Who saw this coming?
Who?
Prince is dead. Prince Rogers Nelson is gone. His Royal Badness made their last song and album and concert.
He was one of those last performers of immortality aura. Or rather – a surreal aura.
Prince was primarily unreal.
What can you compare him to? Is there anyone? Or something? I doubt it.
There are awesome guitarists and dancers. There are phenomenal producers, songwriters, singers, instrumentalists, artists soul, funk machines, rock fools, live phenomenon, jazz heroes and pop stars. But what do you call someone who managed to be all that at the same time? And as long as the best in every detail, genre and expression? If the creature even have a name?
Well, until the morning Thursday, April 21, US time, he had a name. And it was Prince.
Two shimmering guitar solos
I think of a small club gig in Holland in 1988 now. I do not know why. I was not even there.
But it was one of those legendary nights when the Prince and his band showed up unannounced after his real official Arena concert and jam sessions. The recording has since been circulated under the name of “small club”. Many suspect that Prince leaked it himself.
There is a version of the ballad “Still would stand all time” as I listened to so many times that I can almost every known type of snare drum heart. The ballad was at that time unreleased Prince improvise with the musicians.
His falsetto is hypnotic. He makes two shimmering guitar solos. And he can also, in the space of twelve minutes scold choir as they sing errors in the chorus.
I do not know how many times I’ve closed their eyes and wished that I had to be there, at the front of the stage so close to the magic that I can almost touch the high heels.
But what had platsat up there with “Purple rain” is just a fleeting moment that never was published. I would be surprised if the Prince himself at all remembered that version.
unreleased rarities
When the Prince was the best and biggest in the 80s – well, actually the whole career – he just wanted to continue , constantly on. The present moment is all, yesterday no. A spirit that he inherited and shared with two of its top models, Miles Davis and Joni Mitchell .
Pirate Recorded live concerts and unreleased songs is highly an important part of Princes career. As much as I have listened to him, I suspect there’s more that I just hacking at the tip of the iceberg, it is indispensable taxes remain below the surface. Or inside his famous arches in the studio Paisley Park where he, according to rumor, hiding all unreleased rarities.
But, my God, that he gave out enough. That’s enough. For a while it seemed the hits and the unforgettable songs do not run out.
“When You Were Mine,” “Purple Rain,” “When Doves Cry,” “Little Red Corvette,” “Kiss,” “Raspberry Beret “” U Got The look “,” Sometimes it Snows in April “,” The most beautiful girl in the world “,” Pop Life “,” I would die 4 U, “” Diamonds and Pearls “,” Let’s go crazy “” I Could Never take the Place of your man “,” Alphabet st “,” If I was your girlfriend “…
And” Manic Monday “as he wrote to bangles . And “I Feel For You” which he gave to the Chaka Khan . And “Nothing compares 2 U” which he sent on to the Sinead O ‘Connor . And “A Love Bizarre” as he did with Sheila E . And the fabulous, fabulous, fabulous Covern on Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You”. And so the entire double album “Sign ‘O’ The Times”, from beginning to end, again. And all challenging and thorny and difficult to chew and puzzling and sometimes brilliant drop after 1997. Today’s pop music would not sound the same without the Prince. It is possible to trace his DNA in almost all streamed or played on the radio.
Chose remove Spotify
Self Prince was at his death not on Spotify. And he controlled with an iron fist all that oozed out on Youtube. The clips were taken away almost as fast as they were put up. In 2010, he said even the internet was over.
An artist who helped build the digital age picked off some of its main channels today should have been commercial suicide. But Prince had no hits. He started as he finished – on stage, in front of an audience screaming for more after concerts that could contain 38 songs.
In recent years, he became a traveling funk party that played under the radar.
the audience did not hear him on the radio. The audience rarely read about him in the newspapers. The audience did not find him on the charts. The audience did not buy his records. But audiences flocked to his concerts, where he played. If they got tickets.
In the end, he was one of the best-paid live performers again, the obvious main act of the festival at any time.
To see and experience him had to be be there, on the spot. Prince managed to create a mystique around their shows which would not normally be able to exist in a world that is monitored by our smartphones.
A concert I will never forget
I saw him at the Way Out West 2011 . In light of what has just happened feels the concert even more memorable and precious now. It was everything I dreamed of and hoped to experience in front of a stage.
Several times I had to snatch hold of a colleague and shout:
“Is it true? Is this true? Do you see what I see? What the hell is going on? I can not breathe! “
And somehow I am still there, in the middle of the boiling crowd sea. I have purple confetti in their hair and feel the blood bubbles, the heart nearly pounding holes in the chest and the head flashes. Prince glides across the stage in one of her weightless moves, he kicks down the microphone stand that bounce back, funk rumbles forward, groove can not stop and everything, absolutely everything, screaming life, life, life, life, life.
he directed the show with a strange mixture of animated heat and an attitude which reveals how he once persuaded a hair salon to close and cover the windows when he would cut itself.
the idea was that the Prince, in the midst of the stars egokonflikt in the 80s, was involved in Michael Jackson song “Bad”. But Prince had problems with the first line “Your butt is mine.” He said to Michael:
“Who will sing that to whom? For one thing is certain – you sing it not to me. “
The Empire State Building should light purple at night. The greatest and most complete artist of all is gone.
Music sounded better with you.
READ ALSO Artist Prince found dead
No comments:
Post a Comment