MUSIC SCENE

Prince: LotusFlow3R
A new set; a new business model

In the two weeks since the release of Prince’s new 3-disc collection, LOTUSFLOW3R, I’ve heard at least four radio DJ’s hosting song versus song “battles” over who is the best artist - Prince or Michael Jackson. I have my own opinion on the subject, but it’s an apples against oranges comparison. Different people, different music, different styles. But on the subject of who is the better businessman, there is no contest. Prince wins that one hands down.

Well before the hip hop millionaires so lauded for their business prowess realized that the major music industry was full of legal and political minefields that hijacked profits and musical innovation from artists, Prince was making a very public show of exposing the holes in the system. He did not win the public relations battle at the time, but he eventually won the war.

So deft was his early use of the web as an alternative form of independent distribution that two years ago, Prince was the recipient of a Pioneer honor from the prestigious Webby Awards. This was eons (in web time) before “e-commerce” was either a buzzword or a proven model. Prince has clearly taken the position that music sitting in a can on the shelf is of no value. Art is God’s creation and wants to breathe free. According to fan lore, for every album Prince has released, there are three lying around his basement somewhere – unheard and better than the rest. That remains to be seen, but Prince has developed a way to make it heard without significant meddling.

Distribution, of course, has been his major stumbling block and the musician has had to occasionally make deals with major distributors to put his music in front of the most people. But even then, he negotiated terms that were either more favorable on his side, or as in his free distribution of music with concert tickets, worked to manipulate the figures on sales so that it influenced even more.

This time around, with LotusFlow3r, Prince has once again set the terms of the deal with an exclusive retail arrangement backed by television, concert and radio promotion. Three albums in a single package, three concurrent appearances on Jay Leno, three concert dates in Los Angeles – all at budget prices ($11.99). Four bucks an album is a deal in any economy. Even if you hate it, it’s less than the price of a drink at most nightclubs.

His choice of Target as the retailer of choice is also a smart selection. Oprah made Target acceptable, the economy has made it mandatory. The chain has also marketed itself in a way that projects creative thinking. Had he chosen WalMart he likely would have found the constrictions on pricing and their occasional displays of censorship as restricting in their own way as his deals with Warner Brothers.

And as for that Prince vs. MJ battle, it’s Michael who is duplicating Prince’s consecutive runs of shows in London, not the other way around. So there.

If it seems that I’ve been focusing on the business of LotusFLow3r as a way to avoid reviewing the music, that is – unfortunately - intentional.

I am, and always will be a dyed in the wool Prince fan. Above many other artists, he has developed the ability to test and challenge his audience and still maintain their undying loyalty. That’s because he has allowed us to be a part of his musical development. Every album since the first has reflected a change, a search, a shift, a discovery on his part – new people, sounds, new influences, new philosophies. He has also, importantly, not chosen to chase the newest and latest trend (bad attempts at rap aside), and his fans appreciate that lack of cynicism.

Yet, with the three albums of LotusFlow3r, Prince’s new direction is unclear. In one place or another on the album, LotusFlow3r, there are homages to Tommy James and the Shondells, Lou Reed, and The Troggs (“Wild Thing”). There are songs that sound like Lenny Kravitz tunes (with better guitar work) and Bob Dylan tunes (with better guitar work but not better poetry). There is head-noddable but throwaway new age soul and Brit-style grooves on the BRIA VALENTE album, there is 80s- style synth pop-rock on MPLSOUND. There are stretches of incredible musicianship in middles and intros and endings, but rarely in the same song. Only bits of the entire package stay with you after a first listen. It’s a five-listen collection before something sticks – at best. I’ll stop there. My respect for the man’s art overrides my opinion on the music.

But that’s not the point. The underlying reason behind Prince’s breakthroughs in self-marketing was to secure for himself the freedom to pursue, stretch (and distribute) his craft without the imposed limitations of music company editing, radio station politics, commercialization and above all, critics like me. He has accomplished that. His releases in the last decade have been what he feels and what he hears. Those who are with him on the journey are with him, and those who are not, are not. And that’s how creativity should work. For someone who once wrote “Slave” on his cheek, creative integrity is the ultimate and most important form of freedom.