May 24, 2006

Prince...

... on "American Idol." Shut up, already. Damn!
Posted by Ann Althouse at 9:52 PM
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16 comments:

XWL said...

Housequake isn't even close to being one of my favorite Prince songs, or even the best song on Sign O the Times, but it does have just about the best opening of any song, ever.

Shut up already, damn!
Tell me who in this house know about the quake?
(We do)
I mean really, really
If you know how 2 rock say 'yeah' (yeah)
If U know how 2 party say 'oh yeah' (oh yeah)
But if U ain't hip 2 the rare house quake:
Shut up already, damn!

5/24/06, 10:54 PM
Adam said...

Sign O'The Times is pure genius. One of my favorite albums ever. Just bliss:

It was only last June when her old man ran away
She couldn't stop crying 'cause she knew he was gone 2 stay
It was 10:35 on a lonely friday night
She was standin' by the bar
Hmm, she was lookin' alright, yeah
I asked if she wanted 2 dance
And she said all she wanted was a good man
And wanted 2 know if I thought I was qualified, yeah
And I said, baby don't waste your time
I know what's on your mind
I may be qualified 4 a one night stand
But I could never take the place of your man

5/24/06, 10:58 PM
MadisonMan said...

The daughter (12) had no clue who Prince was. I guess I'll download some dance funk from the iStore for her, just to broaden her musical horizons.

5/24/06, 11:02 PM
Adam said...

How do you teach Prince to someone who has now seen the two decades which followed?

Start with "1999", "Raspberry Beret" and . . . gosh . . . "When Does Cry"?

I've tried to imagine explaining what Nirvana meant to people who grew up afterwards, and it's impossible.

5/24/06, 11:12 PM
Ann Althouse said...

Madison Man: Just play the album "1999" in the car over and over for a while. Or "Purple Rain." Or "Sign o' the Times." Dance, Music, Sex, Romance.

5/24/06, 11:26 PM
Ann Althouse said...

I'd just like to point out that in the previous post, I obviously didn't know Prince was going to be on, but in the title to the post, the phrase "I mean, really" appears, straight out of "Housequake." I don't know what that means. I just like it.

5/24/06, 11:28 PM
Adam said...

JAC, here's the problem (and then we'll stop this tangent, maybe): even if you explain Nirvana's predecessor's like the Pixies and the Buzzcocks, well, that stuff doesn't *sound* so innovative anymore it has long since been incorporated into the defintion of what's "mainstream". There's nothing on Doolittle that wouldn't, these days, fit perfectly well on the radio, but back then you'd never hear it on a traditional rock station.

5/25/06, 6:55 AM
Marty Lederman said...

Sign O' the Times and 1999 are great, to be sure -- "Little Red Corvette" and "U Got the Look" essential (as are "When Doves Cry" and "Kiss"). But any Prince lesson (for kids who are, say, 15 and up, anyway) must begin with "I Wanna Be Your Lover" and, especially, Dirty Mind, his most perfect record -- and one that seemed nearly inconceivable when he dropped it on us back in 1980. Can't tell you how many times I blasted it at full volume in my dormroom. (In retrospect, I must have been a fairly annoying neighbor.) "When You Were Mine," "Uptown," "Head," "Party Up." An extended, perfect jam. Unparalleled.

5/25/06, 8:29 AM
SippicanCottage said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
5/25/06, 8:31 AM
Adam said...

Prince pretty much wrote all The Time's songs, and performed most of the instruments on the recordings.

But the mirror was Jerome's idea.

5/25/06, 8:40 AM
SippicanCottage said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
5/25/06, 9:19 AM
Marty Lederman said...

Forgot to mention: Dirty Mind had the added virtue of inspiring one of the all-time best lines in rock-crit history, Robert Christgau's "Mick Jagger should fold up his penis and go home."

5/25/06, 10:24 AM
Marty Lederman said...

P.S. And that was saying something, coming as it did less two years after the release of a Stones masterpiece, Some Girls, i.e., back when Mick's penis really (sh)mattered . . .

5/25/06, 10:26 AM
jeff said...

Can you imagine him singing "Raspberry Beret"... to Katherine McPhee?

5/25/06, 10:44 AM
XWL said...

Let me stick up for the messy, slightly crazed, over prolific, post "Slave" Prince.

Emancipation, and Crystal Ball, all 7 CDs worth of songs are mostly brilliant (some of his best grooves are interspersed with throwaway tunes on those albums, those two overlong albums make a strong case for record company oversight and outside influence on editing down the number of tracks).

Even his last three albums, Rainbow Children, Musicology and 3121 still have many strong tracks on them.

There are only two Prince albums that don't have at least one fantastic track on them (Batdance and Chaos and Disorder), if you have been lax in your Prince habit since 1990, you've been doing yourself a disservice.

Also I guess a "Prince" week on next year's Idol has just become much more likely.

(Now if they could get a "Ray Davies" week in there too, the show might be much more watchable)

I've rambled enough, I'll shut up already, damn!

5/25/06, 1:31 PM
Craig Ranapia said...

xwl wrote:
Also I guess a "Prince" week on next year's Idol has just become much more likely.

Nooooo... The problem is that Prince's back catalogue requires a great deal of musicality and balls-out showmanship - qualities conpicuous by their absence in this season of Idol. Seriously, isn't the annual massacre of the Great American Songbook bad enough?

5/25/06, 4:59 PM

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