Good Things To Read (And Watch) In The Wake Of Prince's Death
On Thursday, the world lost Prince, a singular music talent whose impact resonated far beyond the radio. As we pore through his discography here are a few excellent things to read — memorials, old magazine profiles, remembrances and even an odd story or two — to remember Prince.
The New York Times Obituary
Across a career of more than 35 years, Prince released 39 albums while being lauded not only for his songs, but their visual presentation both onstage and on camera. His 1984 film "Purple Rain" is widely considered one of the best and most influential music films ever, while its accompanying soundtrack spawned the No. 1 hits "Let's Go Crazy" and "When Doves Cry." He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004.
This Rolling Stone Cover Story From 1983
All cocky, teasing talk about sex, that's Prince. Forget Mr. Look So Good; meet the original Mr. Big Stuff. He's afraid of nothing onstage: ready to take on all the desires of a stadium full of his lusty fans, ready to marry funky black dance music and punky white rock music after their stormy separation through the Seventies, ready to sell his Sex Can Save Us message to anybody who'll give his falsetto a listen.
Hilton Als's Spawling Harper's Piece On Learning To Love Prince
In general, artists forge one of two career paths for themselves early on. Either they reject the world in order to become the romantic hero of their own imagining, or they embrace the real, transmuting what they find in the streets and in people's homes into tales an audience can readily identify with. Growing up, Prince did both. And he used urban black music and black gay attitude as it filtered through and got mixed up in his predominantly white Midwestern environment to express his quintessentially American self. And it was this self—which, visually, at least, he played as male and female, gay and straight, black and white—that Prince used to remake black music in his own image.
[Harper's]
Questlove's Story About That One Time Prince Let Him Into His Show, Asked Him To Throw A Party And Then Asked To Put On 'Finding Nemo'
The New York Times Profiles A Young Prince, When The World Was Less Kind To Him
Prince's mixed black-Italian parentage and his upbringing in a racially integrated neighborhood in Minneapolis contributed to his genuinely biracial musical approach and outlook. The fact that white rock fans and radio stations have tended to banish him to the blackmusic ghetto says more about racism in contemporary pop music circles than it does about Prince's songs or his presentation. And their resistance has been crumbling; Prince's third Warner Bros. album, "Dirty Mind," sold spectacularly and spawned a hit single, "Uptown," and his latest album, "Controversy," gives every indication of equaling and perhaps exceeding that performance.
GQ Spends Six Days In Paisley Park
Like his records, like his stage shows, Prince's Paisley Park headquarters is a monument to this system of beliefs. It's a strange place, even to visit. Something in the water, as Prince once so memorably put it, does not compute. It's not anything physical, not the two doves in their cage or the purple galaxy painted on the boardroom ceiling or the obsessive cleanliness. It's something more intangible, and you see it in the faces of the people who work there. They're like students taking a long, perplexing exam, trying to work out what the question means before they can start writing.
[GQ]
On Prince's Blackness, His Sexuality And His Duality
Regardless of how you feel about astrology, it's important to remember that Prince was, and identified as, a Gemini. The zodiac sign of the twins. Duality was in his DNA and reflected in his music and persona; he was alternately shy and aggressive, tender and fierce, the seducer and the seduced. He could play delicate piano arrangements and destroy a hard rock guitar riff.
[Fusion]
Carlos Boozer Praising Prince For Being A Good Tenant
Some time ago, NBA power forward Carlos Boozer rented out his Beverly Hills home to Prince. Then Prince happened:
"Supposedly, Prince changed the front gate to the Prince sign, he changed the master bedroom to a hair salon, he changed the streaming blue waters that led to the front door to purple water, he knocked out walls, he changed the molding on top of the ceiling. Booz was livid. So pissed off, so angry … He put his Purple Rain stamp on it … Booz was like, 'I was getting ready to go over there and beat this little man down.' And dude was just like 'Here, Boozer, here is a little check for about a million, it'll take care of everything, get it back the way you want it.' And Booz was like, 'This little man is cool as hell.'"
[ESPN]
Kevin Smith's Very Lengthly And Awesome Story About Working With Prince
Pitchfork's Look At How 'Dirty Mind' Made Prince A Rock Star
When Prince signed to Warner Bros. Records in 1977 at age 19, his contract not only called for an unusual degree of creative control—he was to write, produce, and play every instrument on his recordings, à la Stevie Wonder—but also explicitly stated that he be part of the label's pop roster, not its R&B one. This distinction would shape the entirety of his career to come.
Ta-Nehisi Coates On Prince's Lyricism
One thing I've appreciated about Prince, as I've aged, is that he knows how to sing about sex, like a man honestly singing about sex. Much of the misogyny in hip-hop (and I suspect in other art forms too) comes from, forgive my profanity, a deep-seated fear of ass. Men—and especially young men—fear what they will do to be physically involved with a woman with whom they're infatuated… But Prince was never afraid of himself, or what he'd do. On the contrary, he embraced it.
Prince Guest Stars On 'Muppets Tonight'
A Brief History Of Prince's Custom Font Floppy Disks
In 1993, Prince frustrated contract lawyers and computer users everywhere when he changed his name to glyph known as "The Love Symbol."… The Love Symbol proved frustrating for people who wanted to both speak and write about Prince. Writers, editors, and layout designers at magazines and newspapers wouldn't be able to type the actual name of the Artist Formerly Known As Prince. So Prince did the only thing you could do in that situation: He had a custom-designed font distributed to news outlets on a floppy disk.
Some Of His Best Performances
His wet, wild and legendary "Purple Rain" performance during the Super Bowl XLI half-time show
His unbelievable cover of Radiohead's "Creep"
His solo during a performance of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
