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.
Tag: Prince
-
Not Necessarily The News – DMB, Prince and (of course) Kanye
What Would You Say?: If DMB Went Back To Work:
After a four-year absence from the studio and the loss of saxophonist Leroi Moore, the Dave Matthews Band are soldiering on with a new album and tour. The album is scheduled for release on 4/14, with the tour kicking off in New York on the same day. This new album is produced by Rob Cavallo, who manned the boards for Green Day’s massive “American Idiot” album (speaking of which, where the hell are those guys??). As a veteran of DMB shows numbering into the double digits, I am looking forward to both a new album and tour from these guys. See? I can write something without being smarmy!!
Photograph by Penner.
What Will Wendy & Lisa Say?
In the “I Love His Music, But The Guy’s a Douchebag” department, Prince allegedly revealed himself as a homophobe by saying “God came to Earth and saw people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever, and he just cleared it all out”. Of course, Prince (who, in case you haven’t heard, has been a Jehovah’s Witness for the past several years)’s people denied that he made the statement, but the New Yorker, the magazine in which the statement was published, is standing by the quote. Talk about sticking your foot in your mouth, especially when you’re an artist who has traded in on gay imagery and tons of gay fans for years. I wonder how a cuban heel tastes in your mouth, Mr. Nelson?Mr West: Lip Synching?
So, according to this news clip, the message boards are abuzz, wondering if Kanye lip-synched his “Saturday Night Live”. Folks, find a place somewhere that has the clips of his performance and you tell me if he’s lip-synching, because if I was miming, I’d have made sure the vocals I was miming to sounded a hell of a lot better than Kanye’s did on Saturday night. Kanye fairly obviously used a background singer to hit the high notes he would have otherwise muffed, and the Auto-Tune was in full effect, but anyone with half an ear can tell the dude wasn’t lip synching. -
Infatueighties: #75: Stevie Nicks’ “Stand Back”
When “Rumours” and “Tusk” were popular in the late Seventies,I don’t think anyone imagined Stevie Nicks hitting the dance floor, but 1983’s sizzling “Stand Back” did just that, with the help of a little man dressed in purple whose name you might know: Prince.So, here’s the deal. Stevie wrote the song, whose tempo and overall sound were influenced by the then-new sounds of “1999” and “Little Red Corvette”. At some point during the recording of the song, Prince magically appeared in the studio, improvised and recorded the song’s memorable keyboard part (allegedly only with two fingers), then with a click of his Cuban heels, magically exited the studio. Do I buy that? I’m not sure. (according to wikipedia, Stevie called Prince the night she wrote the song and that’s how Prince ended up in the studio). Either way, the song has a heavy Purple influence and was one of the best dance/rock tracks in an era of many, many great dance rock tracks.
And like all the rest of you, i assume, I have no idea what the hell Stevie’s singing about either.