Planet Earth confirmed by Columbia, Wendy & Lisa on board july 24th

Music Icon Prince Returns to Columbia Records with His New Album, 'Planet Earth,' In-Stores Tuesday, July 24

NEW YORK, June 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Columbia Records is proud to work once again with Prince in the release of "Planet Earth" -- the latest full-length studio collection from the multi-platinum Grammy-winning artist -- available in North America on Tuesday, July 24, the culmination of a worldwide launch beginning July 16.

"Guitar," the first single from "Planet Earth," will be serviced to all radio formats on June 11. Prince's long-term musical proteges, Wendy & Lisa, are among the musicians appearing on "Planet Earth."

Prince has recently announced the first dates of his upcoming World Tour, beginning August 1 at the O2 Arena in London, where the first of 15 concert dates sold-out in record time. Six additional dates have been added and will go on-sale next week.

"'Planet Earth' is a fantastic album and promises to be a musical milestone for Prince," said Rob Stringer. "The Columbia label is thrilled to be working with an iconic artist like Prince in this exciting stage of his amazing career."

"Guitar," the first single from Prince's upcoming new album, "Planet Earth," will be available free, for a limited promotional period, exclusively from Verizon Wireless.

John Stratton, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Verizon, noted, "When Prince, who has consistently been on the cutting edge of music, harnesses innovative technology to deliver his fresh new music, that's a tremendous opportunity for music lovers across the country. At Verizon, we are committed to delivering hot multimedia services to the public in a way that's powerful, direct and relevant."

Nice! I'm there.

I could be wrong, but the release date is July 24th, not the 17th.

Also, it's good to see that he's finally added some GUITARS to his song "Guitar"...

it even mentions the 24th in the first sentence.

shhh..

to hell with both of you. I mean, Prince working with Wendy And Lisa for the first time in 20 years is something a lot of us have been waiting for for a very long time and all you care about is the freaking typo mistake I made.

the 17th is the day it'll be on the net for download bootleg style.....hahahaha.

Either way I'm checking every day for it from now till drop.

Lighten up, Francis.

Also, you might want to check your calendar. This isn't the first time "in 20 years" W&L have worked with Prince.

And, I don't know about gerrythedon, but i'm not expecting much from this album. I'll be sure to cop it on the release date, but my expectations are low.

As long as it's not another Rainbow Children album, then yes i'm interested in it. I'll listen to it for a week or so then put it away and go back to Megadeth's "United Abominations". [I CAN"T STOP LISTENING TO IT ]

I loved The Rainbow Children. I'm always excited for new Prince albums.

Hey! Say what you want about the lyrics (like, they're TERRIBLE), but Rainbow Children is one of Prince's most musically sound albums.

Haven't listened to MD's latest. Then again, I only wanted to hear the duet with Christina..

Wendy?
Yes Lisa
Is the water warm enough?
Yes Lisa
Shall we begin?
Yes Lisa

All we need to do is bring back The Doc (keyboards), Brown Mark (bass) and Bobby Z (drums) out of hybernation and we've got oursleves a "Revolution"

I heard part of the first single on tv yesterday. Prince looked good as always but the song kind of sucked

Wendy and Lisa

4sho!

So did Prince change religions again?

change religions? as in he's no longer jehovah's witness?

One could only hope...

Anyways...you can download Guitar HERE. I haven't listened to it, so I don't know which version it is, but it's from Sony's site and it's got a 320 bitrate. Just "right click/save as".

Also, here's a tracklist that's going around (not confirmed yet)..

1. Planet Earth
2. Guitar
3. Somewhere Here On Earth
4. the One U Wanna C
5. Future Baby Mama
6. Mr. Goodnight
7. All the Midnights In the World
8. Chelsea Rodgers
9. Lion Of Judah
10. Revelation

No word on which song W&L perform on..

Prince's free album causes storm with retailers

U.S. rock star Prince is to give away his new album for free with a UK tabloid newspaper weeks before its official launch, in a move that has caused dismay among music retailers.

Prince's new 10-track CD "Planet Earth" will be included with this weekend's Mail on Sunday, the newspaper's managing director, Stephen Miron, told Reuters on Friday.

The album is not scheduled to go on sale until July 24.

"No one has done this before. We have always given away CDs and DVDs, but this is just setting a new level," Miron said.

Paul Quirk, co-chairman of the Entertainment Retailers Association, said Prince's decision "beggars belief."

"The Artist formerly known as Prince should know that with behavior like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores," he said, referring to a period in the 1990s when the funk star, born Prince Rogers Nelson, famously stopped using his name.

"It is an insult to all those record stores who have supported Prince throughout his career. It is yet another example of the damaging covermount culture which is destroying any perception of value around recorded music," Quirk told a music conference in London on Thursday.

The practice of "covermounts," where newspapers strive to lure readers with DVDs and CDs, is used widely in the industry at a time when many newspapers are struggling to keep readers amid the distractions of online news and entertainment.

Miron declined to say how many additional copies were planned by the newspaper, whose circulation is normally around 2.3 million copies, or how much the Mail on Sunday had paid to secure the deal with Prince.

Prince's new album comes before a run of 21 concerts he will play in London this autumn.

The concerts by the innovative funk artist, who created such groundbreaking works as 1984's "Purple Rain" and 1987's "Sign O' The Times" and has sold an estimated 80 million albums, will be the only shows he performs in Europe this year.

GLOBAL DEAL

Prince has signed a global distribution and marketing deal with Columbia, a unit of Sony BMG, but the UK arm of the business has pulled out of the distribution agreement.

"Given the sheer number of copies we are talking about here it seemed the right thing to do for retailers to become exempt from the deal in the UK," said a spokesman for Sony BMG, the world's second-biggest music company.

HMV Chief Executive Simon Fox told reporters following the music and books retailer's annual results he thought it would be "absolutely nuts" to give the album away for free before its commercial release. HMV saw its profit more than halve as it battled cut-price supermarket and online sales.

The Mail's Miron said the newspaper, whose recent CD giveaways include Peter Gabriel, Dolly Parton, Duran Duran and UB40, was not out to put retailers out of business.

"They are living in the old days and haven't developed their businesses sufficiently. We can enhance their business. They are being incredibly insular and need to move their business on," he said.

The Mail on Sunday is owned by Associated Newspapers, a unit of Daily Mail & General Trust


YAHOO.com

Prince loves to give what the people want his music.

On the one hand, "free" music is always good.

On the other hand, he's really fucking over record stores and I don't like that. (Well, at least the "mom 'n pop" places).

surprised soundscan isn't bitching yet, or whoever it was, when he was giving away musicology on that tour.

Not bitching, but they have modified their way of counting discs after Musicology..

Not that that many other artists have followed Prince's lead..

Not many followed him when he went online with his music, now look at things. There isn't a band on the planet that you cant buy their music from their site.

Either way I could care less new album...I'll take a listen one way or another.

It's really amazing to me the record company is STILL crying about this deal. Saying how bad it is for the consumer etc etc on and on. Pretending they give one shit about people who buy music.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070712/..._Yg2x2QpVxFb8C

Yet they can sue a fucking coffee shop for song royalty fees because they have couple musicians play while you enjoy your coffee. Or a guy who makes a short video trying to teach someone to play a quitar riff.... Yep they really give a shit about us.

BIG heads up sony and the rest of you. We're fed up, GO FUCK YOURSELFS and your BS sales figures. Wanna talk figures lets talk how you fuck'ed artist over for decades, where are those figures huh.

the real question is why this hasn't been properly leaked yet! from what i've heard so far, it sounds awesome.