U.K. Storm Brewing Over New Prince Album
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=10036
05696
Prince
June 29, 2007, 9:45 AM ET Lars Brandle, LondonSony BMG U.K. will not
handle Prince's upcoming album release after a national British newspaper
struck a deal to give the CD away. Columbia in the United States recently
struck a worldwide deal, understood to cover just the new album, "Planet
Earth." The major's U.K. company had sought, and has now achieved, an
exemption from the terms of that deal, a spokesman for Sony BMG tells
Billboard.com.
"The Prince album will not be released in the U.K.," the spokesperson
says. "It's a one-off situation."
The unusual development is a direct response to a deal the Mail on Sunday
is understood to have sealed with Prince's representatives, which will
see the 10-track CD distributed as a "covermount" with an unspecified
edition of the newspaper.
As previously reported, the album is slated for an international release
July 16, and July 24 in the U.S. Columbia had previously released
Prince's 2004 disc, "Musicology."
Furthermore, the album will be distributed free to thousands of
gig-goers. Prior to confirmation of the Columbia deal, Prince last month
announced plans to give-away copies of the album with tickets to his
21-date the Earth Tour residency at London's new O2 Arena, formerly known
as the Millennium Dome, beginning Aug. 1.
The Mail on Sunday was at the center of a heated "covermounts" dispute
within the U.K. music industry when it pressed up 3 million copies of
Mike Oldfield's complete 1973 album "Tubular Bells," to distribute as a
freebie with its April 22 edition.
"We're not in a fight with anybody," the publication's managing director,
Stephen Miron, tells Billboard.com. "We're just trying to produce the
best possible content we can do, and give it to an audience who clearly
have an appetite for it. And what we are also able to demonstrate is we
can stimulate that appetite, and people then go on to fulfill their
appetite with extra product, be it album sales, DVD sales, concert
tickets or whatever."
When asked if the newspaper would continue to covermount core catalog
releases in the future, Miron said, "Yes. I think we've been able to
demonstrate that we've got a commitment to music and a passion for
music."
The Prince release, however, is threatening to blow up into another
industry dispute.
Paul Quirk, co-chairman of the U.K.'s Entertainment Retailers
Association, used his keynote speech yesterday at the London Calling
conference to condemn the latest "covermount." Having said the news
"beggars belief," he added, "If it turns out to be the case, The Artist
formerly known as Prince should know that with behavior like this, he
will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
NewPowerNewYork Mailing List
website: Www.NPNY.Org
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe? Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED], in body place npny
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Questions/Help?: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
