Remember yesterday I told you about Prince’s plans to release a pair of albums in the New Year? Well, you can find the first fruits of his labor on his website, lotusflow3r.com. Of course, Lotus Flower is the name of one of the albums the Purple One will be releasing this year. There’s video footage, a web store, and three new songs being streamed, including Prince’s cover of Tommy James & The Shondells/Joan Jett & The Blackhearts’ “Crimson & Clover”. Check it out and let us know what you think of the new material!!
Author: Money Mike
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Infatueighties #60: “Situation”
Was I the only person who thought that the vocalist in this song was a guy. I remember hearing “Situation” on some decade-ending Top 100 countdown in ’89 or ’90 and saying “wow, that guy says ‘he is my lover’. That’s pretty ballsy for a song from 1982.” Hell, it would be ballsy for a song today. Imagine my amazement when it turned out that the full, deep voice of the singer turned out to be that of Alison Moyet, who is definitely a woman. A whole lot of woman, too. Regardless of the singer’s sex, “Situation” harkens back to the days when dance music was as interesting to listen to for the songwriting as it was for the beat. Moyet and partner Vince Clarke (of Depeche Mode and then Erasure) were a team that should have lasted way more than two albums (although I keep reading that they disliked one another) and this song should be all the reason you need to agree. Match Clarke’s synthesizer wizardry with Moyet’s vocal pyrotechnics and you’ve got a clear winner. Hopefully their well-received reunion this past year means more music is in the pipeline for Yaz. And can you imagine an album featuring the vocals of both Moyet AND Andy Bell? There would be some serious singin’ goin’ on there (not to mention the fact that every gay person over the age of 30 would run out for a copy).Alison still has it, as this live clip attests to.
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Another Purple Protege? Say It Ain’t So, Prince!!
So, the latest news from Minneapolis is that Prince is releasing three new albums in 2009. Aside from “MPLSOUND”, which is supposed to be an experimental electro-pop album and “Lotus Flower”, which is a more guitar-based album, he is also releasing an album from his latest protege, Bria Valente. Used to be a time when being a Prince protege meant something. Remember The Time and Vanity 6? They released great albums in the early Eighties. Even if Prince played most of the instruments and wrote most of the songs, it’s obvious that The Time were a kick ass band. Not only were they awesome live, but they spawned Morris Day, Jesse Johnson, and the Jam/Lewis production team. However, The Time and Vanity 6 soon morphed into Carmen Electra, a past-their-prime George Clinton and Mavis Staples, and Prince’s then-wife Mayte. During the latter part of his Warner Bros. career, it seemed that Prince was mentoring artists just for the sake of having hot women in his stable as opposed to having any artistic belief in them. I couldn’t tell you if that’s changed over the years or not, since Tamar, his last protege, didn’t even get a U.S. release. So, while I’m sort of optimistic about new music from the Purple One, I’m not so optimistic about music from any artist to fall under his umbrella. At least not anymore. I’m not even gonna post any Prince videos here, lest I get the drawers sued off me, but here are a couple of Prince protege videos from years past.