Prince RIP

Aw man, 'New Position' is catchy as fuck.

:)

those four SOUND like they were done in one take to me, which is not a knock.
― A big shout out goes to the lamb chops, thos lamb chops (ulysses)

it still burns me to think that, you know, too many of the wrong molecules on the wrong receptors one night and we fucking lost PRINCE.

Even Burt Bacharach got choked up about it

Walsh: I said to him, "Come on, man—don't you want to make another Sign o' the Times, another Purple Rain?" I don't know if I framed it exactly like that, but he said, "No, no—Jim, I've been to the mountaintop. There's nothing there."0

came here to post this.

Deserves its own thread.

What I wouldn't give to know what he meant.

the futility of material success compared to spiritual pursuits

then again maybe if he had been on 5 more magazine covers he would have been granted access to Nirvana

Well, yeah, obviously. But what did he see or feel that confirmed that for him. And I don't think his friend was talking about Purple Rain, etc, in terms of commercial success, but some form of artistic ambition the later records seemed to relinquish, at least from Walsh's perspective.

xp

he also could've just said something witty for the sake of it

^all of the above

What's the word on these Parachute Recording Company vinyl releases of Prince concerts? I saw a ton of them in Cheapo in Minneapolis and wondered if they were worth it.

https://www.discogs.com/label/1024637-Parachute-Recording-Company

http://blog.thecurrent.org/2016/12/searching-for-lake-minnetonka-and-a-life-post-prince/

Saw the 1987 Sign o the Times movie at a special showing at the Library of Congress 64 seat Pickford Theatre in DC a little while back this month. Pretty great. Prince's subtle but effective facial movements and smiles and eyebrows along with the obvious stuff--the songs, the dancing, the guitar & piano and organ playing. Plus Sheila E., Cat, and Boni Boyer

Here's an article about it from back in April.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/04/22/prince_concert_film_sign_o_the_times_is_amazing_and_unavailable.html

what the fuck

Huh?

i just still can't believe it

but,

Following its announcing of itself as the “exclusive worldwide publishing administrator” of Prince’s catalogue in November, Universal Music Group confirmed today that they have locked down a “multi-year” agreement giving them specific control over 25 albums Prince released on his independent NPG label–beginning with the 1996 triple-disc Emancipation. They will also be able to work with Prince’s estate on projects culled from the Minneapolis legend’s notorious “vault” of unreleased material (no mention of concrete plans for releases yet, however).

Prince’s estate had this to say about the deal:

“I am thrilled the NPG catalog and Prince’s highly sought after unreleased recordings will reside with UMG, where we have found a partner who is passionate about presenting Prince’s music with a holistic vision that celebrates his iconic status across recorded music, publishing and merchandise and will continue to deliver the highest quality experiences that fans have come to expect. I’m looking forward to seeing Lucian and Michele achieve great things for Prince’s fans, his estate and heirs.”

http://www.spin.com/2017/02/universal-acquires-rights-to-princes-independent-albums-vault-of-unreleased-music/?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#link_time=1486664124

His stuff is coming back to Spotify on Sunday, apparently

;_;

this is the greatest of news, no?
i think they're gonna push it hard during the grammys.

Zing shows the elapsed time since the last post at the top when you open a thread so for me it said "17 days".

I think 17 days was the first thing I listened to after he died

Man all of this just rubs me the wrong way. I can't say why exactly but it just does.

Probably because it means more people will be exposed to N.E.W.S.

I think 17 days was the first thing I listened to after he died

same

Man all of this just rubs me the wrong way. I can't say why exactly but it just does.

He fought hard to get out of his Universal contract and had to change his artist name from his given name because of that, so I don't think he'd appreciate the fact that Universal now owns all his independence-era albums, including the one whose name and cover celebrate him becoming free of them.

That was Warner Bros., who--if I'm reading that story correctly--will be eventually losing their Prince albums to this deal.

Oh, sorry about that, I misremembered.

I cancelled my TIDAL account last week and this is my reward.

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/7678230/prince-estate-will-business-charles-koppelman-londell-mcmillan

It's important to understand that over the last couple of years, Prince's business life was a bit of a shambles. I use the analogy, a little bit, of Michael Jackson. Michael had no personal life but his business life was in great order: He had the right record deal, he had the right music-publishing partner and ownership. Prince had a terrific personal life but over the last couple of years, had none of those other great relationships that would enhance the value [of his assets]. That worked for him, because if Prince needed money he could wake up on Monday and do a concert on Friday and raise whatever money he needed.

And he was very independent. I'll tell you one quick little story. The first time I met Prince was in 1991, maybe '92. Someone called my office, a cold call, and said they were calling on behalf of Prince, and we set up a meeting. [At the meeting] Prince said that he was incredibly impressed with SBK and [diversity of the] artists I was signing and how I was marketing them: Technotronic, Wilson Phillips, Tracy Chapman, Vanilla Ice, Jon Secada. He asked if I would be interested in him producing artists for SBK, and I said, "Are you kidding? Of course -- when can I hear some music?" He said, "You can't. I'll deliver it and you'll put it out." I said, "Well, it's my record company, I can't put something out and market it if I don't believe in it. I'm gonna have to hear it." He stood up, said "Thank you very much," and walked out the door.

Ooof - bullet missed there w/ SBK. And I mean Prince missed the bullet. Can you imagine him on the same roster as that cheese?

Minus Tracy Chapman and Technotronic.

The guy couldn't very well assume Prince would turn in tracks worthy of Vanilla Ice or Jon Secada without hearing them first.

there is exactly one prince song on spotify - "stare" -- it's pretty good!

http://consequenceofsound.net/2015/07/prince-premieres-new-single-stare-listen/

Wonderful interview with Susan Rogers in Tape Op I haven't seen mentioned here - you may need a (free) registration to see it all:
http://tapeop.com/interviews/117/susan-rogers/

What kind of preparation did he do to do his vocals?

He just sang them. It's not like he did any vocal comps. The way he worked, he would program the drum machine. A lot of the drumming you hear, like the double kicks, the tom fills, and everything, he's playing those with his fingers. There'd be a one or two bar loop on the Linn LM-1. So there's this loop; he played all the fills on "Take Me with U," the toms, and the double kick on "Darling Nikki" first. He had the entire arrangement in his head as tape was rolling, and he played the whole song in his head. Then the basic keyboard parts would go on. Then bass, if there was bass, or bass synths. We'd stop, I would route the vocal for him, put a piece of white tape on the patch cord to show him where it was, arm the tape machine, put the track on input, and then leave the room so he could do the vocals all by himself. He didn't want anybody there. He'd do the lead vocal himself, do the backing vocals, and then I'd come back in and we'd lay down the rest of the instruments. While he was playing, I could be dialing in sounds, so the mix was pretty much ready to go. We worked with the girls, Wendy and Lisa, Jill Jones, or Susannah (Melvoin) – if we're going to do background vocals. Maybe we'd add Eric Leeds, with horns. I'd press "record" on the 2-track, we'd print a mix, go to bed, and then four hours later we'd start all over again. That's how he worked, every day. Making music was Prince's way of being in the world. If he was awake, we were making music. If we weren't on tour, he was recording in the studio constantly. Every day, even on the movie set. We were at home in Minneapolis, during the Purple Rain filming, just so he could come home and record. During (the filming of) Under the Cherry Moon, I had the Advision Studios mobile truck from London in the south of France. When they were taking their lunch break he could come into the truck, work for two hours, record a bunch of tracks; then he could go back to the set and I would be mixing and editing. He had to be making music. I'll tell you what a typical day was like on tour. Prince would soundcheck from 2 p.m. until 6 p.m., just for fun! Just to play new songs, and to rehearse with the band. He wasn't checking the sound; he just wanted to play Prince would hit the stage again at 8:30, play to 11 or 11:30, come off the stage, get in the van, go to the hotel, shower, change clothes, and then do one of two things: either go play an after party and take the stage at a little club at 1 a.m. I had a second truck loaded up with a second set of gear, so we'd come off stage and either go to a club, set up another stage, and play this after party until 5 or 6 in the morning. Or I would have booked a studio in advance, and we'd go to the studio and record all night. We'd get the tapes, get on the plane, and sleep on the plane; or get on the bus and go to the next city, and do it again. If he was awake, he wanted an instrument in his hand. That's how he lived. He was on fire.

yeah that Susan Rogers interview is fantastic all the way through (and long).

A big Spotify playlist gone up but the search window link to take you direct to his music is missing, fucks sake guys, priorities...!

Everything they had before is now back as far as I can tell.

Seems to be now, Lovesexy is one big file though, wonder how that happened?

Wasn't it sequenced as one long track on the original CD release?

Yeah it's always been on Spotify as one track I think.

yeah man how dare u skip 2 alphabet st

Lovesexy works best when listened to in full. I can completely understand why Prince did that.

It's still irritating tho. I remember reading somewhere there is a later Japanese CD or something that separates the songs, but a while ago I bought a fairly recent Japanese reissue of it, and it's still just one big track on the CD.

ironically, it was sequenced conventionally, as individual tracks, in the format he presumably would have preferred you to have, vinyl.

"The album is designed to be heard in the context of a continuous sequence: LP pressings split the album in two side-long tracks, without visual bands to indicate individual songs. Similarly, early CD copies of Lovesexy have the entire album in sequence as a single track, though some later editions have it as nine separate tracks."

yeah no shit isn't like almost every fucking album?

without visual bands to indicate individual songs

my vinyl is in storage on the other side of the country but i have a distinct memory of it being rather easy to see the beginnings and ends of the tracks on lovesexy, same as on, yeah, no shit, almost every fucking album. is my memory faulty? do i need fact checking?