Prince the Icon

Prince is a music legend with ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Helping to start the careers of artists like Sheila E., The Time, and Vanity 6. Other artists like Chaka Chan, showing that even other icons love Prince and his music have also sampled him.

Tonight Prince was honored at the Billboard Awards with the Icon Award.  His performance truly left fans wanting more of Prince. Accepting the honor and giving the last performance of the show, he showed everyone why he is an icon.

When the new age of technology and digital music distribution came into play Prince was all for Internet promotions. He was giving his music away freely and still was able to sell out concerts worldwide. No one knows the reason why but suddenly he wanted all his music off of YouTube, The Pirate Bay, and even some fan sites. He didn’t want his image anywhere that was given away for free. Now some might think this shows that Prince does not care about his fans, while others believe he is just trying to preserve the rights for his image and music.

This can lead to a lot of questions:

Is it smart for an artist not to use the Internet to their advantage?

How does Internet exposure affect album and concert sales?

Has digital music sharing sites corrupted the music industry?

Should fans show their loyalty by buying their favorite artist’s albums?

Can Prince still sell out concerts without having an Internet presence?

No matter how these questions are answered, no one can deny that Prince is an icon. Providing music through out the decades of songs that you cannot help but sing along to.  Purple Rain was an iconic album and movie and if someone does not know anything about Prince, you can be sure they know about Purple Rain.