was prince post-modern in his takes on soul?

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im talking about the way he seems to be mocking, slyly knowing, almost parodying the champagne seduction soul style of balladry in songs like international lover and adore, where even though its meant to be devotional, he cant help but hold himself back and say his love can wreck his car, before he rethinks it to say ' well maybe not the ride'. if soul was already being vulgarised, cynically sung, and parodied to varying levels as a known entity by the late 70s, did that set the stage for someone like prince to come along and parody it in his ballads? or was he simply being witty?

― splooge (thesplooge), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 14:26 (twenty-one years ago)

he was having his cake and eating it too. god bless 'em.

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 14:28 (twenty-one years ago)

TS: Prince or Smoove B.?

― phil d., Tuesday, 10 August 2004 14:35 (twenty-one years ago)

i think prince could be classified as post-modern. certainly enough self-referential, self-aware, juxtapositions of old soul stuff with funk and pop and dance and rock and for the first 10-12 years, with fairly modern-sounding stuff. "ballad of dorothy parker" quotes joni mitchell explicitly, which is a fairly po-mo device. so yeah, i say prince is po-mo in a bunch of ways.

― peter smith (plsmith), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 14:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Prince is still around, you know.

― adam. (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 14:42 (twenty-one years ago)

hes pretty old fogey ish these days though. hes turned into an uncle or someones pops.

― splooge (thesplooge), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 14:45 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.monthlyreview.org/pomoprincecv2.jpg

proven by google image search!

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 16:44 (twenty-one years ago)

hes pretty old fogey ish these days though. hes turned into an uncle or someones pops.

Ummmmm...you need to see the live show, girlfriend.

― adam. (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 16:52 (twenty-one years ago)

OK, an uncle on the sexual offenders register.

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 16:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Talk to the hand, sister.

― adam. (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 16:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Actually, I'm being unfair. I saw him on the front of a magazine recently and he looked amazing for his age.

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 16:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Not that I'm saying people on the sexual offenders registet can't look good for their age. I'm not sure what I am saying.

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 16:56 (twenty-one years ago)

He looks incredible! And you can quote me on that!

― adam. (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 17:04 (twenty-one years ago)

"...incredible!"
adam

― adam. (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 17:04 (twenty-one years ago)

splooge is trying to say that the funky one's newer stuff isn't that exciting and the man has a tendency to self-censor because of his current morality, which also is not exciting.

― mike h. (mike h.), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 17:05 (twenty-one years ago)

If Prince is postmodern, then what does that make "Debra"? "I wanna get with you, oh girl."

― fred onis, Tuesday, 10 August 2004 17:07 (twenty-one years ago)

I love the new record. I got straight out of bed this morning and put it on before I could even unglue my eyes.

― adam. (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 17:08 (twenty-one years ago)

And then I realized I was putting a CD in the toaster and stopped.

― adam. (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 17:09 (twenty-one years ago)

to the first post: that's not postmodern, that's what music does.

― |a|m|t|r|s|t| (amateurist), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 17:09 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah - exactly. if somebody wanted an example of post-modernism in pop music, i would give them midnite vultures.

― peter smith (plsmith), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 17:10 (twenty-one years ago)

sorry - xxxxpost on my last comment

― peter smith (plsmith), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 17:11 (twenty-one years ago)

i mean, half (no, maybe more like 80%) of the time people say "that's so postmodern" they're talking about some aspect of art that's been around since, like, forever. i guess they're just flattering our particular historical moment.

― |a|m|t|r|s|t| (amateurist), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 17:12 (twenty-one years ago)

I can't hear the term "po-mo" without thinking of that Simpsons episode where Mo open's "Club M" and says to Homer, Lenny and Carl that the club is "po-mo":

HLC:
Mo: "Post-modern."
HLC:
Mo: "Weird for weird's sake."
HLC: "Ohhhhh!!"

At any rate, I think it' safe to assume, yeah, that Prince was almost parodying soul at times. Scandalous Sex Suite was a veritable piss-take on Marvin Gaye's I Want You in some ways...

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 17:42 (twenty-one years ago)

right! but: parody /= postmodernism

(i hope)

― |a|m|t|r|s|t| (amateurist), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 18:01 (twenty-one years ago)

uhh, if you saw him do that "while my guitar gently weeps" solo, you would not call him old.

― cutty (mcutt), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 18:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Old people can be talented too, you know!

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 18:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh God, I'm 31 and already defending old people.

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 18:05 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm 31 and still offending them daily.

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 18:08 (twenty-one years ago)

And at any rate:

right! but: parody /= postmodernism

True, but they're not unrelated (forgive the resorting to dictionary.com):

post·mod·ern: of, relating to, or being any of several movements (as in art, architecture, or literature) that are reactions against the philosophy and practices of modern movements and are typically marked by revival of traditional elements and techniques

par·o·dy: a literary or musical work in which the style of an author or work is closely imitated for comic effect or in ridicule

So they both obviously use elements of the original to make a point about the original. In some senses, Prince is doing both...

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 18:08 (twenty-one years ago)

i dunno, i think that def. has a rather narrow application to art & architecture. most of the use of the term in other categories strikes me as pretty nebulous, as here.

― |a|m|t|r|s|t| (amateurist), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 18:18 (twenty-one years ago)

You mean, like, "Club M"?

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 18:20 (twenty-one years ago)

The reason the term "post-modern" is meaningless here is that if you decided, "OK, Prince is post-modern"--what would that tell you about Prince that you didn't know before? Anything?

― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 18:27 (twenty-one years ago)

that he should hook up w/baudrillard for a collab?

― |a|m|t|r|s|t| (amateurist), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 18:29 (twenty-one years ago)

It kind of depends what you knew about Prince before. Unless you think that everything is post-modern.

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 18:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, if you follow post-modernism, in a sense everything has to be post-modern, like Marxism. It's a way of looking at the world. Which is why I think |a|m|t|r|s|t| is otm about people spotting age-old tricks and shouting 'po-mo, po-mo'.

Btw that dictionary definition is pretty dire.

― Jim Cassius (J.Cassius), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 19:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Is Daft Punk's "Discovery" supposed to be ironic?

― |a|m|t|r|s|t| (amateurist), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 19:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Hey, was Aristophanes post-modern in his takes on comedy?

― de, Tuesday, 10 August 2004 20:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, very: high brow and low brow, politics and knob gags, loads of gender politics, weighing up (literally) the merits of tragedies to see which poet would acheive immortality etc etc etc.

― Jim Cassius (J.Cassius), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 22:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Frederic Jameson, so much to answer for.

― bugged out, Tuesday, 10 August 2004 23:05 (twenty-one years ago)

to all the beck-buffers in this thread, he was being post modern in his 'tribute' to prince who was already being proto post modern so prince was still doing what beck was doing but he was doing it before beck so hes pre-po-mo.

― splooge (thesplooge), Thursday, 12 August 2004 10:31 (twenty-one years ago)

x-post, prince is old and fuddy these days because of what mike h. said earlier, but also because the times ive seen him live in concert since about 96, hes been 'nice' prince, trying to show everyone hes got a sense of humour, likes to make (bad) jokes, and is trying to be affable and friendly, rather than the slightly spiteful, mean (but funny), slyly amusing, distant person he used to be. sort of like david bowie in recent times actually. prince seems evern weirder when hes trying to prove he's 'over' normal than when hes just being himself.

― splooge (thesplooge), Thursday, 12 August 2004 10:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh, I dunno — that Rainbow Children show was one of the weirdest things I've ever witnessed.

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Thursday, 12 August 2004 12:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Dude, he's a JEHOVAH'S WITNESS.
You're going to tell me THAT'S Postmodern?
He's struggling to balance his faith with what he does for a living, that's all.

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Friday, 13 August 2004 04:33 (twenty-one years ago)

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