This does have a tenuous link to concerts, so please bear with me...

I was meeting a mate yesterday before going to see the man at the O2. Whilst killing time I was in HMV and was flabbergasted to see that they were 'giving away' copies of Planet Earth 'free' with any purchase of a Prince album.

On closer inspection the copies were not all of you peoples extras from the O2 (I've got 4!), they were actually the ones free with with the Daily Mail - is this legal??

What a barefaced cheek that they slag off Prince for not putting the album through retail stores, and then effectively use the same album as an incentive to shift back catalogue during the tour.

They also managed to get copies of some old 12's to milk the tour. These looked like photocopied re-issues. I was most offended.

It is now a battle between; Ticketmaster - who only today responded to my complaint about aftershow tickets being mis-sold, a month too late, and HMV - who are not about music, just the money, so don't lie about it ok? Who do I despise the most??

unkleg said:

Last time I checked HMV was a shop. And unless I've misunderstood the purpose of shops all these years...

HMV specially sold copies of that issue of The Sunday Mail, so they're probably just getting rid of all the leftover copies. Not every store is doing it. I've only seen it advertised by the Prince racks at a few of them.

vivid said:

True, but you must of heard about them gutwrenching about their crusade to help the poor artist, and that it was all about bringing music to the masses. If they just said, 'this is product and we want to sell it, therefore this (Planet Earth being given away) is bullsh*t', I can respect that, but all that bleeding heart cr*p really compells criticism.

unkleg said:

I see your point, but would expect nothing less from a huge company like HMV. Call me a cynic but doesn't everyone in gib business need to talk b-sh*t?

vivid said:[quote]

unkleg said:

I'm not sure about the Daily Mail CDs but the 12"s you're referring to were officially re-issued by Warner Bros at the end of June. You can get them in any large wrecka stow, not just HMV. (They were also issued for download from iTunes on the same day.) So yes, it's milking the tour , but nothing to do with HMV.

And the fact is these are businesses. ie. there to make money.

The 12" singles were newly re-issued by Warner a couple of months ago.

leecaldon said:

The print on them looks really shady, looks like a rush release to me. I would have been happier if they were CD versions - unless there are, in which case I will eat my words

No CDs, but legal downloads are available of them all. As someone above said, HMV were the only music chain to stock the MoS when the album was given away so all they're doing is giving away the rest of their stock to Prince fans.