If the music industry is any indication, .corporate America is about to crumble. CD sales continue to drop, attendance at large concert venues is down all over the country,’ and it is no longer an advantage for a band to have a record deal with a major label. Smaller labels also are hurting because record stores only want quantities of CDs that will sell quickly.
But the Artist Formerly Known as Prince, now simply called The Artist, thinks he has a solution for musicians: the Internet. To prove his point. The Artist does interviews via e-mail.
“The Internet is the new music industry!” he wrote. “Music 2 me is a form of in4mation. Y not B on the in4mation super highway?”
The Artist went high-tech after the demise of his label, EMI Records, earlier this year. Now the releases from his NRG label are only distributed via phone — 800-639-3865 — or the Internet http:www.love4oneanother.com. However, he has not yet found a way to project his funky R&B concerts through phone lines and therefore must continue to tour. The Artist and his oand play The Gorge tomorrow night.
When. The Artist was released . from the corporate music business, he was soaring on the reputation of last year’s three-CD set “Emancipation,” which in three hours of music spans lean funk, ambient rock, gospel roots and the many hues of rhythm and blues. The set is phenomenal not only in its absorption, synthesis and fresh take on the sounds of Marvin Gaye, George Clinton, Bonnie Raitt and Sister Rosetta Tharp-, but also in its rekindling of the steamy sensuality of ‘50s soul and ‘60s rock V roll. Without a tint of the overwrought singing of today’s pop radio. The Artist uses his falsetto to tease, please and party. Sometimes it’s innocent, sometimes jaded, and often hedonistic.
The Artist’s next release also will be a three-CD volume, “Crystal Ball” ($50). The set will feature new music, as well as what he calls “underground classics” such as “Sexual Suicide” and “18 and Over,” Those who buy’ the release, also will get a free CD, “The Truth,” which is an acoustic set.
“ “The Truth’ best captured the mood I was in at the time, ‘ The Artist wrote. “I needed a lot of questions answered, and the sparity (sic) of sound was most reflective. As we near 1999, I will be adding songs culled from “The Truth.’”
The acoustic disc is also a reflec tion of his disdain nor much of corporate music generated today. Referring to labels as “capitalist dinosaurs,”The Artist condemns the system but stops short of calling for an end to it.
“Pop music is- a star collapsing on itself. Kids 2day sample and call themselves musicians,” The Artist wrote. “The music business has its place, but in it there’s no place 4 me.”
Born Prince Rogers Nelson in 1958 in Minneapolis, The Artist began playing piano ‘ with his father’s jazz band (his mother was the vocalist) when he was 7. The child also taught himself to play guitar and drums, and by the time he turned 20 he had a recording deal with Warner Bros. His first two releases, “For You” and “Prince,” reflected The Artist’s panoramic views of music and sexuality.
Though parents were alarmed and critics suspicious of his sensationalist lyrics and shocking performances, it was The Artist’s music that carried him through the ‘80s., He had a way of building tunes around hooks, such as “Little Red Corvette,” and a feel for the dance floor on hits like “Nasty Girl” and “Let’s Go Crazy.” But he also whispered, often cushioned in neo-psychedelic or funk sounds, about his inner soul on tunes like “I Would Die 4 U” and “When Doves Cry.”
In response to the suggestion that he may be isolating himself by only working through the Net, The Artist has decided to tour and “party like it’s 1999.”
“My concerts R stripped down 2 the bare essentials in response 2 those who are, as George Clinton says, “FAKIN’ THE FUNK’,” The Artist wrote.
His e-mail closes with his motto,: “Peace and B wild.”