Does Prince Have A Point About The Internet???

When Prince went on a rant the other week about the internet being finished, people basically just looked at him with a blank stare and thought “here is a guy who is out of touch”. Prince was quoted as saying “The Internet’s completely over,”. “I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won’t pay me an advance for it, and then they get angry when they can’t get it.” He went on to say that the internet was like MTV which was outdated.

I understand why this statement would leave most thinking that the Pop legend had flipped his lid. But I believe I understand exactly why he made this statement. Of course there is no way that the internet is over, but there is a method to the madness of Prince. Prince had long ago passed the prime of his Purple Rain days when he made an unexpected comeback in April 2004 with his CD Musicology. Prince earned the number 3 position on the charts for his first week and started a buzz. He did this in part by doing a tour based on his old music and giving away his current CD as part of the ticket price. This way every time he sold a ticket, he sold a CD. In the late 90’s, Prince was able to get out of his Warner Bros. contract by dropping his name for a symbol and calling himself “the artist formerly known as Prince”. During that time he sold his music exclusively on the internet and received all the royalties.  In 2007 he gave his CD to the British paper The Mail as a free giveaway. He in turn was paid half a million dollars up front. Three million CD’s were distributed. In terms of music survival, this man is far from out of touch and more of a genius.