prince

Yo, while me and Q-Tip were performing 'Vivrant Thing' in Vegas last night...this n-a Prince walked out on the stage, took the guitar from our guitar player and just started rocking! None of us knew he was there until he popped up on the stage...then the n-a vanished like Batman, LOL!

The sound crew said Prince was in the balcony watching the show from the very beginning (The balcony was closed off). Then when 'Vivrant Thing' came out, he just came backstage and walked out on stage.

None of us knew what was happening, then when we finished the show he was gone LOL!

that is awesome

that is Prince!

i guess when prince takes a guitar from you, you let him

this n-a

this n/a

i wonder what would happen if somebody refused to give prince his guitar.

no one's seen tevin campbell in years.

any excuse to post this:

Just another relaxed day at home:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/photos/uncategorized/2009/01/08/prince_ann_500.jpg

And he talks a bit.

nice. i am anticipating MPLSOUND.

also watch 'em while you can:

lol @ the pains taken to avoid his purple majesty's bare cheeks

I'm very curious about what he does with ProTools. Could be really interesting.

not like it's the first time, he's been using it since 3121 at least

earlier i had a crossword clue that was "part of TAFKAP" and even after i had filled in "ARTIST" it still didn't register for a minute

Utterly of non-interest to anyone anywhere. Unless you are, you know, alive and breathing:

http://www.thedailyswarm.com/headlines/watch-while-you-can-prince-rehearsal-videos-1984/

Is Matos sittin' down?

Cool. Extended "When Does Cry" and "Erotic City" sound good.

http://twitter.com/PRINCE_OFFICIAL/status/8476096110

Shhhh, don't tell Prince about the Youtube videos

Like his little routine in "17 Days."

His James Brown rooted and updated moves were/are always fun to watch plus the extra little hopping and running around stuff here

Cave17 Matt C should be checking these videos out also

Matos, what do you think?

oh dear lord. this is fantastic.

I love how he goes through his moves, knowing they're already mastered, and keeps a more critical eye on the band. what a fun loving task master!

......aaaaand they're gone

got to see 5 of them, haha. oh well. hopefully someone capped 'em while they were up

Damn, I only got to watch "When Doves Cry". I hope these can make their way onto Dailymotion or something.

new song to debut friday on The Current radio:

http://www.startribune.com/blogs/85053272.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUss

.....and it's awful:

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/services/the_current/features/2010/02/prince-cause-and-effect/index.shtml

man he has so completely and totally lost it.

bad wrong false prince

wow yeah that is bad

WTF is Prince using MS Songsmith now?

i want to say "nothing can ever erase the work he did in the 80s" but i somehow wonder if this song is actually capable of erasing the master tape to "if i was your girlfriend"

With the amount of stuff going on in the background it sounds like he recorded over the top of something. In case anyone is wondering what the reverse bit at ~3:30 is, it's Prince saying "contracts just make you smaller".

the problem with all of prince's stuff from the 90s on is that i think he fundamentally misunderstands what made him great at one time.

he's a great minimalist that thinks he's a maximalist.

eh he's done some good minimalist stuff since the 90s - Black Sweat, for ex.

but yeah I agree that in general he's better when he's doing less

Am I crazy or has Prince benn listening to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch#v=CXCiS2FpmIc&feature=related

eh he's done some good minimalist stuff since the 90s - Black Sweat, for ex.

― dead clown handjob (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, February 26, 2010 5:44 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

black sweat....and....black sweat...and..um...black sweat ; )

j.k. but yeah that's the only song i've heard in years i thought was GOOD good not just "hey this is pretty good for prince now, i guess"

i can't listen to this at work but it's probably for the best.

it's funny, i just listened to mplsound again and thought it wasn't that bad (if you have no expectations except for dad-prince).

oh what the fuck

like I could put up with the verse and I could put up with the chorus, but not both together in the same song; that is exactly the wrong thing to do, dude

i should do a poll, this song versus his vikings playoff song, which sounded like the work of a slightly deranged lutheran church choir director

at least the Vikings playoff song was awesome in its insanity; this is boring, mild-mannered shit that thinks it's shit-hot

replace lutheran w/ witness and you just about summarized prince 2010

j.k. but yeah that's the only song i've heard in years i thought was GOOD good not just "hey this is pretty good for prince now, i guess"

title tracks of musicology and 3121 were pretty good and stripped down imho. there was some other track on musicology that I liked but I'm blanking on it at the moment... but yeah his hit-to-miss ratio is pretty sad.

“Some knowledge of Prince is helpful but not required.”

They posted an archivist job a few years back that was similarly deeply underpaid. Undervaluing of cultural heritage work is unfortunately a rampant problem but Paisley Park takes it to a rare extreme.

Perhaps the presumption is akin to editorial assistants "breaking in to publishing" by doing an unpaid internship and living in Manhattan while their parents pay their rent. It's a plum job, and a great stepping-stone. If you want it enough, you will accept starvation wages. (Or you want it and you have another source of income.)

Are we due another deluxe reissue soon? Which album will it be?

hoping for Parade

that archivist ad does not fill me with hope re: the state of the actual archives

screwing employees out of money is really carrying on Prince's legacy

Supposedly sets for Parade and Diamonds and Pearls have been ready for a while but scheduling a release came to a halt when the estate was finally settled and the legal owners basically fired everyone who was handling the archive.

"Medical, dental, vision, pet insurance, 401K with match, HSA, complimentary tour tickets" LOL

Wow, Prince tour tickets!

Um

the hardest working man in show business

The tickets come with a meet and greet

tired: the aftershow
wired: the afterlifeshow

"If I was Your Dead Girlfriend"

Just give me the Controversy deluxe reissue and I'm good

"If I was Your Dead Girlfriend"

― Cthulhu Diamond Phillips (Neanderthal)

nice try, prince, but robyn hitchcock already did it better with "my wife and my dead wife"

but I’m here to tell you -
there’s something else

Electric word, life, it means forever

Newly released demo version of "7": https://open.spotify.com/track/6C0KzzELDiWNQkmlUyKY5Y?si=11de9c7a5d364bbb

Some track listings on PPL for a release of Live at Glam Slam, Minneapolis 1/11/1992. Presumably as part of a bigger box set? The release date is 2023. Here's the track listing:

PRINCE Thunder [Live at Glam Slam, Minneapolis, MN, 1/11/1992] USRH12300225 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 4:18sec
PRINCE Daddy Pop [Live at Glam Slam, Minneapolis, MN, 1/11/1992] USRH12300226 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 6:23sec
PRINCE Diamonds And Pearls [Live at Glam Slam, Minneapolis, MN, 1/11/1992] USRH12300227 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 5:31sec
PRINCE Willing And Able [Live at Glam Slam, Minneapolis, MN, 1/11/1992] USRH12300228 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 5:40sec
PRINCE Jughead [Live at Glam Slam, Minneapolis, MN, 1/11/1992] USRH12300229 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 6:52sec
PRINCE The Sacrifice Of Victor [Live at Glam Slam, Minneapolis, MN, 1/11/1992] USRH12300230 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 10:05sec
PRINCE Nothing Compares 2 U [Live at Glam Slam, Minneapolis, MN, 1/11/1992] USRH12300231 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 4:50sec
PRINCE Thieves In The Temple [Live at Glam Slam, Minneapolis, MN, 1/11/1992] USRH12300232 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 7:01sec
PRINCE Sexy M.F. [Live at Glam Slam, Minneapolis, MN, 1/11/1992] USRH12300233 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 5:45sec
PRINCE Insatiable [Live at Glam Slam, Minneapolis, MN, 1/11/1992] USRH12300234 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 7:42sec
PRINCE Gett Off [Live at Glam Slam, Minneapolis, MN, 1/11/1992] USRH12300242 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 6:11sec
PRINCE Gett Off (Housestyle) [Live at Glam Slam, Minneapolis, MN, 1/11/1992] USRH12300243 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 8:05sec
PRINCE 1999/Baby I'm A Star/Push [Live at Glam Slam, Minneapolis, MN, 1/11/1992] USRH12300362 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 9:12sec

where is my Parade box dammit

^^

I'd much prefer Parade too, but they haven't put out a real box set of stuff since Sign 'O' the Times three years ago, so I'll settle for this - a shame, they definitely had at least two sets ready that could've been released in the interim but everything with the estate got in the way.

Also more stuff from this era came up on PPL - someone posted this as well, all tracks listed on PPL:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F34TO0eXcAAB-5b?format=jpg&name=medium

FWIW, this is what comes up as search results:

PRINCE Daddy Pop (12" Mix) USRH12201992 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 6:07sec
PRINCE Martika's Kitchen USRH12201993 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 4:21sec
PRINCE Spirit USRH12201994 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 4:32sec
PRINCE Open Book USRH12201995 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 4:59sec
PRINCE Work That Fat USRH12201996 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 4:35sec
PRINCE Horny Pony (Version 2) USRH12201997 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 4:21sec
PRINCE Something Funky (This House Comes) [Band Version] USRH12201998 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 7:04sec
PRINCE Hold Me USRH12201999 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 4:36sec
PRINCE Blood On The Sheets USRH12202000 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 5:46sec
PRINCE The Last Dance (Bang Pow Zoom And The Whole Nine) USRH12202001 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 5:36sec
PRINCE Get Blue USRH12202003 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 4:43sec
PRINCE Tip O' My Tongue USRH12202004 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 4:08sec
PRINCE The Voice USRH12202005 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 4:42sec
PRINCE Trouble USRH12202006 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 5:36sec
PRINCE Alice Through The Looking Glass USRH12202023 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 4:18sec
PRINCE Hey U USRH12202025 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 6:10sec
PRINCE Letter 4 Miles USRH12202026 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 4:36sec
PRINCE I Pledge Allegiance to Your Love USRH12202027 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 4:41sec
PRINCE Thunder Ballet USRH12202028 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 10:56sec
PRINCE Schoolyard USRH12201981 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 7:10sec
PRINCE My Tender Heart USRH12201982 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 5:06sec
PRINCE Pain USRH12201983 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 5:57sec
PRINCE Streetwalker USRH12201984 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 4:48sec
PRINCE Lauriann USRH12201985 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 4:15sec
PRINCE Insatiable (Early Mix) USRH12201986 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 8:01sec
PRINCE Glam Slam '91 USRH12201987 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 6:16sec
PRINCE Live 4 Love (Early Version) USRH12201988 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 7:32sec
PRINCE Skip To My You My Darling USRH12201990 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 3:57sec
PRINCE Cream (Take 2) USRH12300245 Warner Music UK Limited 2023 4:50sec

Skip To You My Darling
aw, Skipper

Wow my heart just skipped a beat…finally get a live version of ‘Jughead’…I wonder if Tony M’s meisterwerk will finally be let loose on the world

https://superdeluxeedition.com/news/prince-diamonds-and-pearls-reissue-confirmed-full-details/

Personally very upset this isn’t coming with a replica “gun microphone” or mustard yellow roller skates.

Jeff Gold's great story about working with Prince.

An excerpt:

I was WB’s new senior vp of creative services, responsible for the art department and much of marketing, and when I saw Prince’s proposed album cover—a tight close up of his face, with two fingers in front of his lips, and his tongue sticking out between them, I thought it was kind of…ridiculous.

Since the album was a major priority for the company, I went to Mo and Lenny with my concerns. They suggested I have a meeting with Prince, and so Benny Medina, who worked closely with Prince, set one up. I was a major Prince fan, having seen him on Purple Rain tour and a few other times, and while I knew of his difficult reputation, figured ‘what have I got to lose?’ What followed was surely the most difficult meeting of my career.

Benny’s office was dark and sort of cave-like, with no windows. I entered to find Benny at his desk and Prince sitting in the middle of a couch, with the obvious spot for me a couch opposite Prince. There was no small talk, then or ever, with Prince. Benny got to the point, introducing me and telling Prince that I wasn’t particularly fond of his album cover concept.

Just as Benny finished delivering the bad news, there was a knock on the door, and Benny’s attorney stuck in his head. He needed Benny right away. Benny left, and I was alone with Prince, in full hair, makeup, and clothed like he was about to take the stage (as he always was), sitting about 5’ across from me, not particularly happy. In hindsight, I’m not sure anybody at Warners had ever offered up a negative opinion about his album artwork. He’d earned the right to call the shots, and expected to do so. But still, that photo was so…weird.

We had an hour or more of very difficult semi-conversation, mostly about what I thought he might do instead. Prince had enormous charisma, knew it, and knew how to use it. He also knew how to use silence and pauses in conversation to intimidate people, and he did a great job with me. I spoke respectfully and generally about why I thought a different image might be better. He glared. At one point, he asked with incredulity ‘What do you want me to do, wear overalls like R.E.M.?’ A bit later he said ‘Maybe I should have some clothes made for you’. I was wearing jeans and a button up shirt; he was wearing lime green skin-tight pants, high-heel boots, and a day-glo green, pin-striped, see-through shirt.

After one pause, he said ‘show me some album covers you’ve done.’ I ran upstairs to my office and collected about 20 cd’s I’d worked on, most from my previous job at A&M Records. He looked at each one, saying something dismissive about it, until near the bottom of the pile, he saw a holographic limited edition package I’d worked on for Suzanne Vega’s album Days of Open Hand (which I’d won an art direction Grammy for.) ‘Now this is great’ he said. Why can’t I have a hologram?’

Looking over this set, I may probably hold off as well. I like the album, but it's not one of my favorite Prince albums - he had yet to successfully integrate rap elements into his music (I don't think that really happened until The Gold Experience, partly because Tony M was gone by then and Prince handled it himself). The original CD was already mastered fine, that was the primary format, and non-album stuff that's been out there already like the single edits and remixes never really interested me. The three discs of vault items are interesting, I'll check those out, and the live material may be great, but it's possible I'll just be fine with the album I already have.

Apparently eight tracks from a preliminary version of that D&P set (and ultimately removed from the final track list) has leaked. Have not heard them myself but supposedly some good stuff in there.

i found an up of lauriann on YT, i won't bother linking because it'll probably be down by the time i finish posting, it's fucking _great_ tho

I’m going to be aggravated if this turns out to be good and I buy a damn Diamonds and Pearls box set.

If this further fucks up and delays their Super Deluxe reissues, I'm going to be really pissed.

https://www.billboard.com/business/legal/prince-estate-lawsuit-heirs-attempting-seize-control-1235580400/

have his films been polled?

ran across the lyrics from New World off Emancipation, both anti-trans and anti-vax

https://genius.com/Prince-new-world-lyrics

Ahead of the curve, as always.

But srsly folks, was there anyone in the 80s up to and maybe including Boy George who blurred the lines between every boy and every girl than prince? Physician, heel thyself.

As much as I love Prince, he's always been a wildly uneven political commentator, moreso after he became a Jehovah's Witness (which happened not long after Emancipation). His discography has tons of dubious lyrics and plenty of critics flagged them in their original reviews. It's a credit to his tremendous gifts that the musical elements of his work was usually more than enough to overshadow his lyrical deficiencies.

i can see how you could project an anti-trans reading on that but it seems like a stretch. how do we know that's what he meant?

he was a jehovah's witness for one

i'm sure he had some fucked up views, i just don't get that from the lyrics in this song

well obv i get the anti-vax thing from these lyrics. but which part is anti-trans?

As bird stated earlier, the song was recorded well before he became a JW. Likely around 1994. He converted around 2001. Also it stole its premise from Brave New World and likely didn't reflect any strong opinion of his own. Were anti-vax or anti-trans positions even on his radar at that time? Probably not.

or he's always been much more conservative than we thought

i don't know, a guy like prince, all you can is "it's complicated"

he wasn't always a JW, but he always loved god, he was always a Christian, and in those days, everything he learned about God was that God hated queerness. and something in him loved queerness, loved lesbians especially. "vagina was half boy and half girl/best of both worlds"... i mean, that's a gross way of looking at lesbians, but there's a _fascination_ there, at least. his closest collaborators were wendy and lisa, the work he did with them was the best of his career, and then he fired them for, well, being lesbian, mostly. he loved women, loved being around women, and he abused women. abused everyone around him, but especially women. he sings about wanting to be alone, and at the same time he kind of hated being alone. he sings about not taking pills and he took them, took them to deal with chronic pain, pain that stemmed in large part from his spending all those years walking around in high heels, and they killed him.

life gets complicated. sometimes. i mean, you look at little richard... with prince it was always a two-step, prince was never openly _queer_, he just had a, uh, sexuality. but little richard, him and queerness and god... it was complicated. little richard hated himself, and that's really sad to me. he shouldn't have had to go through all of that. it doesn't excuse anything. it's just what happened.

that's an even-handed and generous reading of prince imo.

i've cooled on him since his death tbqf

yah great post Kate

Excellent post Kate.

Also, just in case it wasn't known, Prince was raised as a Seventh-day Adventist, so he was probably surrounded by very social conservative brands of Christianity his entire life. And IIRC the Star-Tribune published an epic oral history after Prince's death where Wendy Melvoin mentioned that during one attempt at reconciliation (well after Prince had converted to JW), he asked her to renounce her sexuality and convert as well - pretty bad, but it's probably something I would've predicted given what was publicly known about his faith. It was a bittersweet remembrance though - Wendy knew the path he had taken and what it meant in terms of their friendship, that things would remain a mess, but she forgave him.

Thanks to Kate and bird for the nuances

https://polishedsolid.substack.com/p/my-2023-prince-year-in-review

The person who does this Substack just had a Prince conference this weekend in NY and am seeing lots of folks speaking highly of it online