Rightly said:

The man really can't win, can he?

I'll bet the main reason he chose the Mail was because of its distribution power, followed by them offering the right price - and there is no other newspaper you can find that hasn't somewhere in its history had unethical views and bias - there's little choice.

What was he supposed to do? Carry on with the oh-so-ethical music industry? Hasn't he been raped enough by that business over the years with labels, distributors and stores taking a piece of his pie?

You say "anyone with half a head for business could have seen that this is a sure enough market strategy" - yet, noone else has done it! And the other artists that have tried to cut out the middle men with other methods have been nowhere near as successful.What other medium could he have used to get 3 million copies of his album to people? If you have half a head for business, you can probably tell me, eh?

The fact is, the extra 30% sales they had was not because people were suddenly interested in the views of that paper, but wanted to listen to Prince's music. And, as someone else noted, the lyrics on that album fly in the face of most of the opinions of that paper - so, those that do buy the paper because they like it's viewpoint might, in fact, have their own views changed somewhat. Or not.

There aren't any industries where some sort of corruption and unethical practices don't exist - you have to accept that as a fact of life. Unless you live in a field, growing your own food and are completely self-sustaining, then its more than likely that you are, in one way or another, supporting the corruption you hate so much. If you work, earn money, own credit cards, drive a car, buy products, you will be indirectly contributing to all that bullshit - but I'll bet you don't give yourself the same ass-kicking you are giving Prince here. Its the fault of the world in general, you can't tar an individual with the same brush, especially when that is not the agenda they are pushing. But Prince is hardly supporting that here, he is simply using a vehicle for his own promotion.

He does a good thing in giving his music away for free to people, whilst also being reciprocated himself - nothing wrong with that. Yes, he used a paper with right-wing views, but he did not do it to promote those views. You're as guilty as the tabloids you bemoan - someone does something different and is successful and you find any reason, however tenuous, to pull it down. I find that nauseating.
[Edited 7/25/07 17:34pm]