A lot of it is evident in the way CD sales are counted as part of ticket sales, keeping "Musicology" in the Top Ten as long as Prince wants to keep the tour going.

But there's another aspect that impressed me. Traditionally, a tour promotes the new release. The artist plays most of the songs from that CD, hoping the audience will like them and then go buy the new CD. The artist has only a limited time to play his/her prior hits.

Prince doesn't have to do that - everyone at the show already gets the CD. So, he can tour on a new CD but not have devote much of the show to it, leaving lots of time for him to play the audience-pleasing hits. That is a great idea.

Prince mentioned including CDs in the price of a concert ticket around the time of "Emancipation". At the time, it sounded like a neat idea that would never happen. The guy really was ahead of his time. Still is.

True...he doesn't really have to play anything on the CD. No one is going to go out and get it after the concert. He should play a bit more than he has though