Sunday, July 15, 2007

Give it away, give it away, give it away now...

Over-indulged on Fizz Bombs purchased from ye olde fashioned sweet shop at the seaside - so much so that, suffering from severe toothache in and around every tooth, I feared that this marble-sized bastard confectionary had stripped the enamel from my gnashers, if not dissolved my teeth completely, leaving only some extremely raw nerve endings. I was fearing a trip to the dentist to have what was left in my mouth removed but, thankfully, several dozen ouch-inducing and not daring to look brushes and a lot of dental floss later, things appear to have returned to normal inside my mouth.

The oral status quo restored, it was down to the newsagents. Now it was perfectly acceptable - and indeed rather predictable - that the Prince CD Planet Earth that I wandered back home with and played immediately was sub-standard fayre: 3121 was a decent effort, we'll have to wait a while for something equally palatable. What was hideously difficult to accept, though, was that the packaging also included a Mail on Sunday. Giving your music away is commendable, Mr Prince and those music retailers that are complaining about your new business model haven't been as keen to fill their racks with your CDs in recent years as they'd have the media believe. But aligning yourself with this right wing rag is totally unforgivable.
I really don't see what the fuss is about the freebie. Besides, the little f*cker owes me more than one free CD - I seem to recall paying £54.99 a few years ago for a copy of The Crystal Ball. Actually, I dread to think what I've actually spent on Prince product over 20-odd years. I think I've single-handedly paid for all of his high heels and much of the purple paint that coats Paisley Park.

Hull's coming on, eh? It's been a while since I've posted any new pics of the Ferensway development known as St Stephen's (who you may recall from his annual December 26 celebrations) The retail end of things opens in ten weeks. At which point the other end of Hull will close down as people clamour to purchase their pants from H&M. I'm already using the new Travel Centre in the rail station, a high-ceilinged modern cavern that has the distinct air of the unfinished about it and far more desks than staff will ever fill.

3 comments:

Stephen Newton said...

Prince hasn't really given it away though. He trousered £250,000 from the Mail for an album so bad it would have struggled to earn a commercial release.

Wikipedia reckons there are as many as 50 unreleased Prince albums.

One track, Guitar, was released as a single on 9 July. It charted at 81; further evidence Prince has maximised his pay cheque doing it this way.

Dave W said...

No, course he's not given it to the Mail, that would be silly. I've heard much of his 'unreleased' material - there's a reason it remains so. In fairness to the short one, he's been trying to put stuff into the hands of his fans in return for nada from them for some time now. I do recall getting free tunes when I went to see him at the time of the whole 'Slave' business. I think he's one-upped the music business and, of course, the Mail with this deft move. Bob Lefsetz writes brilliant about this episode here

Dave W said...

brilliantly, of course, not brilliant. That was a Hull moment.