Prince RIP

Years ago, I went alone to a midnight screening of Purple Rain. Before the movie, a friendly guy around my age came over and starting chatting:

GUY: Do you collect bootlegs?
ME: (genuinely clueless) Uh... what kind of bootlegs?
GUY: ......Prince bootlegs(!)

He gave me his card and went back to his friends, a few rows away; I think he realized he was barking up the wrong tree (or taking a dip in the wrong lake, so to speak).

I'm pretty sure I've heard his version of "Jungle Love" before, but listening this morning I noticed, for the first time, his "somebody bring me a mirror" and "I think I'm going to file my nails," which are trademark Morris Day mannerisms. So ... was Prince adding them to the song because he was tailoring it for Morris Day, or ... did he tell Morris Day to adopt those vain mannerisms?

I'm sure he wrote it specifically for the Time

his Jungle Love is great

Manic Monday on the other hand....the Bangles and their producers really polished that one up

I know he wrote it for the time, but the mirror and file my nails stuff ... was that Prince's idea or was Morris Day already doing that stuff?

Some nice recollections from engineer Peggy McCreary.
She remembers a shitty day with The Time in the studio, no mention of Day filing his nails though...

This is sweet:

Do you remember any material that hasn’t been released?
He came in one time on my birthday. I was like, God, couldn’t he give me my birthday off? Shit! You could always hear him walking through the courtyard because he had those high-heeled boots and he had a certain way of walking. But he was dressed totally different than I had ever seen him: black leather boots, jeans—which he never wore—white t-shirt, and a black leather jacket. We cut a rockabilly song all day long. So we finished up, and I made him a cassette and handed it to him. And he stood there at the door with a little smile on his face and threw the cassette at me and said, “Happy birthday.” And that was my birthday song. I have an unreleased Prince song. To him, that was probably the greatest gift he could have given me—a day in the studio!

I know he wrote it for the time, but the mirror and file my nails stuff ... was that Prince's idea or was Morris Day already doing that stuff?

The whole story how this routine came to be is recounted in the Morris Day episode of "Tales from the Tour Bus". Basically, the line "somebody bring me a mirror" was always in the song, and when The Time was rehearsing it, after Morris sang the line, Jerome (who was their roadie at the time) decided to take a huge mirror off the wall and bring it to Morris, who then proceded to pretty himself up in front of it. Prince was also there, and he thought it was hilarious, so he said they need to do it on their gigs.

he thought it was hilarious

he was right

https://media.giphy.com/media/VybeTkYjB13NK/giphy.gif

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n12/ian-penman/the-question-of-u

Heck of a final paragraph

Great piece all around.

Yeah great piece. And chilling stuff about Amiir.

that's the best thing I've read since he passed

in his death, people have really clung to the myths that articulates a lot of the things that bother me about his post 80s work

I brought up Prince in the metoo thread no one seemed to want to talk about it

paywalled

It's not paywalled, just make sure all your ad-blockers etc are switched off.

Prince/Bowie derangement syndrome kind of underrated among internet-amplified phenomena that permanently broke brains in 16

Piece is great, penman over the last few years has had an astonishing streak of non-hagiographic profiles which (leaving aside ur quibbles about his judgement of individual records, or an occasional lapse into “there I said it”-ism) serve the artists in their full complexity much better than the fawning revisionism

I don't know if - being honest with oneself - you could come up with a 2CD comp oh genuinely great songs out of everything he did post Lovesexy and I'd bet half of those were stuff written in his peak

fucking amazing piece

wins otm

xxposts
I don't know enough his post 80s work but a 1CD comp, easily (and I suppose those who know more about that part of his catalogue could make a 2CD comp).
Most of all, I'm not sure he was the kind of artists interested in their old stuff instead of the latest material.
Especially since he seemed to be perpetually creating.

I don't know if - being honest with oneself - you could come up with a 2CD comp oh genuinely great songs out of everything he did post Lovesexy and I'd bet half of those were stuff written in his peak

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

I am genuinely enjoying Anthology: 1995-2010, which is three hours has some stuff from his peak but nowhere near half.

I don't know, 2016 definitely broke my brain and the Prince/Bowie thing was part of that, but it seemed more like a stand-in for all the shit I wasn't ready to talk about or deal with back then.

I have just read that very interesting article.
I didn't know his seemingly endless creativity (whatever the quality produced) had vanished at some point.

I don't know if - being honest with oneself - you could come up with a 2CD comp oh genuinely great songs out of everything he did post Lovesexy and I'd bet half of those were stuff written in his peak

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

come on my man

Didn’t dig the piece too much, but my wife’s parents were at one of those Rolling Stones shows discussed at the top (...of the main article, not the Walter Benjamin quote).

love symbol, come, gold experience, all great records with v few misses on them, i get so exhausted of this “let’s just all admit that post-‘80s prince wasn’t very good” narrative

i spent a lot of time convincing myself i liked so much prince stuff! i paid money for all those CDS

it's not a narrative, the music keeps me at some distance

i'm probably exaggerating but for myself it felt good to admit i was just talking myself into liking so much of that stuff at the time

i just find something sort of exhausting about them

new jack swing and rap are great but had a bad effect on Prince imo, it thickened up his sound in bad ways those piston pneumatic drums

"black sweat" was a real revelation for me had that weird, thin skeletal thing that i love about him

Originals is really fun, "Glamorous Life" is great

I don't know if - being honest with oneself - you could come up with a 2CD comp oh genuinely great songs out of everything he did post Lovesexy and I'd bet half of those were stuff written in his peak

Electric Chair
New Power Generation
Thieves in the Temple
The Question of U
Diamonds and Pearls
Gett Off
Sexy MF
The Morning Papers
7
Come
Pheremone
Papa
Letitgo
P. Control
Shhh
The Most Beautiful Girl in the World
Shy
Eye Hate U
Dig U Better Dead
Jam of the Year
Soul Sanctuary
The Holy River
The Human Body
Face Down
Sleep Around
Musicology
Cinnamon Girl
Black Sweat
Breakfast Can Wait

(also The Future and Lemon Crush)

Also I agree with Brad, those three albums are very, very strong, particularly Come which is IMO the most underrated album in his catalog

Fantastic piece by Penman. Presumably, his recent (ridiculously) strong run of short biographies will be collected at some point? I count James Brown, Frank Sinatra, Patti Smith, Elvis, Kate Bush, Charlie Parker but I'm sure there have been others - not to mention his amazing essay in the Zer0 book on Michael Jackson. All brilliant. (Here's the link for the James Brown essay: https://www.city-journal.org/html/did-he-feel-good-9717.html)

i find this ian penman piece extremely frustrating

like it's fine but did i really need to read a paragraph about how "darling nikki" isn't that good, he sure is wrong about that

Penman can be as 'wrong' as the rest of us but I'd read him being wrong all day over most critics.

xps they’re being published in a collection by fitzcarraldo editions shortly!

Prince trying to act ‘gangsta’ felt not merely silly and self-defeating, but almost a form of betrayal. Who ever said we looked to him for something ‘real’ or ‘authentic’, anyway? (Plus: two dozen prison-tat-sporting young rappers could do that stuff better in their sleep.)

i feel v weird about this sequence of sentences also

Eye Hate U
The Question of U
Joy in Repetition
Sleep Around

These are all as good as anything he’s ever done

Yeah the "Darling Nikki" comments are... surprising !
And I'm also uncomfortable with his idea that Prince's music from the 90s on doesn't have soul, creativity, etc.
I'm totally fine with people not liking that period (I'm not a big fan myself) but to say that it's because it's "bad" music as opposed to the "good" music of the previous decade is... I don't know, a bit annoying.

xps they’re being published in a collection by fitzcarraldo editions shortly!

Happy days!

I mean we should all be protected from people thinking songs we like are not good but for a disappointment-inflected piece this articulates the appeal of Prince better than most, and grapples with elements of his life that others are determined not to address (with credit to the books he’s reviewing of course!)

unfortunately the moments where he's full of shit are getting in the way of my appreciation of those qualities

Like I don’t agree with IP’s assessment of Kate Bush’s career AT ALL but it’s a really good piece

(Do not read the bush essay brad lol)

don't worry i won't!

The upcoming Sign O The Times fancy reissue seems a bit rubbish, no extra footage or live stuff at all just some new docu. Thought we'd get a 'proper' reissue of the album with all of the stuff that was meant to be on Dream Factory but maybe that's coming, as the film was nowt to do with the Prince estate?

A song like ‘My Name Is Prince’, from 1992, is the sort of ego-bomb manifesto most artists drop early on, when they are still young enough that the arrogance can seem winning. A middle-aged man screaming that he’s the one and only doesn’t sound so sweet. On the contrary, such macho theatrics have a Trumpish effect

i'm out, tab closed forever

"my name is prince" is a very funny song imo

Eye Hate U
The Question of U
Joy in Repetition
Sleep Around

These are all as good as anything he’s ever done

― zama roma ding dong (Eric H.), Thursday, June 13, 2019 10:32 AM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

question of u and joy in repetition date back to the mid 80s, joy was listed in some version of dream factory which got retooled to be sign o the times

Oddly, just at the time when he claimed to be returning to realer than real blackness, you’d swear he got two or three shades lighter for his publicity shots.

ok, last thing, but what the fuck is this

34 is "middle-aged" now?