Idolator

Prince, who is currently without a label, has decided to make the first single from his forthcoming album available through one channel only—cell phones on the Verizon Wireless network:

The single, "Guitar," will be available for free to any Verizon subscriber who participates in an online or demo of its new Song ID music identification service, which will be available on Verizon's Web site, as well as online video outlets like YouTube, Revver and MySpace. Prince currently has no label deal to market or distribute the album. He is relying on Verizon to generate awareness. "There is no music label involved here," says Verizon senior VP of marketing and digital media John Harrobin. "That enabled us to work very closely together."

We seem to remember "Guitar" floating around online earlier this year, before Prince's Super Bowl appearance (although the MP3 seems to be lost to our "archives"); if this experiment somehow does work out, though—and why wouldn't a restricted-to-one-carrier experiment through a kludgey interface be a success?—we'd like to suggest some possible B-sides, or V-sides, or whatever you'd call a bonus track in these post-physical-medium days:

Prince - How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore [MP3, link expired]
Dump - How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore [MP3, link expired]
Verizon Grabs Prince Exclusive [Billboard]
[Photo: AP]