Comment by burningChrome | Hacker News Reader

Comment by burningChrome | Hacker News Reader

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Still remember working for a wireless company fixing phones as a repair tech. One of our steady clients was Prince's studio Flyte Time. Terry Lewis would often come in and I'd loved talking to him about music. One evening before I was closing up, he dropped in with Prince's phone that needed a fast repair.

I finally asked him what the deal with Prince and his music was. The Warner Brothers kerfuffle, and all the drama around him wanting to own all his music. I'll never forget Jimmy telling me in late 1998 or 99 how Prince was about to change the music industry. He said that Prince wanted to put out music when HE felt like. If he creates one or two songs he loves, he doesn't want to feel like he has to put together another 8-9 songs in an album, he wants to release those two and let the fans get them, instead of waiting for an ENTIRE ALBUM of music he would have to create. Jimmy looked at me with a seriousness when he said, "Listen to me man, the future of music is singles. You'll see. Prince is going to push the entire music industry to start selling nothing but singles. This internet stuff? Its built for singles, not albums."

What happened three years later? Apple created iTunes. How did iTunes sell its music? Singles.

Prince was so far ahead of his time, but he needed technology to catch up to his philosophy.

I seem to recall Lennon's "Instant Karma" phase, where he wanted to just get stuff out. Had a song idea, recorded, mixed, shipped out to pressing and was for sale in stores within 10 days.

I suspect a lot of artists over the years have just itched to get something out today, but yeah... without the tech, it was just impossible.

James Brown had that vertical integration once he hit his stride in the 1960’s.

It wasn’t uncommon for him to take the band in for a late night studio session (after a 3 hr show). The song would be recorded and mixed on the fly. Then a copy would be sent to his vinyl pressing plant, which could turn the physical copies around in a day. At the same time, the radio stations he owned in the Augusta GA, area would start playing the latest cut. Just in time for it to hit stores and be available for purchase.

But wasn't this already what the dance/edm scene was already doing? I don't think it's particularly ahead of it's time.

Edit: or more specifically the entire vinyl album history was built on EP/SP releases no?

This seems more like a CD/90s back step, and the idea was to just go back to older release styles.

Taylor Swift has demonstrated her genius as a businesswoman within the industry by simply re-recording her back catalogue as "Taylor's Versions" which the record company had no rights to -- also a badass example of a woman taking back control of her creative output from an industry dedicated to exploiting the likes of her. (Talk to a female musician if you know one. Women have few options but to let themselves be exploited, sexually and otherwise, if they want to progress in the industry.)

Prince could have done the same, but AFAICT he never did. Wonder why? Did he figure the rereleases wouldn't sell?

"Weird Al" Yankovic was one of the first major artists to switch from an album-based format to just releasing singles as they were recorded. Ironic, because Al was always taking good-natured jabs at Prince for not permitting him to parody any of his music. ("Word Crimes" having one example of such).

> Prince could have done the same, but AFAICT he never did. Wonder why?

He might not have had the same rights to the music, publishing, etc. that Swift has. Also, his music relied quite a bit on production (not an insult; it's just the way he made music); maybe he felt he couldn't reproduce the originals or didn't want versions other than the ones he believed in.

Princes famous conflict with the label was because they has the final say over what material to release, and they allowed fewer releases than Prince wanted. So re-recording would not change anything.

Princes problem was different than Swifts. Prince had a recording contract where the company could decide what to release of his work and they released less than Prince wanted.

Jonny Greenwood started The Smile with jazz drummer Tom Skinner because he was frustrated with the slow progress of releasing content with Radiohead who have famously stayed independent and in control after fulfilling their initial EMI contract.

He was wanting put music out fast and often, "90% polished" with none of the baggage of Radiohead's legacy or expectations.

After bringing in Thom Yorke they have 3 albums in as many years and just release stuff randomly as it's ready. Pure creativity and a lot of it is more than good enough to satisfy my Radiohead itch.

While there are a few never finished/published Radiohead era tracks like Skrting on the Surface, most of it comes out of the trio jamming together.

The UK band Squeeze the the same thing, 13 years before Taylor did.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2010/oct/25/sque...

> Women have few options but to let themselves be exploited, sexually and otherwise, if they want to progress in the industry

Weinstein and JayZ taught us that plenty of men have the same problem...

In the late 90s it was still very hard to be seen and heard. The labels still controlled the pipeline to an extent which isn't possible now.

Looking at Bandcamp and the YouTube channel Black Metal Promotion and some similar outlets it seems to me that albums are still very much a thing.

For the big pop musicians singles have been very important long before the Internet. For the punk and hardcore scenes too, if you play fast and hard you'll easily cram ten songs onto a vinyl single and if you play a little slower but still hard you still put out a few tracks for cheap.

In the market for mass produced, mass advertised music, more entertainment than art, singles are surely where it's at. Earworms designed to be hits, quick to sell a lot and quickly replaced, that kind of thing. I'm not sure if this was the business Prince was in, but if he was, singles made sense. From your description it doesn't seem like he was mainly after the people that regularly put on a 30-60 minute work and listen closely without interruptions.

Back in 2002 or so transfering an album over the Internet was also a rather cumbersome affair. Pulling that much over a nervous 56k modem took a while, so sending one track and charging money for it likely made sense from a technical perspective as well. I never participated in something like that, though, I stole bandwidth and used it for piracy, and swapped home burnt CD:s.

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