this thread is a continuation of http://www.prince.org/msg/7/170344


This e-mail just went out from NPGMC.com:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRINCE SIGNS WITH UNIVERSAL RECORDS;
NEW ALBUM, 3121, SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE IN 2006

PRINCE AND SALMA HAYEK’S “TE AMO CORAZÓN” VIDEO DEBUTS TODAY ACROSS ALL OF VH1’S TELEVISION, BROADBAND AND WIRELESS PLATFORMS

New York, NY (December 13, 2005) – Announcing his new musical home, musical superstar Prince has signed an exclusive recording agreement with Universal Records, it was announced today by Doug Morris, chairman & CEO of Universal Music Group, Mel Lewinter, chairman of Universal Motown Records Group, Monte Lipman, president of Universal Records, and Prince. His first release on Universal Records, an album entitled 3121, is set to debut in 2006. Concurrently, VH1 will today shepherd the first audiovisual installment from his forthcoming album, the Salma Hayek-directed video, “Tè Amo Corazón” (“I Love You, Sweetheart”), marking the world’s first-ever multiplatform worldwide exclusive premiere of a music video.

“‘The entire Universal Music Group family is thrilled to have the opportunity to work with such a visionary and charismatic talent as Prince,” stated Universal’s Doug Morris. “Prince is one of popular music’s greatest architects,” added Monte Lipman. “He is the embodiment of what musical artistry and talent is all about; he continues to be a major trendsetter whose many talents have always earned him the highest respect and praise.”

Prince will premiere “Tè Amo Corazón” today across all of VH1’s platforms: television, broadband and wireless. This unique event will premiere simultaneously today, at 11:00 p.m. (ET/PT/global), on VH1, VH1 Classic, VHUNO, Tempo, VH1 Soul as well as VH1.com through VH1’s broadband channel Vspot and through VH1 Mobile through its partnership with Verizon’s VCast service. The gorgeous and decadent location of Marrakesh, Morroco provided the backdrop for the incredibly lush ballad and video featuring Prince and Mia Maestro, directed by Salma Hayek.

”VH1 is honored to present this unprecedented multimedia experience with a legendary innovator like Prince,” commented Tom Calderone, general manager of VH1.

“Salma heard the song and came up with the original concept,” Prince said. “Salma is the most thoughtful, attentive director I have ever worked with. An absolute joy.”

Prince’s rise to fame was nothing short of meteoric, from a buzzed-about musician (with the release of his first album, 1979’s For You) to arguably one of the most acclaimed and influential artist of the 20th century. USA Today has hailed him as “one of the most daring and brilliant artists,” just one of the many accolades bestowed on Prince by both critics and peers throughout his career. In fact, a chorus of acclaim literally exploded with the release of the Minnesota native’s world-changing, 1984 dual phenomenon of Purple Rain (the movie broke box office records, the Grammy-nominated album sold more than 11 million copies and spent 24 weeks at #1), making Prince one of the few triple-threats in history to simultaneously land the #1 single, album and movie. His plaintively brilliant single, “When Doves Cry,” the first of many Top Tens, exemplified the kind of transformational musical current that only Prince could deliver. To top it off, he won the “Best Original Score” Academy Award for Purple Rain. A series of seminal albums – from 1985’s Around The World In A Day to 1987’s prophetic Sign o’ the Times, to 1989’s Batman soundtrack to 1991’s Diamonds And Pearls, indelibly cemented his reputation as a 21st century impresario, and a fearless pursuer of the musical stratosphere.

With more than 60 million records sold, Prince launched his web-centric NPG Music Club, a groundbreaking, completely autonomous Prince-authorized nexus, emphasizing direct sales and value-added content for Prince fans and subscribers, a virtual template of the kind of online, artist-driven entrepreneurial models artists and internet gurus would be gravitating towards the close of the decade. More groundbreaking albums followed, with Prince himself stewarding their marketing and promotion. A varied array of label distribution deals were interspersed throughout, with major imprints such as EMI, Arista and Columbia, forming temporary but fruitful relationships with the evocative artist.

Last year saw the cultural icon command the mainstream music radar with a vengeance, releasing the critically and commercially acclaimed Musicology (the disc snagged two Grammys), being inducted to the Rock n’ Roll Hall Of Fame, and rolling out one of the most successful, talked about tours in music history, (Pollstar Magazine crowned him a top concert draw for the year) coinciding with the two-decade anniversary of his masterpiece Purple Rain. Prince also won an NAACP Image award in 2004 and was most recently inspired to write two songs to benefit Hurricane Katrina victims, “S.S.T.” and “Brand New Orleans,” both of which are available on NPGMusicClub.com.


About Universal Music Group

Universal Music Group is the world’s largest music company with wholly owned record operations or licensees in 77 countries. Its businesses also include Universal Music Publishing Group, one of the industry’s largest global music publishing operations. Universal Music Group consists of record labels Decca Music Group, Deutsche Grammophon, Interscope Geffen A&M Records, Geffen Records, Island Def Jam Music Group, Lost Highway Records, Machete Music, MCA Nashville, Mercury Nashville, Mercury Records, Philips, Polydor Records, Universal Music Latino, Universal Motown Records Group, and Verve Music Group as well as a multitude of record labels owned or distributed by its record company subsidiaries around the world. The Universal Music Group owns the most extensive catalog of music in the industry, which is marketed through two distinct divisions, Universal Music Enterprises (in the U.S.) and Universal Strategic Marketing (outside the U.S.). Universal Music Group also includes eLabs, a new media and technologies division, and Universal Music Mobile. Universal Music Group is a unit of Vivendi Universal, a global media and communications company.

About VH1

VH1 connects viewers to the music, artists and pop culture that matter to them most with series, live events, exclusive online content and public affairs initiatives. VH1 is available in over 87 million households in the U.S. VH1 also has an array if digital services including VH1 Classic, VH1 Soul, VH1 Uno and VH1 Country. Connect with VH1 at http://www.vh1.com.

what's this about? is there gonna be a video for each song, or is this just part of the pretentious writing style of the press statement?

i noticed they're calling the video an "AV"...

Anxiety said:

well, cool.

i hope she decides to write it so that it can be read without inducing a headache, or a desire to punch in the screen on my computer. i.e.: without all the cutesy purple catchphrases scattered every other sentence and with a minimum of 2s, Us and 4s and 'eye's.

so Prince is going to be AT this press conference? i was under the impression he wasn't going to actually be there.

Anxiety said:

Unfortunately Prince's press conferences are notoriously lacking in content. Remember the Musicology press conference? I was excited with the prospect of him announcing a date for his new album, new single, new tour etc. Instead we heard that he announced that he had a new album ready and was shopping it around between companies... Was that really worth calling a press conference over?

My guess (and I really hope I'm wrong) is that we won't learn anything from this press conference that we don't already know - perhaps a song title of his favorite track from the album, but that's about it...

anxiety you beat me to it!

i noticed the wording too, i wonder if it corresponds to the rumours about 3121 being a film of some kind. like if each AV is a different chapter in the album and once they're all released it will play like an extended video of some form. it'll be interesting to see what happens, it certainly all seems less straightforward than musicology was!

I wonder if they willsay anything on the rumoured April release date. If that is accurate, it seems like they will really go for it, because that would be a lot of time to promote it before it drops. Another single, maybe?

I'm interested to see if there's gonna be any decent info about 3121 at the press conference.

NouveauDance said:

has there been a word said about where or when it's happening? i find it kinda curious that the info about a press conference...which you'd think THE PRESS would be invited to...would be so much under lock and key.

today ... VH1 .... new vid ?


WHAT TIME ???

Mach said:

11pm eastern which is 10 central and all you PAC coasters know what that is your time.

okay, news junkies...gorge on this:

http://news.search.yahoo....fl=0&x=wrt

Um, it's 10am here, and the org time is 7:00pm. Is my org time Eastern? How long til one hour after 11 when I can download the video?

Also, Anx I had the same thought about all this 'AV' business. I really hope we're not getting ahead of ourselves. I'm willing this album to be something different, if only in the presentation of it.

Papaj said:

Prince=king.

Anxiety said:

oh it is SO the latter. He has hinted at 3 videos so far that have yet to come to fruitation.

or just maybe...

Maybe 31:21 is just one long song and it'll be one long video incorporating the fam videos sent to him.

Anxiety said:

BEVERLY HILLS

Woh there, has anyone seen www.3121.com now? Lots of very little colored squares with shots from the video. Looks cool anyway.

BTW what's up with the supposed interviews on vh1? Did I miss a report on this between all the tohuwabohu in here?

MarcelJ said:

pretty! reminds me of christmas lights.

www.3121.com

very nice and classy - until you go to the npg store that is =)

Anxiety said:

Okay, I'll start the bitchfest on clueless reporters.

From http://www.eonline.com/Ne...rsslatest:

Prince is once again willing to work for the Man.

The funkmeister, who famously scrawled "slave" on his face to protest his deal with Warner Bros. Records in the '90s, has signed with a major label to release his upcoming album.

Universal Records will distribute 3121, Prince's first batch of tunes since 2004's highly acclaimed Musicology.

The latter album was heralded by many as a return to form for His Purpleness, who released most of his 1990s albums via his Website and in turn racked up fewer hits and lower sales.


"Released most of his 1990s albums via his website"??

I just went to my CD shelf and asked Grafitti Bridge, Diamonds and Pearls, , Come, The Gold Experience and The Vault if this was true, and they were all like, "Bitch, what the fuck is a website??"

FunkMistress said:

you're the best Mistress!

FunkMistress said:

Not much new here, but www.digitalmusicnews.com did this story on Te Amo and the distribution strategy.

Prince Blasts New Video Across Multiple Formats

Prince recently put the finishing touches on his new video, and the artistry has now traversed several formats. Just last night, the video of "Te Amo Corazon" was blasted across a number of VH1 properties, including the flagship channel, VH1 Classic, VHUNO, Tempo, VH1 Soul, and VH1 broadband channel VSpot (vspot.vh1.com). Additionally, the video was also accessible on VCast, a mobile video service from Verizon Wireless. VH1 general manager Tom Freston pointed to an "unprecedented multimedia experience with a legendary innovator," while Prince thanked video director Salma Hayak for her artistic vision. "Salma is the most thoughtful, attentive director I have ever worked with,” The Artist said.

The multi-platform approach is part of a new playbook for promoting artists. Other mega-superstars like Madonna have recently used a similar game plan, resulting in high levels of awareness and strong sales. Overall, the Prince distribution strategy is designed to reach an increasingly fractured consumer base, many of whom are more distracted than ever. Meanwhile, The Artist has deftly leveraged the celebrity power of stars Salma Hayak and actress Mia Maestro, both of whom were intimately involved in the effort. The video is supporting the upcoming Prince album 3121, which will be carried by Universal Music.

well, do we have an official tracklisting yet?

DynamicSavior said:

nope.

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

damn. i know the next Sentai for 2007, but i can't get a Prince tracklisting for an album coming out next month? What the fudge?