As the world mourns Prince, the industry also bids farewell to Prince, Inc.
Prince Rogers Nelson’s moves within the music business were often as prophetic and mysterious as his art and public persona. Much the way he could write, sing, produce, and play all of the instruments on his songs, his career was marked by a similar insistence on mastery over how that music was sold and distributed. In the mid-1980s, after the multimedia success of Purple Rain, he convinced Warner Bros. to help launch the Paisley Park Records label from his Minnesota estate. By the '90s, he was appearing in public with the word "slave" on his cheek, changing his name to an unpronounceable glyph, and releasing a triple album via his post-Paisley Park imprint, NPG. As a young music fan at the time, I remember hearing about the industry travails of "the Artist Formerly Known as Prince" as much as I heard his recorded output.
That iconoclasm alone would provide a meaningful legacy. Speaking with the New York Times, producer and longtime Prince associate Jimmy Jam drew a link between Prince's experiments with complete artistic control and such present-day releases as Kanye West's ever-evolving The Life of Pablo.
More than a business-minded person savvy enough to want ownership of his music, though, Prince—like David Bowie—was also a pioneer when it came to the emerging online world. There was a CD-ROM. There was a monthly online subscription service, NPG Music Club; a successor was called Lotusflow3r, which perhaps not coincidentally resembles the song title "Lotus Flower" by Radiohead, who followed Prince's direct-to-fans approach with 2007's "pay what you like"In Rainbows. Prince "was sex," according to the The Guardian. He "was technology," according to the Times. And his later falling out with the online realm, similarly, was business.
The Purple One's fights with bootleggers and streaming services went beyond the norm, but he consistently defended them using the cold logic of the bottom line. And he repeatedly engaged in sly winks—such as titling a song after a popular Prince meme or using Dave Chappelle's impersonation of him as single artwork—that showed he was very aware of the internet meta-realm he was ostensibly rejecting. Prince wanted be free to create his music but he didn't necessarily want it to be free to consume.
"He was an independent voice," Pandora CEO Tim Westergren told me Friday, recalling a discussion he once had with Prince. "He was always just looking out for artists, trying to help them get a fair share of what was going on in digital. He was a musician's musician, trying to figure it out with everyone else."
Here's a timeline of Prince's singular dance with the music business, with a particular emphasis on the digital realm. In his interactions with interactivity, as in so many other aspects of Prince's work, you'll find few black-or-white conclusions, but plenty of purple.
1977: Just after turning 18, Prince signs a six-figure deal with Warner Bros. The contract states Prince will produce his own albums, starting the young musician down a career with an unusual degree of artistic control. He benefits, too, from a music industry in its disco-era heyday: His debut album, 1978's For You, peaks at No. 163 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart. But the label, flush enough to be patient with its talent, stands by him while 1979's Prince, 1980's Dirty Mind, and 1981's Controversy never crack the Top 20.
July 1984: Purple Rain hits movie theaters a month after the album of the same name is released. The film grosses more than $68 million at the U.S. box office. The album tops the Billboard 200 chart and is an artistic triumph, spanning influences from pop and rock to R&B and disco. (Meanwhile, the lyrics to "Darling Nikki" help inspire the use of Parental Advisory stickers, proving Prince has turned into a star so massive he can freak out people's parents.) Purple Rain is the only one of Prince's feature films he doesn't direct himself, but his place as a multimedia virtuoso has been cemented regardless. Why just sell records when you could sell movie tickets, too?
April 1985: Paisley Park Records debuts with the release of Around the World in a Day, Prince's seventh album. The label is a joint venture with Warner Bros. and ultimately issues eight Prince albums. But more than that, it provides a start for Prince-approved acts such as Sheila E. and Tevin Campbell. The icons Mavis Staples and George Clinton also put out music on the label.
1987: The Paisley Park studio complex, a $10 million, 65,000-square-foot compound, opens in Chanhassen, Minnesota. With a label and studio, Prince takes his commercial dominion over his art to a new level.
June 1989: Warner Bros. releases Prince's soundtrack to the blockbuster Batman film. Here's another paradox. Batman arrives as Prince is ostensibly at the height of creative control, but his first No. 1 album since Around the World in a Day is also a bit of Warner Bros. corporate synergy, tangentially related to the Jack Nicholson-Michael Keaton film from the same parent company. Even an auteur with command over his business affairs sometimes has to dance with the media-consolidation devil (in the pale moonlight).
June 1993: Prince changes his name to a glyph known as "The Love Symbol." "The first step I have taken towards the ultimate goal of emancipating from the chains that bind me to Warner Bros. was to change my name from Prince to (symbol)," he said in a press release. "Prince is the name that my Mother gave me at birth. Warner Bros. took the name, trademarked it, and used it as the main marketing tool to promote all of the music that I wrote." Fascinatingly, Prince's camp sent news outlets a floppy disk with a font allowing them to call him by his chosen name. They'd still often resort to "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince." But the point is made: No one owns Prince.
1994: Prince releasesPrince Interactive, a CD-ROM. The disc's centerpiece is a videogame widely compared to the previous year's popular graphic adventure puzzle game, Myst. The CD supposedly includes previously unreleased music and videos of musicians such as Miles Davis and George Clinton talking about Prince. Prince Interactive underscores that if there's a new medium for Prince's message, he's going to adopt it—and that message is going to stay Prince-ly.
Also in 1994, Warner ends its distribution deal with Paisley Park Records, effectively shuttering the label. Prince also launches NPG Records, though, unlike Paisley Park, this imprint only releases only his own projects. Meanwhile, all the contractual disputes may be beginning to overshadow the music: The same year, he releases "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World," his first single under the new name; the song is his last Top 10 hit on the U.S. Hot 100.
1995: By this point, Prince's dispute with Warner Bros. has led him to appear in public with "slave" written on his cheek. He shows off the look in the 1994 video for "Dolphin" and in a performance of that song on “The Late Show With David Letterman.” In October 1994, Prince's publicists issue a statement slamming Warner for not putting The Gold Experience out; Prince, they say, "now feels that his much publicized $100 million deal may have just been a way to lock him into 'institutionalized slavery' with Warners." He wants to fulfill his deal and be done with it, they said. At February's Brit Awards, accepting the best international male award from Neneh Cherry, he turns up with "slave" on his cheek once again. Just as memorable, though, is his acceptance speech: “Prince: Best? The Gold Experience: Better. In concert: Perfectly free. On record: Slave.” His quest for absolute control is becoming a bit confusing to the masses—and his employees. His wardrobe director is quoted as saying: "He talks about himself being a slave to Warners. Hello? Let me knock on your door. We don't work for free."
1996: Prince releases the triple album Emancipation. The title is a pointed reference to the end of Prince's 18-year relationship with Warners. The record arrives on NPG and EMI and heralds a period where, aside from NPG, Prince jumps around between labels, releasing 2001's The Rainbow Children with Best Buy's Redline Entertainment, 2004's Musicology with Columbia, 2006's 3121 with Universal Music Group, and 2007's Planet Earth with Columbia again.
1998: Prince releases Crystal Ball, a triple album of "previously bootlegged" material, plus The Truth, a fourth disc of new, acoustic songs. This one's on NPG only, and he originally offers it through phone pre-order (1-800-NEW-FUNK) or his "Love 4 One Another" website. The direct-order version also includes a fifth, instrumental disc by the NPG Orchestra, titled Kamasutra. Prince makes the liner notes and song titles available on his website, illustrating his early embrace of the internet, in its messy bounty.
1999: Prince releases his new album Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic via NPG and Arista.
February 2001: Prince opens NPG Music Club, a monthly online subscription service that offers exclusive content, such as his 2003 album Xpectation. The idea presages the direct-to-fan efforts that acts like Radiohead would go on to undertake, as well as the exclusive albums made available on today's paid subscription services like Tidal and Apple Music.
November 2001: Prince releases his new album The Rainbow Children via NPG and Best Buy's Redline Entertainment.
2004: Prince distributes copies of his new album Musicology with tickets for his current tour. This helps the album become Prince's biggest seller since 1991's Diamonds and Pearls, reaching No. 3 on the Billboard 200. (Billboard and SoundScan subsequently change their method for counting future album sales included with concert tickets.)
July 2006: NPG Music Club shuts down.
2007: Long before Jay Z gives away 2013's Magna Carta Holy Grail via Samsung, Prince grants The Daily Mail the exclusive rights to distribute his new album Planet Earth for free to the UK tabloid's nearly three million readers. "It's direct marketing," he says when announcing the deal. "And I don't have to be in the speculation business of the record industry, which is going through a lot of tumultuous times right now." Prince's UK label, Sony BMG, decides not to release the album there at all.
February 2007: Prince plays an unforgettable Super Bowl Halftime Show. Meanwhile, YouTube user Stephanie Lenz posts a shaky video of her children running around the house to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy." Universal sends YouTube a takedown notice for Lenz's video. A lawsuit follows—the so-called "Dancing Baby" case—and winds its way through the courts for years.
September 2007: Prince announces a bigger effort to block unauthorized use of his music on YouTube and other major sites. A September 2007 statement on his behalf says, "Prince strongly believes artists as the creators and owners of their music need to reclaim their art." This is why we have to mourn Prince without access to much of his work on YouTube or similar platforms.
January 2009: Prince launches a new website, Lotusflow3r. Fans could pay $77 for a year's membership that includes three new albums, plus exclusive content.
April 2010: Lotusflow3r shuts down.
July 2010: As Prince releases his latest album, 20Ten, for free exclusively with European newspapers and magazines, he tells The Daily Mirror: "The internet is completely over. I don't see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won't pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can't get it. The internet's like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. They just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you." His comments receive derision—where else?—online.
August 2013: Prince starts using Twitter. He shares the cover art for his new single "Breakfast Can Wait." The cover art shows Dave Chappelle doing his Prince impersonation.
January 2014: Prince sues 22 internet users for a total of $22 million for allegedly posting live bootlegs of his concerts.
April 2014: Prince announces a new deal with Warner Bros., the label that signed him as an 18-year-old and that he fought with in the '90s. In a statement, he says, "A brand-new studio album is on the way and both Warner Bros. Records and Eye are quite pleased with the results of the negotiations and look forward to a fruitful working relationship." The two sides have come a long way from his accusations of enslavement.
June 2014: Prince reveals his new album will include "This Could Be Us," a song inspired by a popular Twitter meme, which involved a photo of him and Apollonia riding a motorcycle in Purple Rain. Like the Chappelle photo for "Breakfast Can Wait," the acknowledgement illustrates that Prince is savvier about online life than those who misinterpreted his "the internet is completely over" statement might have realized.
July 2014: Prince headlines the Essence Festival in New Orleans to promote YesWeCode, a nonprofit working to close the racial gap in the tech industry.
September 2014: Prince releases two new albums, Art Official Age and 3rdEyeGirl's Plectrum Electrum, at the same time. They are available for streaming on Spotify.
November 2014: Prince deletes his Facebook and Twitter accounts and pulls more music from YouTube.
January 2015: Prince shares a video for "Marz," his new collaboration with 3rdEyeGirl... on YouTube.
July 1, 2015: Prince removes his discography from all streaming services except Tidal.
July 30, 2015:Prince releases a new single, "Stare," only on Spotify.
May 2015: Prince performs a benefit concert in Baltimore called "Rally 4 Peace." Audio from the show streams for free on Tidal. Later, Prince also streams the audio on SoundCloud.
August 2015: Prince announces he plans to release his new album HITNRUN exclusively via Tidal. In a statement, he explains, "Jay Z and the team he has assembled at TIDAL recognize and applaud the effort that real musicians put in2 their craft 2 achieve the very best they can at this pivotal time in the music industry."
September 2015: A federal appeals court sides with the dancing baby, ruling that copyright holders must consider fair use before sending a takedown notice.
October 2015: Prince joins Instagram. His handle, brilliantly, is Princestagram. Update: Prince being Prince, the Princestagram account was previously active for a brief time in 2014, though to much less fanfare.
November 2015: Prince clarifies his "the internet is completely over" remarks. In an interview with The Guardian, he says: "What I meant was that the internet was over for anyone who wants to get paid, and I was right about that. Tell me a musician who’s got rich off digital sales. Apple's doing pretty good though, right?"
April 2016:Prince.org, an unofficial message board used by Prince fans, briefly goes down amid a glut of traffic after news emerges of Prince's death. Law360 reports that legal experts saw Prince's control over his intellectual property could be in doubt after his passing.
Find more on Prince and his legacy here.