Prince as Luddite

TAKE OF THE DAY: “Prince—and any artist with an older core—has it relatively easy. Sure, younger fans will steal the album, cherry-pick a few tracks if they pay, balk at expensive tickets and plop Prince into a collection of 20,000 MP3s. But older fans will purchase an overpriced disc, and those whose mortgages are still intact might even attend a show or buy a DVD. In fact, that's the saving grace for many older acts. Susan Boyle only has a modest presence online, but her disc sales are fantastic. Who says the album bundle is dead? Turns out that the artists enjoying that rare combination of mainstream awareness and older interest are the real winners right now. At least until this industry figures out how to create another generation of Princes.”—from a commentary posted this morning by Digital Music News Publisher Paul Resnikoff, which asks, “Who knew Prince was so out of touch?” (7/8a)