Prince RIP

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/magazine/prince-andthe-competition.html?_r=0

To mount a proscenium in the company of Prince, who died Thursday at age 57, was to bask in greatness and to risk humiliation. On occasions like this one, Prince’s performances had a way of shifting from show business as usual — a star’s prerogative to entertain and strut his stuff — into the realm of pure blood sport. He aimed not only to put on a great show but also to show others up, to singe lesser mortals with pyrotechnic displays of musicianship and charisma. His competitive instincts could overwhelm his gentler, courtlier ones. A month before the Rock Hall gig, he appeared on the Grammy Awards, charging through a medley of his hits alongside Beyoncé. You could see him straining to be courteous, to cede the spotlight a bit. But after a few minutes, he appeared to lose patience and cranked up the virtuosity — dancing, shredding on guitar, sliding from the depth-sounder bottom end of his vocal register into an otherworldly falsetto. The spectacle concluded with another guitar toss, and Beyoncé, one of the world’s more unflappable performers, was left looking rather windblown, teetering on her high heels.

was travelling when I heard the news and could not believe it

such a powerful soul, his curiosity in music has given me so much inspiration, his musicality was mindblowing, his sense of humour contagious

we had a very uncommon level of snowfall this april

rip :'(

I love how that soundcloud mix *starts* with Extra Lovable. Like, right off the bat, here's a jam that could have been a hit for anyone.

seriously anyone in this thread not listening to that demos mix needs to GETT ON ITT STTATT

Several years ago, a local virtuoso tribute band (in recent months they've tackled both Bowie and Earth, Wind & Wire) did a Prince set. This was the setlist:

Sexy M.F.
Alphabet St.
When Doves Cry
Nothing Compares 2 U
Sign 'O' The Times
Seven
Housequake
P Control
Head
Little Red Corvette
Electric Chair
Pop Life
Starfish & Sometimes Medley
Darling Nikki
Lady Cab Driver
Call My Name
Let's Go Crazy
Purple Rain

Songs were apparently chosen democratically, which is why I think the setlist was maybe a missed opportunity. So, question: if you could choose two (and only two) songs to go, which would they be, and what would you pick to replace them? I'd probably kill "P Control" and swap it for "Erotic City" and swap "Electric Chair" for "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man."

(Ha, Earth Wind and Fire)

No, do not tell me there's no such crossover band as "Earth, Wind and Wire" and that means they don't do "Boogie WonderDrill"

Wire ... now with horns and Afro-futurist pyramid lyrics!

Interrupting my love train of thought
White lines of latitude and longitude

i think 'erotic city' could have been a huge hit had prince been willing to sanitize the lyrics for radio play

it's certainly his stealth greatest hit, if you know what i mean

i wonder, what do we think is prince's worst album, excluding some of the web-only and concert-only releases? i suspect there aren't many qualified to answer that question, since it requires close familiarity with all this albums, including those from the last 10 years. conventional wisdom says his nadir was around the turn of the millenium, with rave un2 the joy fantastic and (the very different) rainbow children.

that's about right

I like The Rainbow Children, but it's probably the biggest outlier in the whole Prince catalogue.

Didn't he issue two VHS cassettes at one point, in the middle of the "Slave" business, wonder what they were about..?

N.E.W.S. is the worst by a wide margin.

Rainbow Children had The Everlasting Now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXcERc3N0zc

Man, John Blackwell is pretty much the best drummer Prince or anyone ever had.

Yeah, this was one of them..

https://www.discogs.com/Prince-The-Undertaker/release/2186861

Had a soundtrack CD as well..

awwww man was that demo thing taken down already?

https://www.discogs.com/Prince-Live-The-Sacrifice-Of-Victor/release/4443065

and this was the other one.

Lotta (all?) those demos were on those Perfect Unreleased Prince comps.

watched that SNL special and i dug that double guitar jam about losing your job at McDonalds. don't know what album that was on.

rainbow children and rave are def not his worst. rainbow children is actually his most inspired since lovesexy. those would be HITnRUN Phase One and Two, Plectrum Electrum, and NEWS. hard to pick really, but its def the ones from the last decade.

Art Official Age was great though

prob his best since 3121. his new co producer helped a lot. prob his most 'modern' sounding album in a long time in various ways.

Is the 'Work It' bootleg anthology the best way to hear all the unreleased stuff which is currently circulating? Found some (but nowhere near all) on Soulseek. Where can it be found?

It's not the best way because it's, what, 32 CDs long? I think you can find a lot more compact/collated compilations.

Someone on ILX years ago was kind enough to burn me CDs of at the time all his 12"s to date.

PaulTMA, I'm only interested in Prince up through Lovesexy--Work It 2.0 for those years is Nos. 1-14...I am digging it immensely

a while ago, some super-fan put together "homemade deluxe editions" of all of prince's albums through the love-symbol album, with bonus tracks -- outtakes, demos, 12" versions, remixes, etc. the sign of the times deluxe edition ran to 7 (!!) discs. there were even "homemade deluxe editions" of the vanity 6 and the family albums. they were pretty amazing, but seem to have disappeared from the web. (hmmm maybe i should upload those somehow?)

Yeah, amateurist, I cherish those "Foefur"'s editions too!

oh I'd go away up to The Gold Experience at least

that album RULES

was there ever a DVD release of his Warner Bros era videos? Once upon a time I had the VHS video comp that came w the Hits/B-Sides but that's long dead and I am especially annoyed these days that it's basically impossible to re-watch things like the Alphabet St or Little Red Corvette videos, which are burned into my brain

https://www.discogs.com/Prince-The-Hits-Collection/release/2730730

that DVD is Europe-only

Ah well.

that DVD is Europe-only

The Amazon search term you're looking for is "region-free DVD player." They are surprisingly cheap.

thx for offering to buy me a new DVD player, yr the coolest

omg
http://bigstory.ap.org/91ff5f9a086b4824bca6039f01f5fbc3

oh lord.

At least that hopefully means there's nothing to stop a flood of vault releases...

Someone's on the phone to the Hendrix estate right now: "so there's a market for purple liqueurs, you say?"

http://www.houseofhaironline.com/main/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/purplehaze.png

That's really startling to me given that he had charitable corporations going, I would think he'd have thought of that at least

Also the team of female black lawyers. Wouldn't they have suggested something?

Prince, always one to welcome suggestions

There's just no way this is good news. I hope a document turns up.

yeah this is terrible

no will /is/ startling. prince seems like he had the broad outlines of his business stuff pretty together.

also both shocking and non-shocking that the estate is valued at "only" 27 million. on the one hand, prince is one of the best-selling artists of all time, and he probably sold $27 million worth of records in any given six months between 1984 and 1994. on the other hand, i imagine the royalties were thinner in recent years, not only b/c of general decline in album sales, but also because a fair amount of his work in the 21st century was really poorly distributed. also, unlike some other stars whose sales had declined, prince kept a full staff at paisley park. that couldn't have been cheap. and if you believe the tabloids, he had an expensive prescription-drug habit.

i'm sure that like most aging superstars he made way more money touring than album sales -- his willingness to 'give away' his albums in various formats suggested as much. (in fact prince seemed to recognize or anticipate this dynamic even before the bottom fell out of the record industry).