music industry strikes back at deserters

Radiohead and Prince made lots of headlines over the last few months for their non-traditional album sales tactics. In the case of Prince, he offered his album for free with a newspaper subscription. He got a large payment from that newspaper instead of getting payment directly from fans. He also gave away a large number of copies with tickets to his concerts. As for Radiohead, you'd have to be living in a vacuum to have not heard their approach - selling their album via their website, essentially cutting out the middle-man (their record label). The idea of a band selling their own album wasn't groundbreaking, but allowing fans to name their own price caused quite a stir.

Both Radiohead and Prince received praise and criticism from music industry professionals, but it was fairly apparent that the big labels were not happy about them rocking the boat. So now they are striking back...

The BBC just reported that Prince and Radiohead are not eligible to be considered for the Brit Music Awards this year due to their sales tactics. Talk about sore losers. There is little doubt in my mind that the Brit Awards is just another extension of the major labels and their attempt at controlling the media and sales charts, and trying to force bands out of the mix because they don't adhere to antiquated sales-based eligibility rules sounds like sour grapes to me.

Since when did album sales have anything to do with being a stellar musician?