THE ARTIST IS GLYPHED OFF

The Artist only wants what Arista labelmate Santana already has—a hit.

In a missive posted on his www.npgonlineltd.com site, The Artist Formerly Known As Successful says he is refusing to release a remix of his latest album, "Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic" or make a video until label President Clive Davis "makes good on his promise to deliver a couple of real hit singles to the top of the charts."

The Artist also takes issue with the industry's deduction of "packaging charges" and "normal distributor free goods" from royalty statements. According to the Artist's publicist, the label is allowing him to sell the album from his own Web site, but only up to 100,000 copies.

Without specifically addressing the charges, an Arista spokesperson indicated: "The Artist and Clive Davis have had a long working relationship and Arista continues to be committed to making his already-Gold album an amazing success." The Artist also announced he will be selling online (love4oneanother.com) a seven-CD set of his own music samples for a one-time fee of $700, which will allow producers, DJs and musicians to use samples of Prince classics (the masters to which are still owned by Warner Bros.) such as "Kiss," "Raspberry Beret" and "When Doves Cry" with no additional royalty payments.

The Artist posted the following on his site: "Y is it, then, that the current CONsensus... is that it is perfectly normal that the lion's share of the profits generated by musical works should go 2 so-called ‘xecutives,’ whose sole purpose seems 2 generate even more profit so that they can leave, after a few years, with a nice ‘retirement package’ of some 50 million dollars? Where does that leave the actual creators of the life-blood of this industry?"

Hey, don't ask us. We just work here.