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Prince has always been one to buck the status quo. His battle with label titan Warner Brothers is legendary. After releasing his 2006 album, "3121," through Universal, Prince is presently without a label to market or distribute his latest album, "Planet Earth." Verizon Wireless has nabbed the exclusive for "Guitar," the first single from the album, scheduled to be released sometime in July.

The single will be available for free to Verizon subscribers who participate in an online demo of its new "Song ID" music identification service. "There is no music label involved here. That enabled us to work very closely together," says Verizon senior VP of marketing and digital media John Harrobin. The only way fans can get the single is to try the Song ID demo, which will be available on Verizon's website, as well as online video outlets like YouTube, Revver and MySpace. The demo consists of a clip of the music video for the single and a prompt for subscribers to hold their phone to the computer speaker to ID the song. Once identified, users can then download the song in a single click. Verizon will promote the campaign in a TV ad that began airing last night (May 31) featuring both the artist and the music video.

Prince will also be busy on stage this summer, with performances at the Macy's in his hometown of Minneapolis and in Los Angeles. He is also about to launch his own fragrance, also called 3121.