Prince is determined to revolutionise the music industry

Prince is determined to revolutionise the music industry

Daily Mail ^ | 7/14/07 | NEIL ARMSTRONG

My Way may have been the signature tune of another giant of popular music but no artist has so enthusiastically embraced the philosophy of that song as Prince.

The maverick from Minneapolis has been doing things his way since 1977 when, at the age of 19, he signed a three-album deal and blew the budget for all three albums on the first one, and this after insisting that he play all the instruments himself, record all the vocals himself – and produce it himself. He had assumed full artistic control from the off and he has never relinquished it. He was doing it his way when he surprised the largely black audiences on his first tour by performing in Y-fronts and fishnet stockings, and when, on his first British appearance at the Lyceum Ballroom in London, in 1981, he took to the stage wearing a violet mackintosh, black pants and stockings and stiletto ankle boots.

And he is still doing it his way today as he releases Planet Earth, his brilliant new ten-track album, exclusively through The Mail on Sunday, a move that has sparked controversy across the music industry.

A spokesman for Prince said: 'Prince feels that charts are just music industry constructions and have little or no relevance to fans or even artists today. Prince's only aim is to get music direct to those what want to hear it. Prince famously took a stand against Warner Records in the Nineties when he went on strike and appeared with the world "slave" drawn on his cheek. Subsequently, he regained control of the publishing right to his work and broke down the existing system through his innovation.'

Planet Earth, which is not due to go on sale until July 24, will also be given away free to holders of tickets to Prince's London 02 concerts in August and September. When asked recently why he had decided to do this, Prince replied: 'It's directing marketing as well, 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.'

So much has been written about Prince's remarkable talents, his genius for songwriting, playing and arranging and his battles with the industry. Yet relatively little is known about the man behind the music. He gives interviews infrequently and reluctantly and, when he does, is just as likely to provide cryptic answers to questions as he is to speak freely. Some have speculated that his elusiveness stems from lifelong insecurity.

Certainly Prince Rogers Nelson had a difficult childhood. Born on June 7, 1958, he was the painfully introverted son of a singer mother and a troubled jazz-musician father who left his Minneapolis home when Prince was still a toddler.

Prince was his father's stage name and his father's choice for his son. John Nelson was also responsible for his son's first faltering musical steps by virtue of the fact that when he moved out, he left a grand piano in the house. Prince would pick out the theme tunes from television shows such as Batman, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Dragnet.

'He could hear music even from a very early age,' his late mother, Mattie, once said. 'When he was three or four, we'd go to the department store and he'd jump on the organ, any type of instrument there was. Mostly the piano and organ. I'd have to hunt for him, and that's where he'd be – in the music department.'

'I had a pretty good idea of what the piano was all about by the time I was eight,' Prince has said, despite never having lessons.

It was also at the age of eight that he had his first encounter with what was to become another lifelong obsession: women. He has claimed, although his mother has denied the story, that this stemmed from his discovery of a stash of pornographic novels in his mother's bedroom. According to Prince he even tried writing his own stories when he became bored with those he had found.

School was a pretty miserable experience. He was teased about his height – he is only 5ft 2in without his trademark heels – and was continually the butt of jokes. He was given various nicknames, the cruellest of which was 'Butcher Dog' because his peers decreed that he looked like an alsatian. 'Princess' was another taunt.

Life at home was not much better. Not only was the family worse off after the departure of John Nelson, but his mother remarried and Prince took an instant dislike to his stepfather, Hayward Barker, whom he saw as 'materialistic'.

'He would bring us presents all the time rather than sit down and talk with us or give us companionship,' Prince has said. 'I would say all the things I disliked about him rather than tell him what I really needed which was a mistake, and kind of hurt our relationship.'

However, his stepfather did take him to see James Brown in Minneapolis when he was ten. It was a turning point. Prince was hugely impressed by the performance, and, he later admitted, even more impressed by the 'fine' girls he saw at the gig.

Music became both a solace and a way to attract the attention of his peers and, no doubt, the opposite sex. His talent was so prodigious that by puberty he'd mastered keyboards, guitar and drums.

Whether or not he actually witnessed the domestic violence depicted in the semi-autobiographical film Purple Rain, in which he plays a Minneapolis musician struggling to overcome a difficult home life, he undoubtedly felt rejected by his parents.

His father was barely around and his mother found him so difficult she turfed him out, though it is unclear exactly why. Had it not been for his best friend André Cymone's mother allowing him to live in her basement, the teenage Prince might have been homeless.

Prince and André competed for girls, trying to get them to 'participate in some lewd activity', as André put it. At high school, Prince took a three-year class in 'The Business Of Music'. He was determined to make it and Warner Brothers in Los Angeles quickly saw that Prince was the real thing, a prodigy who could play any instrument and had already synthesized his own style from diverse black and white influences.

In 1979 he scored his first hit, I Wanna Be Your Lover, and was on his way to the top. His drive was relentless and culminated in the staggering success of 1984's Purple Rain – the album that sold ten million copies and the accompanying movie. But for many fans even that was topped by 1987's dazzlingly eclectic Sign O' The Times.

He ploughed some of the proceeds into the vast Paisley Park studio complex outside his hometown of Minneapolis, for use by himself and other artists. It includes a 12,500 sq ft sound stage for filming and four state-of-the-art recording studios. Some have dubbed it Prince's Xanadu.

He is still believed to own a home close by, together with property in Toronto, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, and more recently, Las Vegas. And always, Prince did it his own way, exercising complete control over his artistic output. He never really took to the traditional label-artist relationship.

With remarkable prescience, as far back as 1995 he told an interviewer: 'Once the internet is a reality the music business is finished. There won't be any need for record companies. If I can send you my record direct, what's the point of having the business? I don't even have a manager any more. Would you want somebody living off your work?'

When record company executives warned him against releasing Sign O' The Times as a double album, he ignored their wishes and it became his most critically acclaimed work.

'These are the same people who would tell Mozart he writes too many notes or say that Citizen Kane is a long movie,' he said at the time.

Later, as the result of a complicated dispute with Warner over a six-album deal signed in 1992, he announced that he was changing his name to a symbol and took to wearing a scarf over his face in public. When he ditched the scarf he started writing 'slave' on his right cheek, just in case anyone had failed to get the point.

When the son of a Warner executive suggested to Prince that he didn't have another hit record in him, he wrote The Most Beautiful Girl In The World the very next day and in 1994 it became his first No 1.

But throughout his 30-year career he has pursued the opposite sex just as energetically as he has his musical goals. Prince has been romantically connected with a string of beautiful women including Madonna, whose underwear he would flaunt on stage, Kim Basinger, Carmen Electra, Kirstie Alley, the singers Vanity, Apollonia, Sheila E and even the squeaky-clean Scottish songstress Sheena Easton.

On Valentine's Day, 1996, aged 37, he married for the first time. His wife, Mayte Garcia, was a 23-year-old belly-dancer in his band. 'She looked at me for what I was,' he said of their relationship. 'If I was being a jerk, she'd say so. She mothered me. She was my friend for years before everything started going click, click, click.'

He bought his young wife a hacienda overlooking the sea, in Marbella, Spain. They added their own eccentric brand of decor in Prince's trademark pinks, purples and peaches.

In the rare interviews he has granted, Prince has proved himself adept at disarming journalists. One interviewer who talked to him during his marriage to Mayte, a Puerto Rican beauty, recalled her entering the room wearing a clingy, floaty frock. Prince asked her, with a completely straight face: 'Is that my dress or yours?'

Their son Gregory was born on October 16, 1996 with Pfeiffer syndrome – craniosynostosis – a rare condition in which the skull hardens prematurely. Tragically, he died at less than two weeks old. Barely a week later the couple went on the Oprah Winfrey TV show. 'We believed he was going to come back, that souls come back,' said Mayte. 'We didn't want to acknowledge that he was gone.'

Mayte and Prince drifted apart, separating after two years and divorcing in 2000, though Mayte has said that there was no great falling out. Prince's response to grief and bereavement was simply to bury himself in his work.

The following year Prince married for a second time in Hawaii, this time to former Paisley Park assistant Manuela Testolini, another stunning beauty. Last year Prince's lawyer confirmed the star's second wife had filed for divorce. As ever, there was no comment from Prince.

Indeed, the singer has always preferred to let his music do the talking.

However, in recent years it has been his determination to challenge the music industry that has had everyone in the business talking – and not always favourably. His decision earlier this year to offer a track from his new Planet Earth album, Guitar, as a free download as part of a deal with American mobile phone giant Verizon prompted anger from the record industry. But antipathy towards Prince for embracing new ways of getting his music to fans reached a crescendo when he decided to release Planet Earth, not in record shops or even online, but free inside The Mail on Sunday. It was another clear signal that Prince intends to keep control of his music. And with Planet Earth he is undoubtedly back to his very best.

As one of his famous contemporaries, Madonna, has said: 'He reeks of lavender, but apart from that you can't fault him.'

'Here at Time Out Towers, never in a million years did we imagine that we would print the words “The Mail on Sunday is right!” but, on this occasion, it is.' Time Out

'He's made his millions so all he cares about now is getting his music out to as many people as possible.' Stuart Williams, managing director of Q magazine, on Prince

'He's not an official Royal, but Prince is generating more ink in the UK than anyone named William or Harry.' Rolling Stone

'It devalues the music and the losers will be new artists who are trying to come through . . . Consumers only have so much listening time in the week and if they receive the new album from Prince then they don't need to buy new music and will spend their money on something else.' Kim Bayley, director general, Entertainment Retailers Association

'It has been roundly criticised as a major blow for an industry already facing rapidly declining CD sales.' Los Angeles Times

'Already news of the alliance between the paper and Prince has featured on the BBC Six O'Clock News and in The New York Times.' The Guardian

'Sony BMG UK said it decided it was “ridiculous” to go ahead with its own sales launch in light of the newspaper deal, but stood by their star singer, adding they remained “delighted” to be working with him.' International Herald Tribune

'After initially criticising Prince and the deal, music and books retailer HMV, which doesn't normally sell newspapers, decided to sell The Mail on Sunday in its 400-plus stores. Rival retailers were outraged.' The Post And Courier, Charleston, USA

'Like it or not, selling the newspaper is the only way to make the Prince album available to our customers.' HMV spokesman

'Could this be the way of the future? Last year, fans acquired more than half their music from unpaid sources. So why keep charging for it?' Newsday, New York

'As Prince might say, a sign of the times.' BBC News Magazine