Prince

A few weeks ago we lost another musician, the guy called Prince.   Facebook lit up like a huge purple Christmas tree; it seems everyone was a fan and everyone was sad to see him go.

I’d never been a fan, but I was aware of who he was. So I checked out 1999 and Purple Rain (album and movie).   Here are my observations.

Vikings Fan.  Dude was from Minneapolis.  He set “Purple Rain” in that city.  By all accounts he was a big Vikings fan, and used purple frequently for that reason.  However, he never actually played for the Vikings.  True story.

Music.  He had lots of albums: 39 studio albums from 1978 to 2015.  Due to some BS with his record company, he had to change his name to an unpronounceable symbol, so in 1993 we started calling him “The Artist Formerly Known As Prince”.  Then things got sorted out and he changed his name back in 2000.  I suppose he could have changed his name to “King” or “Duke” or something along those lines; maybe his lawyer can explain.

1999 and Purple Rain.  As noted, he had a lot of material released.  So far as I could tell, these two were his most popular and well esteemed.   And?

Well, my favorite two bands are AC/DC and Black Sabbath.  Veering off from them, I’ve enjoyed the Beatles, Beach Boys, Pink Floyd, Grateful Dead, and even stuff like Parliament-Funkadelic.  However, I have NEVER been a fan of dance music, of any sort, by any artist.  Nor do I care for rap – except for “Epic” (Faith No More), which I tolerate but don’t like.  1999 is dance music, as is Purple Rain, though the latter is closer to mainstream commercial rock music than the former. 

However, it’s still very beat oriented and doesn’t begin to approach even the Beatles.  Don’t call it genius.  That’s reserved for albums like Sgt Pepper and Dark Side of the Moon.  Not Purple Rain.

The movie was OK.  Notwithstanding my dislike of the music itself, the story was coherent enjoyable.  Nothing special, though.

Guitar.  Recently Prince played the Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”.   There is also some excellent guitar on 1999 and Purple Rain.  Definitely he could play, whether a natural Telecaster or any weird-shaped thing.   My problem is not with that, my issue is with his music.  Dance music with a killer guitar solo thrown in here and there is still dance music.  Not my scene.  Oddly, even Janet Jackson (“Black Cat”) and Michael Jackson (w/Jennifer Batten and Eddie Van Halen) have a few songs which could be described as “rock”.  “Beat It” could be qualified as a rock song, though Jackson wasn’t close to Iron Maiden, AC/DC, or even Van Halen.

I really dislike dance music.  The 128 bpm constant rhythm evokes an unpleasant mixture of boredom and nausea.  Moreover, it all sounds exactly the same.  Hell, Paul Stanley wrote “I Was Made For Lovin’ You” (from Dynasty) precisely because his impression was, “writing this stuff is easy.  Even I can do it.”  Fortunately for KISS fans, that song was the exception, not the rule – though much of Unmasked comes a little too close.

Gay?  Nope.  Remarkably, I don’t think he was even bisexual.   No men have come forward claiming to be intimate with him.  My take on it is that at an early stage, he knew he was not going to be macho and masculine.  So he turned things around and decided that androgynous – thank you, David Bowie – was the way to go.  As implausible as it seems, there are actually women who find androgynous men attractive, not because they think of these men as gay or bisexual, but as heterosexual men.  Bizarre, I know.  Clearly, many women did find him attractive, so his image worked on that level.  And it worked for his image, and for his music as well.  He was the total package – just not one I would buy.   :p