HMV Reverses Stance, Will Sell Newspaper with Free Prince CD

The controversy over Prince's UK album giveaway has taken a turn for the weird, as music retailer HMV has announced that it will stock the issue of the Mail on Sunday containing a free copy of Prince's Planet Earth.

The chain's chief executive, Simon Fox, had previously joined other retailers in denouncing the giveaway as "'devaluing music" and "absolute madness," but HMV will carry the newspaper issue nonetheless -- a move that rival store Virgin Megastores called "opportunistic."

A spokesperson for HMV said,

"HMV does not condone the use of covermounts as a primary channel for distributing music and film content, and we understand and acknowledge the issues that they raise. Clearly, we would have much preferred to have stocked the new Prince album, but his decision to effectively release it in this way means that this will, unfortunately, not be possible."

If you can't beat them, join them.

(billboard)