musicNEWS
: For the record his name is Prince
5-16-00
6:00 PM PST antiGUY
Many thought
he was a weirdo for changing his name to a glyph. It turns out he was just
being a shrewd businessman. That's right, Prince is once again Prince.
No more artist formally known as. The purple one says he doesn't
plan to change his name again as he much prefers his given birth name,
Prince Rogers Nelson.
Prince
changed his name to the unpronounceable symbol in 1993 due to a bitter
contract dispute with Warner Brothers Records. Just before the name
change, he appeared in public with the word "Slave" written on face. He
was never one for understatements.
"On
December 31, 1999, my publishing contract with Warner-Chappell expired,
thus emancipating the name I was given before birth - Prince
- from all long-term restrictive documents. I will now go back to my name
instead of the symbol I adopted to free myself from all undesirable relationships."
Thus stated the pop singer during a press conference on May 16th. Why did
he wait until now to change his name back? Was the irony of the contract
expiration date too much for him that he had to wait five months?
Prince
accused the label of interfering too much in his career by trying to dictate
the amount of new material that had to be released and demanding control
of his master recordings. Typical record company stuff.
So
now that he is once again Prince, what does he have planned? First off
is a weeklong party dubbed "Prince: a Celebration". Prince's hometown of
Minneapolis will be host to the festivities from June 7th through the 13th.
What's on the agenda? Nightly theme parties, an open house for Prince's
Paisley Park recording studio, the release of a new song, "Cybersingle",
on his web site - www.newfunk.com and finally a live concert at Northrup
Auditorium to wrap things up.
Wait,
there is more! Not being afraid to embrace the internet, Prince will have
a special Internet-only release of his Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic album
originally released by Arista is 1999. The web version will be called Rave
In2 the Joy Fantastic and will include two new singles and remixes of several
tracks.
Now
all he has to do is find a record company he can work with and he can party
like it's 1999. (Sorry had to say it)
tell
a friend about this article Rant
or Rave? Your turn, post you comments and
thoughts on this news item. But hey keep it clean, we wouldn't want to
have to wash your mouth out with Old Spice.
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