Why Prince hated the music industry
Prince loved nothing more than being in the studio or performing to thousands of adoring fans. While the industry’s business side was equally of interest to the enigmatic musician, its machinations represented everything he despised and presented a residual thorn in Prince’s side throughout his recording career.
Prince was only a teenager when he penned his first record deal with Warner Bros., and it’s an understatement to say he wasn’t a business-savvy individual. Immediate success evaded him, but Warner stayed loyal to him, and eventually, their goodwill was repaid when his fame exploded with Purple Rain.
In 1993, Prince’s relationship with the label turned sour as he started appearing publicly with ‘Slave’ written on his face. Over twenty years later, he invited a group of journalists to Paisley Park Studios in Minneapolis and parrotted a similar line. “Record contracts are just like — I’m gonna say the word – slavery. I would tell any young artist … don’t sign,” he reportedly said.
From a label’s perspective, Prince was a nightmare to work alongside because he couldn’t be tamed within the studio and did whatever he wanted outside of it. In 2007, ‘The Purple One’ was signed to Columbia Records, and he gave away his album for free behind their back. Prince allowed Planet Earth to be included with The Mail On Sunday in the UK without the consent of his label because he had a 21-show residency lined up at the O2 Arena in London.
Understandably, his label were furious with his actions and refused to release the album in the UK officially. For the last 20 years of his career, Prince couldn’t find a permanent home and flitted between a series of labels before returning to Warner.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times in 1996, Princ said his hatred of the business was so severe that he wished he had chosen another career path. “If I knew the things I know now before, I wouldn’t be in the music industry,” he exclaimed.
In the same piece, Prince also supported TLC, who declared bankruptcy in 1995 to remove themselves from a low royalty deal with their label. “TLC is a very talented group,” he said. “Talent can’t be bottled up or contained. . . . We gotta wake up to that. Why should somebody else be making $100 million when they’re making $75,000? It will continue, too–that’s the sad truth.”
If Prince had been an emerging artist in 2022, he’d have thrived in the current landscape, where artists no longer need to rely on major labels being in charge of their destinies. Not only was he a trailblazer musically, but he also showed artists could be businessmen too and didn’t have to leave those decisions to the suits.
