Prince RIP

Bad hair. Good clothes though. I love this line in the Not Coming piece: "The film had the dubious honor of winning five Razzie awards, even tying with Howard the Duck for Worst Picture. But does Howard the Duck feature Prince, in a bathtub filled with rose petals, playing with a toy boat while wearing a hat? No."

So many highly enjoyable details in that movie. Great bit of backwards film in the "Girls and Boys" performance for instance.

aw I love prince's graffiti bridge hair. so lush. the facial hair is regrettable yes

i watched it for the first time yesterday and I think the biggest sin against it is that it's kinda boring, which I can't say about under the cherry moon or purple rain

a middle ground between purple rain (same plot essentially just with religious overtones) and sign o the times (exclusively filmed on soundstages plus great performances) should theoretically kinda rule but it just kinda dully meanders

So, Sign o the Times isn't a legit concert film? (I haven't seen)

it's like 90% performances

iirc there's a couple backstage scene things? It's been over 15+ years since I've seen it (RIP VHS copy)

yeah there are a few stage interstitials that aren't... good or anything, but are fun, and i love the sets they built for it

"it's like 90% performances"

shot iirc on the actual SOTT tour, then dubbed with audio re-recorded semi/quasi-live at paisley park. classic prince move. but brilliantly done. who can tell?

or was it all shot at PP, then dubbed later? not sure.

yeah I don't remember

there's a video wherein Dick Gregory theorizes that Prince was killed, but i have not watched so i will not link.

According to Eric Leeds in the Per Nilsen book ("DanceMusicSexRomance") around 80% was reshot at Paisley Park because the actual concert footage shot for the film in Europe turned out too grainy. Pretty amazing.

xpost He crazy.

DG is deeply conspiratorial and quite inconsistent

'they wanted him dead cos he owned his masters...'
'wait...'
'who said he really owned his masters when he died?'

etc

In terms of his look and his moves and even his affect sort of, I feel like p in graffiti bridge is the closest he ever got to MJ-ness. It's weird and doesn't work for me.

Morris is pretty flat in graffiti bridge, but I did lol mightily at:

"WHAT is your main problem?!"

and

"I miss those back rubs..."

The bit where Morris and Jerome are grossed out by having accidentally made out is car crash fascinating -- directorial Prince drags that pause out so fucking long it's insane

i liked the bit where jerome lays the woman's coat on the ground so morris doesnt have to walk in a puddle lol

Oh that was good. That was early in the film and got my hopes up that Morris and Jerome would bring it.

In terms of his look and his moves and even his affect sort of, I feel like p in graffiti bridge is the closest he ever got to MJ-ness. It's weird and doesn't work for me.

this is very true. if Prince was ever gonna give a song to MJ, I can see "Thieves In The Temple" being it.

all the new jack swing moves in this are a bit sad/disappointing

i posted a link to this russian site that had SOTT movie upthread, great concert

"Round & Round" is a jam tho (probably cause Prince mostly just gets the fuck out of the way tbh)

they don't even put the full song in the movie!
i loved that video back in the day. Tevin Campbell, where are you now? (j/k i know where he is, don't tell me)

http://go963mn.com/uploads/Prince-Graffiti-Bridge-Trailer.jpg

oh dear

idk if it's just the dvd transfer but i also feel like the movie should be brighter than it is. it's very dull and foggy

it was dim like that when i watched it on cable too. Morris and Jerome's 'dueling banjos' scene is fun at least.

Is he supposed to be some magical part-animal person with that makeup?

when has Prince not been a magical part-animal person

he struck curious poses

when has Prince not been a magical part-animal person

shoulda covered "prince charming"

are there any instances of Prince blocking a cover earlier than Elvis Costello in 1997? it seems like that was the beginning of it becoming a common practice for him in the 2000s

Weird Al?

http://www.tmz.com/2016/05/17/weird-al-yankovic-prince/

Someone posted a download link on one of the Prince fan FB pages, to download scans of every magazine's tribute features since his death. Does anyone know where I can find this? Couldn't get to computer at the time.

Weird Al is always within his rights to record whatever he wants - fair use in satire - but because he's a cool dude he only does so with an artist's permission. Legally speaking, I don't see how Prince could have made anyone back down from covering him, tbh, as long as he was credited and mechanically recompensed. Maybe folks like Elvis Costello just didn't want the trouble?

The weirdest Prince copyright thing was when he covered Radiohead at Coachella and he blocked video of that, at least until Radiohead was all whatever.

That's not weird, that's himself assuming that Radiohead should be in the position of accepting it first.

I'm not sure that was his justification.

Of course Elvis made a new song out of his backing track - I take it Prince had no bone to pick with that?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGhlUBtY8_I

Questlove’s Album-By-Album Guide To Prince’s WB Catalogue

http://www.okayplayer.com/news/questlove-prince-album-guide.html

"maybe prince is at his best when he is not so calculating and is just in work mode"

Cool. Will have to read over the weekend. And yeah, ^that.

Okay, couldn't wait. That was great and totally otm.

Did he forget to put a grade on Lovesexy?

Urgh he's even worse at writing than he is at drumming

challopsy!

I know, wasn't meant to be! Couldn't read past the second page of that thing tho.

it was a fun read. he only really sees the music through a production/sonic-nerdery lens though. which is cool in a way, prince is sort of underrated/overlooked for that aspect. and most of his opinions are fairly sound (OTM that the black album was better as a low quality bootleg, though it still has some of his funkiest songs, its just not a great 'album'). though how he decides that the 1999 album has 'focus' and dirty mind - unarguably his most focused album EVER - doesnt is a bit WTF.

Re chalupa: I know questlove is a great drummer because everyone says so, but never saw live footage that convinced me - open to suggestions... but then again, I never thought erykah badu or d'angelo great musicians either, and they're from a similar school so maybe a matter of taste

I like D'Angelo a lot as a musician/singer/etc, Voodoo's great, but Questlove's style distracts me from the grooves at times. Which seems like crappy drumming. I don't like the tones he seems to be into either. Also I read an interview once where he said he wanted to "overexceed expectations". Urgh.

voodoo was pretty particular though. the snares were distractingly sharp and the drumming was (apparently) deliberately metronomic. he played on mamas gun the same year and that didnt sound like that. i think hes a good drummer, he just tries too hard a lot of the time.