Prince RIP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPGQicX-UZY

Love this version

everybody needs a thrill:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMkayXy_7JM

Which Prince would famously not let him record and release as a b-side. Wasn't Prince also one of the only ones who said no to "Weird" Al?

Think so.

http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/weird-al-prince-is-one-singer-who-consistently-said-no-to-parody-so-2014247

EC recycled his "Pop Life" backing track to make this (which is not nearly as good): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGhlUBtY8_I

Has Al ever talked about what the parodies would have been?

I have to admit that the other day I was making some sourdough in the breadmachine and came up with "Now morning, noon, and night/I bake you BREAD". I was ashamed though because I knew Prince wouldn't have wanted it that way.

weird al was in the partyman video...

this is from the ivan julian benefit last night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eucV8xNPazk

"Purple Rain" is turning into the next "A Change Is Gonna Come"

By next year it'll be up there with "Imagine" and "Redemption Song."

It is a motherfucking karaoke SMASH, I can tell you. I sang it with a friend in Okinawa a couple of years ago and we screwed up the programming on the machine, it came on twice back-to-back. After a second of fear when it began again, I leaned to my friend and hissed "falsetto" and everything was all right forever.

Purple Rain is the only song I've ever sung at karaoke. Apparently I nailed it though. There was a dude who was there that night, whenever I'd run into him in later years would greet me with "PURPLE RAIN!"

That was my exact experience with people who were at that karaoke night. I had sympathy messages from some of them when P passed away.

Nice!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpaVGh79_P8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD4rYdK3y9A

Prince parodied himself all the time, anyone "doing" him would just be a crap version of Prince.

He has that one thing in common with Robert Smith, then.

forgot about this song from the Bright Lights Big City soundtrack, not sure if this is "Camille" but the vocals are def pitched up

https://analogkidblog.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/good-love.mp3

Prince parodied himself all the time, anyone "doing" him would just be a crap version of Prince.

He has that one thing in common with Robert Smith, then.

chapelle sort of perfectly balanced the inherent ridiculousness of prince with a lot of obvious love for how awesome it was that prince was prince

Has Al ever talked about what the parodies would have been?

I have to admit that the other day I was making some sourdough in the breadmachine and came up with "Now morning, noon, and night/I bake you BREAD". I was ashamed though because I knew Prince wouldn't have wanted it that way.

Xpost yeah good love is a Camille track. Also it rules.

Weird Al did once do a 'style parody' original song that is very unambiguously based on "Let's go crazy":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UupwKYfQJ9Y

are there any comparable examples to cite for what his estate could do with the unreleased recordings? i can only think of the dylan bootlegs series. or the flawed hendrix reissues (the ones they put out after his original studio albums). how much of a market is there for this kind of thing in 2016? it would have to be expensive, limited run releases i think.

They should just release it all for free or destroy it. But instead they will probably find a way to fuck it up.

I would I think rather they start mastering and readying a series of live releases, a la ... everyone. The Dead, Springsteen, Zappa, all these historic performers/performances. I wish all bands would do this.

why for free? that seems unfair. if they can do miles davis box sets, dylan bootlegs, etc etc, prince deserves the same.

I think a legit release of the Work boot series would = huge $$ from Prince die-hards, and then they could do small comps of the most commercial stuff for more casual fans. So much good music on those that would actually be new to most people.

Purple Rain is the only song I've ever sung at karaoke. Apparently I nailed it though. There was a dude who was there that night, whenever I'd run into him in later years would greet me with "PURPLE RAIN!"

― how's life, Thursday, May 5, 2016 12:42 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a couple of years ago i was at a self-proclaimed "honky tonk" outside of Dallas. it was a legit scuzzy country dive bar and they were doing karaoke that night. there was this tough looking dude, handsome, maybe early 20's, dressed in full cowboy gear leaning against the bar sipping beer by himself, looking through the walls. the host calls his name, he walks up the stage and Purple Rain starts playing. dude gives this passionate, full on performance. just fucking nails it. when it finished he walked back to his spot at the bar and resumed looking tough and sipping beer by himself. nobody seemed to pay it any mind but... it was fantastic.

xpost Well, as I might have noted elsewhere, with super limited family pretty much anyone benefitting from Prince sales doesn't deserve it and, in fact, given the amount of material involved will likely be greedy and then fuck it up. If it was free ... no prob. Not least because clearly Prince didn't *want* the stuff released, or at least locked it away for some reason. I would love to see sets like the Davis and Dylan, but by and large that consisted/consists of either live stuff or alternate takes. And obviously in the case of Dylan he is around to OK or veto. I'm not convinced any living artist, or any artist, period, has as much unreleased material as Prince, though, who reportedly recorded and/or filmed every show, had several complete unreleased albums (that we know of), recorded hundreds of leftover tracks for himself and others, basically recorded everything, every day. I don't even know how you begin, beyond maybe following Springsteen's lead and remastering each album with an attendant collection of related stuff/film.

Anyway, obviously it won't be free - it almost never is - but I really appreciated that pile of Apex Twin stuff RJ just tossed out there several months back. "You know those hours and hours of unreleased tracks you've always heard about? It's all true! Here it is, have at it."

that's awesome xp

that's a real cowboy xp

if administered right, im sure some of the charities prince was involved with could benefit. would be good if someone like alan leeds was allowed to work through it all, but it seems like a swamp of material to consider. or maybe a library type of setup would work. a spotify type platform for the vault.

Purple Rain would make a great country song.

looking for vol 2 of perfect unreleased i cant find it in the thread can someone hook me up pls? xoxoxox

Purple Rain would make a great country song.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, May 5, 2016 12:27 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was talking with a customer about this the other day. Told him about the Bob Seger inspiration. You can totally imagine lap steel on that song.

I hope my posting this doesn't lead to this guy or girl's little comp getting the takedown, but damn is this a handy DL:

http://allnewcorner.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-sound-of-female-singers-remembrance.html

when people do 'purple rain' as karaoke, what do they do during the long guitar solo?

Surely they must air guitar it.

Purple Rain would make a great country song.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, May 5, 2016 12:27 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was talking with a customer about this the other day. Told him about the Bob Seger inspiration. You can totally imagine lap steel on that song.

Cool comp, Jon! Missing this, though, which is prime-"Batman" era production in full dark mode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmZ9Z_upays

Okay, perhaps this is place to say, regarding his guitar playing, that of course he can play all kinds of great stuff, that technically as a rock/funk player he can play rings around almost anybody, but while I think his soloing works great much of the time, especially on "Purple Rain" or "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man," it sometimes seems to me, imho, with all due respect, that there may be occasions when he relies a wee bit too much on striking the Guitar God pose and going right up to the high part of the neck for the high speed hammerwailing.

there are all kinds of aspects to his music that i wouldn't accept from anyone else, but he sells with general Prince-ness and are more interesting as part of his whole thing.

Interesting point. Please to elaborate.

I would tend to agree, although I couldn't give any other examples at this point. I will say that I am reminded of his question for Billy Gibbons "Does your beard get in the way like some of my costumes?" and would argue that, at last some of time, his guitar showboating was part of his costume.

But, yeah to me he is like the Beatles. There is so much personality in his recordings that you wpuldnt want to "improve" them, like those haterz who think the Beatles would have been better with a different drummer.

don't have a lot of time to reflect on it now, but while watching this video (smooth jazz 'Summertime') the other day, i was thinking that there was no way i would have made it to the end if it was anyone else. not that i'm judging him on a soundcheck that he didn't expect anyone to see, but there's this sense that he's never displaying the full extent of his abilities, so even his fake jazz moments are interesting for the clues they provide.

he was best as a solo-ist within pop song limits IMO. prince was a great musician, it goes without saying, but with some exceptions, his jamming could often be a bit dull. i mean, thats just jamming in general, but some musicians can make it more interesting. he recorded some wonderful solos of course, and i enjoy hearing stuff like the undertaker, but while his solos on purple rain, lets go crazy, the cross (live), etc are some of my favourites, i think he was a songwriter first, musician/improv-soloist, second. its the reason a lot of his aftershow stuff is a bit dull at times. its great, cos you can say, hey, hes not just a pop artist, he can really play too, but prince as guitar god is prob best placed in constraints. often i think he gets a pass cos its prince. like, hey, look what ELSE he can do. never mind that there are other pianists, or guitarists every bit as good.

i think 'good' also needs some unpacking. prince is/was a technical virtuoso, but i think where he had a distinct sound/tone/style at one point (his tone playing the cross in 88 for instance, or purple rain in 84, etc), towards the end, it just blurred into some sort of post-hendrix general virtuoso-dom. i might have to go back to the 90s stuff, to see how that compares, but it seemed he was sort of trying to reinvent his sound as a guitarplayer, but it ended up evolving into the extra-virtuoso stuff he was doing in the last decade.

Teh fake jazz I can take or leave, but yeah, exactly Jordan.

Great posts, StillAdvance.