In the 18 June 2004 edition of Entertainment Weekly, there is a half-page article on Prince and his cd-with-concert scheme. There is also a nice picture of Prince at the Rock Hall Induction ceremony.

That's The Ticket
A cd-with-concert scheme helps Prince up the chart. By Raymond Fiore

The artist formerly known as provocative may have nixed his saucier material, but the man behind "Eritoc City" can stil lstir up controversy.

Thanks to the crafty strategy of including a copy of his don't-call-it-a-comeback album MUSICOLOGY in the ticket price for his current tour, Prince is sitting near the top of the Billboard chat.

"Prince is ahead of his time and thinks outside the box," says Randy Phillips, the tour's promoter, of the Musicology scheme.

But record labels cried foul, complaining that the CD-concert combo sets and unfair precedent in tallying sales. Now Billboard's announced an amended policy that stipulates, "the consumer must be given the option to purchase a CD with a concert ticket for [the sale] to count toward the chart," says Billboard chart director Geoff Mayfield.

However, Musicology, which has moved 800,000 units since its April 20 release, has been grandfathered out of that rule.

With 1.5 million fans expected to see Prince this year, he'll likely have a spot in the Top 20 for months. Almost 2 good 2 B true.

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