Prince (1958-2016)

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life…”

2016 continues to be a great big dick in taking away some of the most influential figures in pop culture and the arts. Prince is of no exception. Along with the recent passing of David Bowie, Prince too was an innovator and chameleon in his artistic endeavors. He transcended the mundane in his pop music and was one weird and unique soul. I always liked Prince but he was always kinda odd to me, which is fine of course but unpredictable. Although to my credit as a mild Prince fan in the early 90s I always knew he only changed his name to that funny little “love symbol” to piss off Warner Bros until his contract was over and of course change back to Prince. It’s just too bad his commercial appeal wasn’t as great as his 80s heyday. I have some of his albums from the past decade and they are good but not as good as 1999 or Purple Rain.

I recently watched Purple Rain the movie a few months back in the hope that I could do a review or a quick post about it but there are no clips on YouTube for that flick and I shelved that idea for lack of decent visuals. Well I’m sure his death now will do my work for me in having more people check out his magnum opus from 1984. I love the movie as long as I see it for what it is, and that’s a 90 minute music video for one of the greatest albums of the 80s. Prince is so melodramatic in that film it borderlines laughable. There’s one funny scene of him being so incredibly mad at his abusive father that he storms in the house and yells “Where are you MOTHERF@CKER!” in such a whiny effeminate voice that you can’t help but question why such a scene was left in the movie. I was also scratching my head as to why a grown musician (especially played by uber-independent Prince) still lived with his folks. There’s scenes in the film that feel out of context with the tones of the rest of movie but it has some of the best concert footage of all time so one can overlook the disjointedness of it all. But anyway, it’s a fun little musical full of nostalgia for the funnest decades in history and I highly recommend it to anyone. I have yet to see Prince’s other films Under the Cherry Moon and Graffiti Bridge but I may in the near future now.

I always had a profound admiration and respect for Prince and his death is another crushing blow in a year that I still have not recovered yet from Bowie’s death. Sure he was weird and eccentric but he was a musical genius, a true genius unlike another “genius” that every one keeps referring to—coughkanyecough. He was fun and enlightening; silly at times but incredibly influential. Despite his short statute and androgyny he was cool, confident and a bad-ass. I remember everyone saying he was a completely odd choice for a Super Bowl Half-time show (he was) but damn did he do a fantastic job. He died way too young and will be surely missed.

Here’s a link to our post about his awesome Batman soundtrack. Sorry all the Prince links are dead but YouTube is a dick.

Tonight I will surely be listening to his purpleness’ music while purifying myself in Lake Minnetonka.