Prince Is a Genius

Prince will give away his new cd in the newspaper and with concert tickets. I love it.

The record-selling intermediaries respond with this threat: "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behaviour like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores. And I say that to all the other artists who may be tempted to dally with the Mail on Sunday."

I still have the fondest memories of The Clash for selling me their 3-album Sandinista for peanuts (back in the day).

UPDATE: My friend Andrew Keen continues to cause a stir with his book (Cult of the Amateur), arguing that not much good comes from amateurs’ use of new media to displace experts and intermediaries by simply getting out their stuff and letting people decide whether they like it (instead of, say, music industry experts filtering through the possibilities and publishing the best stuff – like Musical Youth and Milli Vanilli).

Andrew is wrong, of course, as these amateurs show by using new media to share a simple song at the dinner table (Gilberto Gil) or mountains of content (WILCO).