Prince RIP

Actually rather poignant

also dickish. I wouldn't work for a dude who made eyeball gestures after finding a smudge on a box

i put together a playlist that mimics the original crystal ball tracklist. these two sides are a wild set of songs jeez

Side 3:
Crystal Ball
If I Was Your Girlfriend
Rockhard In A Funky Place

Side 4:
The Ball
Joy In Repetition
Strange Relationship
I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man

did prince love using flanger so much because flanger units are purple?

or did flanger pedals/units become purple...after prince used it

87 prince is definitely looking around outside his bubble, the next few years were him in some way trying to come to grips w/ and maybe master where pop was moving w/o him, esp w/ rap and dance music. sign o the times has a dash of it though really he's still wrapped up inside his own head there, black album is him scoffing at these damn kids these days ('dead on it' is so bad, i can remember getting in arguments w/ friends over it at the time, they would say 'you have to admit rap wasn't good until run dmc/public enemy/nwa, whatever gamechanger basically' and i'd respond 'no hip-hop has always been awesome, prince just got old'), lovesexy has featured rapper though being prince he could just go get heavy d like janet and michael would, he had to keep it in house. the day glo hippie aspects of a lot of the media w/ lovesexy could also seem to be of a kind w/ acid house and the first stirrings of madchester at the time but really i think that's just convergent evolution, de la soul had the same thing going on the next year and i don't think they were really looking at happy mondays imports, day glo hippie shit was just really really in the air in the late 80s. batman soundtrack has him playing w/ samplers and acknowledging he's been hitting the clubs and likes some of what he's seen and heard ('the future's music) and doesn't like some of what he's seen and heard ('the future's lyrics), 'batdance' got compared to todd terry by a lot of folx at the time. graffiti bridge has the stirrings of npg and 'tick tick bang', which is basically prince attempts to make a hank shocklee record and really the only time for me where prince + hip-hop produces something awesome instead of awkward. diamonds and pearls has a lot of problems but the main thing is it feels (and was sold as) very much like prince doing a blatant reach for commercial relevance, and it worked - his first album w/ multiple hits since sott, his first non-batman #1 hit since 'kiss', his best selling album since purple rain. but oof: 'jughead', 'diamonds and pearls' - the first hit by him i didn't like and hearing fox news in passing use that as the prince song they would play in the background as they talked about his genius etc made me able to get over 'purple rain' turning into 'imagine' the past week or so (don't get me wrong - i love 'purple rain' but i wasn't shaken to the core to realize 'o, it's a journey song'), 'jughead', 'gett off' being kinda the bridge between effortlessly genuinely nasty 80s prince and borderline corny trying a bit 'nasty' 90s prince (here's where i admit i always kind of rmde at 'p control')(so many better songs on the gold experience), fucking 'jughead'. having said that, w/ diamonds and pearls being the first album where i kinda stepped back and dealt w/ the novel experience of a prince album i wasn't obsessed w/ even if i didn't love it at first and i think easily the worst album he had released by that point (there's this weird thing where some ppl act like prince just suddenly got good when he got all-time great w/ dirty mind, those first two albums are great yall), there's some really great stuff on there, like if 'jughead' proved he couldn't do everything in his sleep then 'strollin' proved he could still do some things in his sleep. the next album had the rapping still medicore but not cripplingly so as well as the decent iirc 'i wanna melt w/ u' but everything else (except for the reggae number iirc and obv the kirstie skits) was pretty great.

the second album (the s/t one) is a masterpiece!

seriously. one other 'this is what you kids are into now right?' move i'd forgotten - prince trying for a grunge look sorta for the morning papers video and single artwork -

http://eil.com/images/main/Prince+Morning+Papers+14310.jpg

i thought maaaybe that's from the marc jacobs perry ellis grunge spring 93 collection but that actually looks much better (it's also more interested in defining the 90s than being defined by the 90s though twenty odd years later what's the difference):

http://anotherimg.dazedgroup.netdna-cdn.com/786/azure/another-prod/340/3/343117.jpg

i haven't listened to that album in forever so no idea how it holds up but god i loved 'the morning papers' at the time, couldn't believe it wasn't a much bigger hit, the only track i think i liked better on that album was 'love 2 the 9's'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxVeUvo5COI

love symbol holds up extremely well imo. especially the two songs you mentioned

I included "The Morning Papers" in my '90s list. First track I thought of. I'd also stick "Blue Light" too.

i.e. the reggae one

All CD/digital copies of SOTT sound like shit - way too quiet and flat.

In the absence of proper remasters, a few years ago I 'home remastered' some Prince CDs (plus chopped Lovesexy up into tracks). From memory, this meant putting the music through a stereo enhancer (SOTT CD sounded almost mono) and adding some smiley-shaped EQ. Probably a total hack job if you're a pro audio engineer but well worth it to my ears.

TS: Turrican adopting Prince's eye/u/2/c speak or balls' eradication of all capital letters and (most) punctuation.

SOTT vinyl reissue coming out in August (planned prior to Prince's passing).

Already-reissued vinyl titles -- 1999, PR -- getting enthusiastic thumbs-ups from the kids at the Steve Hoffman forums.

good to hear

Occurred to me that Revolution/outside musicians or no, diamonds and pearls may be the first of his records that sounds like it was recorded with a traditional band. Don't know what to make of that.

it sounds like that because that's what it is

in approx 2001 i bought a new vinyl copy of Purple Rain from Beat Street in Brooklyn, and it had the OG sticker on the front touting the singles, plus the actual poster inside. it was regular price, like $7.99. how is that possible??

jeez i had never heard one nite alone before. gorgeous record

it's pretty good, that was the tour I saw. he's p funny on the live DVD that came w it

xxp dead stock - I bought a sealed 1983 repress copy of She's So Unusual with the hype sticker just last week

I've come around to agree w/Prince about Lovesexy vs. the Black Album. Not that I think it's too "dark" or "negative", but it really doesn't cohere or hang together very well, and the tracks are more amorphous jams than songs, there's very little that feels structured or thought out. It *sounds* great and I love a lot of it, "Bob George" especially, but Lovesexy is superior in every way while still being sonically of a piece, it just has better songs.

love it:

http://i1.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/prince-hair.jpg?w=640

poll

such a damn cute young Prince

http://www.royarden.com/blog/pictures/prince2.jpg

listening to "Insatiable," it strikes me that it's a straighter – in every sense – and duller "Adore."

Ha, for a split second, I though that was Rob Tyner.

xp

http://www.royarden.com/blog/pictures/prince2.jpg
Kick out the raspberry jams, you sexy MFs!

anyone got a rip of his final show? looks like it got taken off soundcloud

from 1987: Bonnie Raitt Starts Over, In Minnesota With Prince.

uh

guess it explains the "I Can't Make You Love Me" cover

well, that and the fact that it's a beautiful song

George Michael did a good vers too

it's basically the adult version of "will you love me tomorrow"

(well, actually, the adult version of "will you love me tomorrow" is "will you love me tomorrow", but you get my drift)

Now playing the widely renowned 'small club 2nd show that night' and god damn that clav-like synth on DMSR is just the driest sickest chicken scratch sound I've ever heard

It's an aftershow from the lovesexy tour. Great sound.

well, that and the fact that it's a beautiful song

― wizzz! (amateurist), Friday, April 29, 2016 6:24 PM

Buy her new album -- it's terrific.

Dang please let me hear 'Pangaea'

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/prince-hoped-to-redefine-minneapolis-sound-before-death-20160429?page=2

Hmm the arrangement d'angelo played of sometimes it snows in April is the demo arrangement not the released arrangement, isn't it? That long three part vocal intro...

NM I am an idiot. I somehow forgot the released version has that intro too. Weird that I never focused on it til now. It's a daring and gorgeous way to open the track.

Britishers may wanna know that Sky Arts is showing Sign of the Times tonight and also 'on demand'.

Reading that article about this crazy new musical concept & then listening to the well meaning but rote "Baltimore" is a bit of a let down...I really wish he'd never gotten involved with 3rdEyeGirl that band was terrible and brought out his worst tendencies

the lead guitar line in Baltimore is so great

Youtube keeps pushing this "Prince in the 1980s" doc which I finally watched this morning. Nothing earthquaking, but some good interviews with former managers, bandmates, engineers and arrangers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRNYiFxR2Ps

Although you may prefer to watch this concert from 1982:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAYQUbh8HHA

I skimmed over three or four of the 'Fork reviews by All of the Usual Suspects, and I was pretty disappointed to encounter All of the Usual points. I was hoping for something fresh, but they read like ... reviews. I guess that's fine. Chalk them up as missed opportunity sacrificed to the god of news cycle deadlines.