Prince’s Nonsense
If only they were talking about his music.
I haven’t seen an artist this out of touch since Metallica sued Napster. And even though the heavy metal foursome has been doing mea culpas for years, giving away music, innovating online, they’ve never been able to erase the taint that came from being out of touch.
Remember when artists were cool? Hipper than the rest of us in the room? We looked to musicians to tell us which way the wind blew, or that the vandals took the handles. Today, we’re laughing at Prince.
Actually, the hysteria began yesterday and hasn’t ceased yet. Word is bouncing all over the web, from the "Mirror" to "Boing Boing" to "Mashable" to Twitter to e-mail. This is the kind of promotion you don’t want. It’s the kind that killed Jessica Simpson’s singing career and Lindsay Lohan’s acting career. Suddenly, you’re a laughingstock. And it’s doubtful you can ever recover. It’s kind of like being labeled a nerd in high school. Your only chance is to start all over again in college. Then again, the old college Facebook is now ubiquitous. Commit career suicide online and everybody knows and it lasts forever.
Forget that Prince is plain wrong. (What’s next, is he going to rail against telephones and automobiles? Or tell us to stop using cell phones?) It’s the fact that he’s so out of touch that has us laughing at him, something no one banking on cool to succeed should ever want.
You can’t stop progress. Change happens. And it’s not good for everyone. Sure, it’s hard being an artist and getting paid in the Internet era, but that doesn’t mean you should become a Luddite and sign off. It’s not necessary to utilize Foursquare, but when you rail against Twitter and other new media you just look like a square.
So, keep up to date with technology, or shut up!
But it’s worse. You build your career online today, it’s almost as if Prince were railing against record shops in the eighties, when he broke through. If you weren’t in the shop, you don’t mean diddly squat, if you’re not online, you’re out of the discussion.
Giving away his CD with the newspaper was cool the last time he did it, years ago, but now it’s a stunt equivalent to spinning a Hula-Hoop in Times Square. Huh? So you get paid and no one listens.
It would be dumb for Prince to follow Radiohead, but if I were the diminutive star I’d trumpet how many people actually downloaded and listened to my music as opposed to how many discs were given away (and ultimately thrown out!) with the newspaper. An old format coupled with a dying medium. How innovative!
If Prince were smart and in touch, he would have utilized new media to deliver buzz about his album.
Or, he could finally realize no one’s listening to anything but his hits and if he wants us to pay attention once again, he’s got to create another hit, another track so infectious, one listen makes the hair on your arm stand up and your feet run to the dance floor.
He says:
‘The internet’s 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. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good.
‘They just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you.’
