Prince Shows the Way?

I’ve been a fan of Prince since back in 1982, when his album 1999 came out. It’s no secret that pop music has suf­fered com­mer­cially in the last few years in the age of the dig­i­tal down­load. But here, with Prince, we have a musi­cian who has some­how man­aged to stay ahead of the curve com­mer­cially. In the July 22, 2007 New York Times there is an arti­cle by Jon Par­e­les called “The Once and Future Prince” which does a good job of explain­ing how Prince has adapted over the years to the chang­ing real­i­ties of get­ting music to his audi­ence. For instance,

Prince grav­i­tated early to the Inter­net. Even in the days of dial-up, he sought to make his music avail­able online, first as a way of order­ing albums and then through dig­i­tal distribution.

and

Prince’s pri­or­i­ties are obvi­ous. The main one is get­ting his music to an audience.

What­ever kind of musi­cian you are, clas­si­cal, pop, jazz, the inter­net has com­pletely rev­o­lu­tion­ized your career — whether you do some­thing about it or not. Prince’s exam­ple serves as a great object les­son, and the arti­cle is worth read­ing here.

Prince