http://www.eurweb.com/art...042004.cfm

PRINCE IS ROYALTY ONCE AGAIN: But did he ever really stop being the man?


Prince
(May. 4, 2004) *Prince IS the man. Really, he's the only artist that we can think of who has consistently dissed the music industry, yet every label head and their mother would kill to have him on their imprint.
His new "Musicology" CD is more likely to be heard on PBS than on mainstream radio and yet it's still getting love from the buying public. But if you utter the word "comeback," you might get smacked.

"I would ask people who want to call this a comeback, where they think I'm coming back from?" the 45-year-old star told The Associated Press. "They want to see me as having failed."

After his much-publicized dispute with label, Warner Bros. record company, he abandoned major record labels and released music through the Internet and on his own, but his star power and sales dwindled to a fraction of their former levels. He mentions two projects that sold more than 100,000 copies. For a superstar like Prince, by industry standards, that would be deemed a failure.

"(But) I get all the money from that, so when you do the math on that, it's a big day at the races," Prince quipped. "My bankers are very happy with me."

He proudly notes that he determines where his records are sold, when he goes on tour and what kind of music he puts out.

"When you show you can be successful as an independent artist, the umbilical cord is broken," Prince says. "(Record contracts are) a parent-child relationship. An advance is an allowance. Any business situation is restrictive."

Be that as it may, for his most recent set Prince shacked up with Columbia Records to manufacture and release it in conjunction with his own label, New Power Generation (NPG) Records