Today's Music News

Prince album pulled

Row over Sunday newspaper giveaway

30 June 07 - Prince's UK record label Sony BMG has announced it will no longer release his new album, Planet Earth.

It follows a row over a separate deal Prince's people made with the Mail on Sunday to give the album away as a free covermount CD in a future edition.

Planet Earth is released on 16 July internationally, except for the US where it is due on 24 July. A spokesman for Sony BMG said: "Given the sheer number of copies we are talking about here it seemed the right thing to do for retailers to become exempt from the deal in the UK."

"Given the sheer number of copies we are talking about here it seemed the right thing to do"
Sony BMG spokesman

Prince was signed to Columbia (part of Sony BMG) in the US for a worldwide one album deal, but the UK arm of the company has pulled out of that agreement.

The singer had already announced that fans who buy tickets to one of his 21 gigs at the O2 arena will also get a copy of Planet Earth.

The music industry has reacted angrily at the plan to give away the new album with the tabloid newspaper. Paul Quirk, co-chairman of the Entertainment Retailers Association, said the decision "beggars belief".

"The Artist formerly known as Prince should know that with behaviour like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores," he said.

The Mail on Sunday's recent CD giveaways include Peter Gabriel, Dolly Parton, Duran Duran, UB40 and Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells.

Stephen Miron, the newspaper's managing director, said that giving away an artist's latest album was a bold new idea.

He said: "No one has done this before. We have always given away CDs and DVDs, but this is just setting a new level."

He added that the newspaper was not out to put music stores out of business. "They are living in the old days and haven't developed their businesses sufficiently," he said.

Andre Paine

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Comments so far

Pippa (15),Corfe Mullen
I think that Prince has the right to do what he likes with his music, people are too interested in other people's business these days. I can't say that it would have been my personal choice of newspaper though...

Stephen, Cowes, Isle of Wight
A fab album and I admire what is trying to be done. It's just a shame that it was given away with such a sleazy Right Wing Sunday well I could hardly call it a news paper maybe emergency toilet roll!

Lee London
Why the Mail! Urghh - i'll probably have to steal it rather than give them my money. Prince i love what you've done but why give it to such a rag!

Nick, Bangkok
I think it's a bold move and I'll wait and see before passing judgment on whether it's a good one or not, but it's certainly interesting. I'll be watching keenly to see how things unfold. The tracks we've heard from the album so far have been ok - about the same quality as on 'Musicology' and '3121', so not bad, but not great. I think with the dates in London and this bit of exposure good things could happen for Prince though. All in all I'm glad for it, as a Prince fan, just to see that he's still pushing the envelope and relevant in one sense at least, if not still musically (with the exception of live performances, where he's still at the top of his game).

Kevin, Dunblane
Bad idea. Why tarnish the work of a genius by associating it with a rag like The Mail on Sunday? In the week that the Fopp chain went under, it's a shame that music fans may be forced to buy newspapers or magazines they don't like or don't want, just to get new music.

freddyman orlando ,florida
those greedy morons at sony ,they free the prince , so the prince frees the people ,from the corpate greed man.