way it gets new albums within the next 2 years. prince is not the only artist laying into the internet and ITUNES right now

I hope so, and I wish more artists would do what Prince is doing. I wish they would all get together and tell the labels, and iTunes, "80 years of screwing people is enough, either you get it together and start doing it fairly, or sod it, we'll just give it away ourselves and make our money off touring and merchandise."

i thought prince was dead

nobody pays advances for his music ..because nobody wants it

duh

proud to say I never bought one album by this oily rag mop

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treaclefingers
wow...sounds pissed his career is in a death spiral.

I used to buy his albums too...too bad!

"Death spiral" - really? I wonder how much the Mirror paid for his new album? It won't have come cheap. Then the Daily Mail reputedly forked out big bucks for Planet Earth in 2007. That and the 21 sold out nights he played at the O2 netted him millions.

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keefriffhard4life

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treaclefingers
wow...sounds pissed his career is in a death spiral.

I used to buy his albums too...too bad!

you do know since the late 90's prince has probably received at least 25 million dollars in one off up front deals with record companies and the distribution deal with target. wish i made at least 25 million in a decade and had what i did for a living called dead.

i can bet ITUNES will change the way it gets new albums within the next 2 years. prince is not the only artist laying into the internet and ITUNES right now

ITunes UK has most of his WB albums (everything up to Come) and some of his singles. It doesn't have anything he's done since, almost all of which is long out of print on CD.

As for his comments - they're either pissy whingeing, or he's on to something. He was one of the first (if not THE first) mainstream artists to use the internet to sell new music to his fans. "Crystal Ball" was the first release. Of course, it was a disaster, with fans getting their 5 CD sets months after the 4 CD had appeared in retail shops, but he was breaking new ground. He'd also talked about fans being able to download music to their computers (this, a few years before the internet took off).

Is the internet still growing - as in evolving - or has it peaked/done everything it can? Sure, it'll get faster and faster, but that's about it. What doesn't evolve dies. On top of that. the US government is in the process of bringing about an internet kill-switch. Maybe that's what he means.

On top of that. the US government is in the process of bringing about an internet kill-switch.

what's that about?

he got a few million for playing coachella a few years ago. his last 4 studio albums have hit the top 5 here in america with 3121 hitting number 1.

How can the internet be dead when Lady Gaga has 10,673,476 Facebook friends? Intelligent life on this planet, however, is quite another matter.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-07-07 02:38 by tatters.

was it Boy George who said prince should be dunked in a bucket of pubic hair?

AC-Dc don´t have their music in I-Tunes as well.

i never listened to anything boy george said

or sang

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MKjan
was it Boy George who said prince should be dunked in a bucket of pubic hair?

Whose pubic hair?

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!! WHERE WILL I GET MY PRINCE DOWNLOADS NOW!!!!!
SOMEONE PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!

"Well my heavy throbbers itchin' just to lay a solid rhythm down"

Internet Declares Prince Is Dead



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-07-07 16:48 by 71Tele.

OMG, Prince is dead!!! Guess that expalins the purple rain outside.

His "genius" was to offer a sanitized version of black music to white audiences. In other words James Brown or Clinton were too black, they had smelly armpits, they were not "clean", but they were talented.



Prince's armpits smelt like lilac so he was a cross-over artist and he became the soundtrack of the Yuppie's 80's. Clean funk (an oxymoron) clean soul, clean artist, no drugs nor "I'm black and I'm proud", good stuff for MTV.

And guess what? When the 80's died, Prince died too. In the 90's he limped on half-baked albums, noone cared about except his hardcore/blind fans. Now that he's back to a semi-anonymous state, he blames the whole world for it. Sad...



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2010-07-07 12:06 by dcba.

One can say he castrated black music by putting tons on chantilly on it. It took Public Enemy to revive it (thank you boys).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-07-07 12:05 by dcba.

x



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-11-09 20:14 by vudicus.

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dcba
His "genius" was to offer a sanitized version of black music to white audiences. In other words James Brown or Clinton were too black, they had smelly armpits, they were not "clean", but they were talented.



Prince's armpits smelt like lilac so he was a cross-over artist and he became the soundtrack of the Yuppie's 80's. Clean funk (an oxymoron) clean soul, clean artist, no drugs nor "I'm black and I'm proud", good stuff for MTV.

And guess what? When the 80's died, Prince died too. In the 90's he limped on half-baked albums, noone cared about except his hardcore/blind fans. Now that he's back to a semi-anonymous state, he blames the whole world for it. Sad...

yup his songs are so clean. nothing more family friendly than songs such as "sexy m.f.", "gett off", "cream", "pussy control", "orgasm", "soft and wet", "head", 'do me,baby", "jack u off", "loose", and many more. with songs like that he should be writing kids books



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-07-07 12:30 by keefriffhard4life.

Well said Keefriffhard. It can also be said that he revitalised black music at a time when it was all about Luther Vandross and George Benson and er MC Hammer.

His best songs have stood the test of time and are stone classics.

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phelge
Well said Keefriffhard. It can also be said that he revitalised black music at a time when it was all about Luther Vandross and George Benson and er MC Hammer.

His best songs have stood the test of time and are stone classics.

if i really wanted to go there i could make a case that the rolling stones also just watered down black music but i am smart enough to know there is much more to the stones

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dcba
His "genius" was to offer a sanitized version of black music to white audiences.

It's not genius if someone else already did it, and Berry Gordy had already done that.

i like his style with thse things. it goes against the tech grain of the dumbed down and force fed digital culture; sonically and intellectually etc...the quick cross cuts jump cuts that pervade the culture from adverts to features to pop music etc...good for him. a fresh approach. a dig his disdain. i dig the technology too but i'm glad there's an iconoclastic voice in him and that he stands up and out in his own way. i dig it. i'm not a big fan of the music except for some songs where it's just so sublime you want to bow to him...but i dig him...he's a bit puffery poo eighties for me but i dig him.

he just headlined the roskilde fest and the reports i got were that he blew everyone to smithereens....

to be sure what passes for 'R & B' or rock these days certainly sucks, most 'performers' need autotuners and gadgets and gizmos just to sound half-assed, which doesn't matter anyway since their songs are so terrible

you just can't compare todays's 'R&B' acts to Sam Cooke, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Ray Charles, Patti LaBelle etc etc etc; these people really had soul ..

Prince? I don't know where he fits in but I can't stand him or his music; never could.. sometime years ago he announced himself a 'musical genius.' I was like, that's great but I don't give a sh*t.

I've yet to hear anything that impresses me from Prince, self described genius or not. Yeah, he can play, but not all that great. And as far as his soloing, I remember seeing a live concert on TV once where he was playing a solo, making all kinds of distorted faces. I was thinking, it doesn't really look like he's playing that, and sure enough behind him was some other guy playing the solo, but acting real calm like he was trying to hide that he was playing the solo. Lame. Prince should change his name from whatever dumb symbol it is these days to 'Irrelevant."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-07-07 22:42 by stones77.

apparently his new album is free in this Saturday's Daily Mirror

The CD, full of new tracks, will be inside the plastic wrapping that contains the Mirror magazine on Saturday, so no voucher needed.




Track listing

1. 'Compassion'
2. 'Endlessly Beginning'
3. 'Future Soul Song'
4. 'Sticky Like Glue'
5. 'Lavaux'
6. 'Act Of God'
7. 'Walk In Sand'
8. 'Sea Of Everything'
9. 'Everybody Loves Me'
10. 'Untitled Bonus Track'

[www.mirror.co.uk]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2010-07-07 22:46 by adotulipson.