Prince
I guess I should explain this one. You see, if it wasn't for a very specific turn of
events, I might have become quite the Prince fan. Back in the early 80's, when I was just
getting into buying music, I got The Purple One's excellent 1999 double album, and
even started to appreciate the superfunkafied stuff (and giggle helplessly at the line,
"He's definitely masturbating!" from "All the Critics..."; hey, I was 15 years old, what
the hell do you expect??) I think I even had a copy of Purple
Rain (can't remember) -- I was definitely a fan of "When Doves Cry", "Let's Go Crazy",
and "Darling Nikki". In fact, had things continued the way they were going, my musical
tastes might have gone completely in the R&B direction, and my CD Gallery would have been
composed of acts like Boys II Men and the Spice Girls, as opposed to Fear
Factory and Napalm Death. But then Prince did something completely
unforgivable -- instead of showing up for the "We Are The World" recording sessions, like
he was supposed to, he went out partying at some L.A. club, where one of his Samoan beast
bodyguards beat the shit out of a photographer. I found that event so appalling, I immediately
liquidated my entire Prince collection, erased all my tapes of his music, and swore to God
I would never have ANYTHING to do with that scrawny little fuck again, EVER! And as the
following years passed, I watched with amused scorn as he played like the stuck-up prick
he is, changing his name to that unpronounceable symbol (like HELL I'm gonna call him
"The Artist Formerly Known As..."), and pioneer the entire 90's hip-hop music genre, with
songs that I suppose some find revolutionary and artistic, but which I consider to be
TOTAL CRAP...
"1999"
- "1999" (6:22)
- "Little Red Corvette" (4:58)
- "Delirious" (3:56)
- "Let's Pretend We're Married" (7:20)
- "D.M.S.R." (8:05)
- "Automatic" (9:24)
- "Something in the Water (Does Not Compute)" (4:00)
- "Free" (5:00)
- "Lady Cab Driver" (8:25)
- "All the Critics Love U in New York" (5:55)
- "International Lover" (6:35)
...but as time wore on, I became more and more nostalgic for this album, which really
wasn't that bad. So about a year ago, I lifted my "Prince boycott", and decided to buy
this CD whenever a used copy showed up and I wasn't already over-budget from browsing the
A thru O section. So here it is...and really, I don't feel bad about my decision. This really
IS good music, more in the vein of funkadelic than hip-hop trash, so who cares if its creator is
a self-absorbed asshole who needs a frontal lobotomy in the worst way possible?? And since the
turn of the century is nearly upon us (Y2K! COME ON, Y2K!!), we can expect to hear the
title track VERY often on the radio stations and video channels (ha, like there's more than one)
across the world. And why not? It's an awesome song, I admit that freely. Really, I do. Honest.
"Purple Rain"
- "Let's Go Crazy" (4:39)
- "Take Me With U" (3:54)
- "The Beautiful Ones" (5:13)
- "Computer Blue" (3:59)
- "Darling Nikki" (4:14)
- "When Doves Cry" (5:54)
- "I Would Die for U" (2:49)
- "Baby I'm a Star" (4:24)
- "Purple Rain" (8:41)
Hmm, already I can feel the hate mail brewing. :) Well, it's interesting. When this album
came out (just after the infamous "We Are The World" incident described above) I really didn't
like Prince's music anymore, except for "Let's Go Crazy" which is a hella rockin' track. A few
decades later, however, "When Doves Cry" grew on me in a big way, probably triggered by Nile
Rogers' commentary on one of those endless VH1 retrospectives, when he pointed out there is NO
BASS in that song! Ok, another few years later, a friend suggests I check out "Computer Blue",
and at the same time I downloaded "Darling Nikki" for the PMRC implications. Both songs turned
out to be damn good...and that means, I've got FOUR songs now from one CD, which automatically
moves it from the "download list" to the "buy list". And once that happened, I located a cheaply
priced used copy, just a few days later. FUCK!
UPDATE 8/20/02: After years of silence, this page
is finally starting to generate some hate mail again. And unlike last time, it's NOT from
people making fun of me for owning a Prince CD...it's from people who actually LIKE the
skinny little fucker! It all started with this letter:
From: Nep2nes@aol.com
Date: Sat, 17 Aug 2002 01:31:18 EDT
Subject: about prince
You say that you had only two Prince albums--1999 and Purple Rain. Then you say you
abandoned Prince (poor Prince) because he didn't show up at the "We Are The World"
recording session and instead went out to a nightclub where his bodyguard knocked
some innocent heads together. Where did u read that lie--in 1985 's National Enquirer?
On the contrary, Prince recorded "4 The Tears In Your Eyes" and donated THAT song
to the "We Are The World" album. It's not as if he snubbed the whole charity, he
just wanted to do his OWN song as opposed to being Michael Jackson's muppet and
singing that silly song "We Are The World", which reeks of corniness. Do some research
and for fuck's sake, get it right!
So you see, you've missed years and years worth of funky Prince music because
you got that situation ALL WRONG. Shame on you for believing everything you read/hear.
My question is, what the hell does that situation (if it were even TRUE) have to do
with buying the music? It's amazing how you can judge Prince's whole career but you
only have owned two old-ass albums you picked up as some pre-pubescent music listener.
Thats pretty laughable.
Wake up and stop living in the past! I doubt Def Leppard will
be a group we'll rememberfor years to come! Prince is still making music and making
the lion's share of the profits from the albums because of the whole name change and
his battle with the record company. If you didn't know what the name change was REALLY
about, you should have asked somebody!
I received two more similar emails over the weekend (which, while humerous, were far
too stupid and juvenile to glorify by reprinting here), which of course made me suspicious...
and after some exhaustive research, I discovered that the above person not only wrote me,
but also posted a message at prince.org about this "anti-Prince page", as she called it.
(The actual threads can be found here
and here.) Well, since
this person is jonesing for a reply of some kind, here it is:
- As far as I know, the "We Are the World" incident is true. It was reported widely in
the media when it happened, and *not* just MTv and Rolling Stone, either!
Unfortunately, official cites from 1985 are extremely hard to find online, so you'll just
take my word for it (as opposed to the word of an extremely deluded fan who has every
motivation to whitewash his idol...)
- Even so, the "actual" reason given is just as stupid. Prince didn't want to be part
of the Michael Jackson machine? Fair enough...but this is a fucking CHARITY ALBUM, dammit!!
Plus, did you catch that 1995 music awards show where Prince finally agreed to take the
stage and sing "We Are the World" with a bunch of other stars, but instead, all he did was
STAND THERE SUCKING ON A LOLLIPOP!!! What's up with THAT? (I'll bet it's not the ONLY
thing he's fond of sucking, either!)
- As for judging the artist based on his or her actions, that's nothing new. (Just look
at where Metallica rates with me these days...) And back in '85,
my musical tastes were already skewing towards rock & heavy metal anyways, so even if that
incident never happened, I don't think my collection would be THAT much different...
- So what IS the real story behind Prince's infamous name change?
Regarding the message board threads, I did find it interesting how only a few posters
actually agreed with her, while the majority raked her over the coals for being a jerkoff!
Most interesting was this comment: "It reads to me like he's a heavy metal fan apologizing
to his cronies for owning an R&B album." Damn straight...
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