Musical Socialism

Prince, Planet Earth

Although I didn't get my free copy... Columbia has chosen to pull out of its U.K distribution of Prince's new album following Prince's decision to give it away for free with The Mail on Sunday.

It makes me wonder if giving away free music -to somewhere in the region of 2million readers- will mean its listened to more? Will it garner new fans, or interest his old ones who can tell?

I think he's doing really well at trying to get his prolific talent out there for people to listen to. So much promotion is given to new artists on the block that it makes it difficult for popstars promoting second albums to get a look in; take the Scissor Sisters for example. Bear in mind that this is Prince's 22nd studio release and you can't help but think no wonder he gets so little promotion or else he'd be seriously exposed. (see below)

We wonder where Lilly Allen and Mika will be once they hit that tricksy second album stage- and no we don't think either will make it to 22 albums. Its likely they'll get passed over in favour of the next big thing. Or at best, someone less lairy than Allen, or more open about their sexuality than Mika. They will surely seem a breath of fresh air after another 6months of this pair trying to crack America.

Will Prince make a huge commercial/critical comeback by giving his album away for free with a newspaper? Will it get more plays than being released in the way have come to think of as being traditional for our music industry? Probably not.

Just because we pump these albums into the homes of potential listeners doesn't mean its necessarily going to be popular. So we cant help but wonder... maybe one day the music charts wont actually be based on sales, which are the acheivement of marketing and PR. They may even take into consideration who were listening to instead... how about a global ipod syncing chart.