With Prince dominating the headlines and the music industry up in arms...has pull off a master stroke here?

Consider if the album gets included in the charts, 2.9m copies sold right away...he'd be #1 for weeks. The publicity alone from this will ensure he'll sell out all his concerts.

Is this the future of music distribution?

Same debate/poll is on sky news, current results - Yes 65% No 35%

Well theoretically its reaching a wider audience in the UK than it would have done if it was a retail only album .

Being a covermount it wouldnt chart anyway , maybe he is hoping people are now going to go and purchase other albums on the strength of Planet Earth ? Lets just hope they dont make the mistake of buying The Rainbow Children

I think other artist have had similar giveaways in the Newspaper right?


What I love about what Prince is doing is that he's taking the "product" and having a major say in how it is sold. The guy is obviously rolling in the money now.

Now if he could just sell that one album that blows me away again


But I think, whether you like Planet earth or not, Prince has largely recovered from a career that pre-Musicology seemed to be doomed.

Imago said:

what makes this different is that it is a NEW recording. the 'news' papers have been giving away back catalogue stuff 4 ages, but never complete, new albums. this is what is scaring the sh#t out of the industry, they can see madonna, J.T, U2 even, thinking 'hey, why don't we do that ?'

liberation said:

How could it be #1 for weeks? 1st week, 2.9m sold. 2nd week, 0 sold.