NPGOnlineLTD.com

2000/1

Website

NPGOnlineLTD.com was Prince‘s first website to offer downloadable music and in that respect, given the infancy of the internet at the turn of the Millennium, this was pioneering. Featuring illustrations by Debi McGuan, the website was designed by Sam Jennings an early adopter of the software Photoshop he would create all of Prince’s websites until 2014. NPGOnlineLTD.com was launched on 4 March 2000 in replacement of Prince’s previous online mouthpiece love4oneanother.com.

NPGOnlineLTD.com started as a single page offering One Song for download and which had been likewise posted his previous website (L4OA) from 1 January 2000 to herald the turning of the new Millennium. When the full website followed, One Song joined promos for the home video Beautiful Strange streamed from a page called Vizuals. NPG Online Ltd also offered three tracks as MP3 downloads: Cybersingle and two others as a double A-side virtual single complete with downloadable artwork (U Make My Sun Shine and When Will We B Paid?) from a section named Grooves.

NPG Online Ltd also offered details on Prince’s latest projects and charity activities, and news contributions written by Prince himself – announcing the pending releases of a studio album named High and a seven disc Sampling Series (both aborted soon after). Videos and archive recordings were offered as RealAudio streams accessed from a page called The Vault.

The website filled a transitional role. Being at emergence of e-commerce at the time Prince was deep in dispute with Warner Brothers over the ownership of his music, Prince had ambitions to distribute more of his music online, to remove the need for a record label owing to his distrust of them. NPG Online Ltd evolved into a full-blown subscription-based venture when replaced by the NPG Music Club on 14 February 2001. So pioneering was Prince’s early use of the internet he won Yahoo’s award for Best Internet Only Single in three consecutive years, 1999 to 2001.

npgonlineltd.com downloads

One Song

NPG Records

Released

1 January 2000

Running Time

9:01

Format

MOV

Recorded at Paisley Park Studios in 1999, Prince (as Prince Love Symbol) released the track as a free QuickTime video to mark the advent of the New Millennium. A pioneer of its day, One Song was crowned by Yahoo as the Best Internet Single of 2000. The visual content was the lyric video of the song, produced by Sam Jennings. One Song has not been since issued in any other format.

Cybersingle

NPG Records

Released

14 July 2000

Running Time

2:43

Format

MP3

Recorded at Paisley Park Studios in early 2000, and released as a free MP3 to promote the launch of Prince’s new music download service, what soon became npgmusicclub.com. The track was later available to download from RealAudio’s website real.com, on 29 October 2000.

U Make My Sun Shine

NPG Records

Released

21 December 2000

Running Time

5:52

Format

MP3

Recorded at Paisley Park Studios in the summer of 2000, U Make My Sun Shine was released as a free MP3 along with printable artwork downloadable from this website. A full retail CD version followed in April 2001, intended to be the lead single for the unreleased studio album High.

When Will We B Paid?

NPG Records

Released

21 December 2000

Running Time

4:06

Format

MP3

A cover of The Staple Singers’ 1970 original, Prince recorded the track at Paisley Park Studios during late 1999 in protest of the music industry’s treatment of recording artists. The track was issued as a free MP3 with printable artwork downloadable from NPGOnlineLTD. It was reissued on 10 April 2001 as the B-side on the CD single U Make My Sun Shine.