http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118489626125572580.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Prince's Bid to Reclaim His Crown
July 20, 2007; Page W2

There was a time when his name -- or rather the lack of one when he went by a "glyph" -- was a punch line.

But over the past few years, Prince has engineered an unlikely comeback, making him one of the starkest examples of how big-name musicians can flourish even as the music industry's woes deepen.
CLIPS FROM PRINCE'S NEW CD

• Planet Earth: Windows Media | Real Audio
• Chelsea Rodgers: Windows Media | Real Audio
• Guitar: Windows Media | Real Audio

On Tuesday, more than half a million copies of the Minneapolis musician's new funk and guitar-driven album, "Planet Earth," will arrive in U.S. stores. Early buzz is relatively promising, and sales could be brisk. Prince's last two albums have together sold more than 2.5 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan -- and he's riding high after a Super Bowl halftime performance that was widely praised.

But more than two decades after the release of "Purple Rain," which has sold 13 million copies, album sales are a far less important part of Prince's portfolio. His last major tour made him 2004's biggest seller, with $87.4 million in tickets, according to Pollstar, and he's now set to play 21 shows at London's 15,500-person capacity O2 Arena in August and September, with North American dates possible, according to his U.S. label.

Smaller-venue appearances can be lucrative, too. Some tickets at Prince's recent series at Hollywood's Roosevelt Hotel went for $3,121 per couple. Last weekend, he performed at a concert in East Hampton, N.Y., for which approximately 1,000 people paid about $3,000 to attend, organizers say. On Monday, he played a show at Switzerland's Montreux Jazz Festival, for which a batch of tickets -- beginning at $107 -- sold out in 15 minutes.
[Prince]
Prince performs in Pasadena, Calif., last month

In part, that's why the idiosyncratic and secretive artist -- who has declined to give interviews to promote this album -- could afford to stir controversy with his decision to bundle nearly three million copies of "Planet Earth" free of charge with copies of Britain's Mail on Sunday newspaper last weekend, leading his local label not to release the album in the United Kingdom. A statement on Prince's Web site about the move cited his protests against Warner Bros., his label in the 1990s, and called album-sales charts "music-industry constructions."

"I got a real chuckle when I saw what he did," says Irving Azoff, manager of such acts as the Eagles and Christina Aguilera, but never of Prince. "Virtually every major touring artist now makes so much off their touring that many very smart artists are thinking of CDs just as much as a marketing tool."

Prince's U.S. label says it's proud to be involved with him in any capacity. "He always has done things differently, and, because of his musical talent -- I wouldn't use the term 'gotten away with it,'" says Lisa Ellis, an executive vice president of Sony Music Label Group. "But anybody who has a chance to work with someone of his stature, you take advantage of it."

Prince in the friggin' Wall Street Journal. Now, that's what I call crossover!

Genesia said:

ditto I like it