Is Prince reshaping the recording industry?
Wouldn’t he like to think so! Prince’s beef with the music world is this: record labels retain the rights to an artist’s master recordings. He thinks that’s artistic slavery. (Hence those pics of him a few years ago with the word “slave” scrawled on his face.) Prince coined a phrase: “If you don’t own the masters, the masters own you.” So, after annoying several major labels, including poor Arista that had to release 1999’s abysmal Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic, he began his own NPG Music Club in February 2001. Fans pay $100 annually and a small monthly fee to download from Prince’s prolific catalog, getting live versions, rarities, new material. With NPG, Prince engages in no advertising, makes no videos, releases no singles. The message: it’s all about the music. Seemingly, he’s not interested in being a pop star anymore. A good thing, considering his 23rd album, The Rainbow Children, which leads us to question No. 2: What does Prince sound like now? “If you came to get your Purple Rain
