Prince vs. Radiohead: Whose 'Creep' is it?

No surprises here, but Prince has again taken his anti-fun copyright claims a bit too far.

The Associated Press reported today that the artist's label, NPG Records, has requested that all versions of his Radiohead cover of "Creep" be removed from YouTube. The artist sang the song at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival.

For those who have forgotten, Prince had earlier stopped a video of a baby dancing to his "Let's Go Crazy," which was barely audible in the background of the clip. One of the ironies in that case, and likely here as well, is that Prince has only served to make more people aware of the video and will once again send music fans on a scavenger hunt to find it.

But at least "Let's Go Crazy" was Prince's song. The AP story quotes Radiohead's Thom Yorke as saying that he wants Prince to unblock the tune:

"Really? He's blocked it?" asked Yorke, who figured it was their song to block or not. "Surely, we should block it. Hang on a moment."

Yorke added: "Well, tell him to unblock it. It's our ... song."

YouTube apparently declined to comment to the AP. But for now, you can click this link and find it on YouTube. It's a muffled, poorly shot, 1 minute and 14 second clip, and it will surely destroy Prince's career if it's allowed to stay online.

The Times' Ann Powers reviewed Prince's performance and noted of his version of "Creep" that he "changed it from a dissection of self-loathing to an admonition to feel uplifted." But was the re-interpretation enough for Prince to claim ownership of the tune?

Photo courtesy Spencer Weiner/Los Angeles Times

Nine Inch Nails, New Kids on the Block, Prince's '21 Nights'

NEW NINE INCH NAILS: Trent Reznor has done it again, releasing more Nine Inch Nails music straight to the Web. Only this time, it's free.

The album, "The Slip," is said to be a bit more "song-oriented" than "Ghosts I-IV," which Reznor unveiled a few months back. Reznor writes on his website that "The Slip" is a "thank you to our fans" and notes -- in bold print -- that's it's "one hundred percent free."

The music is available in variety of formats, including MP3, FLAC or 24-bit, 96-kHz WAV files, which are said to be sound better than a CD, although I haven't been able to test it (the download link arrived in about 90 minutes). A CD/vinyl edition will be available in July.

Why the good cheer? Perhaps because Reznor announced back in March that his multivolume set of instrumental music, "Ghosts I-IV," brought in more than $1.6 million in revenue in one week alone.

With the release of "The Slip," Reznor has once again gone without label entanglements, taking advantage of a release schedule that probably would not have been possible had he remained signed to Interscope.

In April of last year, Reznor released the vastly underappreciated "Year Zero," his last new album for Interscope. But now free of label contracts, Reznor has issued two collections in three months, a pace generally unheard of on a major, where getting music to fans comes second behind drafting a marketing plan.

NEW NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK: People.com unveiled a snippet of the return of the New Kids on the Block this morning. Apparently the public cannot be trusted with the full song.

Because I like to do things like buy groceries and pay rent, I agreed to mention the overly produced, stuck-in-the-past nostalgia ballad "Summertime" in this post. It begins with a prom-theme-worthy piano, and soon gives way to some '80s-sounding synths. Then some electronic sounds start to zip back and forth, their presence a halfhearted attempt to modernize the song.

But what sticks is not just how the song is stuck in another era, but how the New Kids on the Block seem to dreaming of the past as well, romanticizing the days when women told them not to "call after 10 p.m."

AND FINALLY, PRINCE: Entertainment Tonight reports that Prince will release his first book, "21 Nights," this fall. Said to chronicle the artist's 21-night stay at London's O2 Arena in 2007, the book will apparently include 124 never-before-seen photographs.

No word yet if the book will be overly priced by about $150, a la Prince concert tickets.

Photo: Courtesy of http://theslip.nin.com/