Prince - Prince Won't Record Another Album

The Purple Rain hitmaker released his last record, 20ten, last year (10) as part of an innovative scheme which saw him give away free copies with a British newspaper.

Prince insisted the deal was done to circumvent internet piracy and would cause him "no stress", but the musician is adamant he won't be releasing any more new material due to ongoing problems with illegal downloads.

He tells Britain's The Guardian, "The industry changed. We made money (online) before piracy was real crazy. Nobody's making money now except phone companies, Apple and Google. I'm supposed to go to the White House to talk about copyright protection. It's like the gold rush out there. Or a carjacking. There's no boundaries. I've been in meetings and they'll tell you, 'Prince, you don't understand, it's dog-eat-dog out there'. So I'll just hold off on recording."

The singer was the first major artist to release a whole album, 1997's Crystal Ball, exclusively online, but he admits he doesn't actually like music in digital form.

He adds, "I personally can't stand digital music. You're getting sound in bits. It affects a different place in your brain. When you play it back, you can't feel anything. We're analogue people, not digital."

Prince will play Heineken Open'er Festival next weekend.