Good luck to the Mail on Sunday
In any kind of contest between music retailers and the Mail on Sunday, all other things being equal, I’d side with the music retailers every time. But when things aren’t equal and the music retailers are being stupid then I have to support the Mail on Sunday.
The artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince is to release a new album. And it is to offered free with a future edition of the Mail on Sunday: “This,” says the managing director of the MoS, “is the biggest innovation in newspaper promotions in recent times”, which is arguable (let us not forget Age of Wallcharts), but it’s hugely imaginative and certainly the biggest innovation in newspaper CD and DVD promotions in recent times. Naturally it will have cost them a fortune, and they may or may not benefit commercially in the long run. But it’s a very impressive and really gutsy move on their part.
The music retailers are furious that the album is to be distributed through another channel, and one which in buyers won’t pay anywhere near the usual price. They say it is “madness”, it “beggars belief” and is “absolutely nuts”. The co-chairman of the Entertainment Retailers Association said “It would be an insult to all those record stores who have supported Prince throughout his career”.
But I have no sympathy for them. Music shops have no divine right to sell albums. It’s all business, and you need imagination and doggedness to say ahead of (or even “in”) the game. Of course, the retailers know this. It’s disingenuous to suggest they “supported Prince throughout his career” — they’re in it for the money, and the only reason they sell Prince’s albums is because they profit from them. The people they really support are their shareholders. So the retailers thought they knew their game, had each settled into their relative positions, and then the Mail on Sunday came in from left field, changed the rules, and won this round before anyone realise it had started. Now the retailers need to stop complaining, and pull themselves together quickly before someone else takes the next round from them, too.
