Really?

“That’s an incredible lack of self-knowledge there from a black American man.”

Well….yeah:

“I was a biracial child, often criticized for not being black enough, and I was going to grow up to be gay…”

I think it’s commentary like Thrasher’s that put me off Prince. All of the seriously good musicians I have ever known rated him, but the level of pseudointellectual philosophising and bullshit he attracted was astonishing.

Which makes it hard to actually engage with the music, if you’ve got serious jazz players and slap funk bassists falling over themselves to tell you he’s a god-like genius.

Another exemple of the Grauniad’s prowess:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/21/david-cameron-obama-sadiq-khan-eu-referendum?CMP=fb_gu

“David Cameron can learn a lot from Obama. Decency and dignity for starters”

Who’s this Obama chap that Polyanna is talking about? Shame he couldn’t have been president instead of the other thin-skinned, rude and prickly Obama chap.

@John Square – it’s not Prince’s fault Thrasher is a bell end.

Tim A and MC

Not disputing that the man is a genius nor that Thrasher is a bell end.

I’m just saying that the mythos around a person can make it hard to get any kind of handle on whether there’s anything worth your time investigating.

Bowie is another one- every rock critic hails his worth to the heavens, but I think that only his very late period stuff is really interesting.Much of the early stuff is too weighed down by other people’s pontificating on the sexuality and androgyny debates (amongst other things) to be taken at its face value.

Now: others are free to define that cultural collateral as part of Bowie’s work, but as an (occasionally jobbing) songwriter and musician, I’m less interested in that- give me the records,and I’ll take it from there, and make my own mind up.

So Prince- stellar guitarist, talented songwriter, and consummate performer: agreed. One of the all time greats? Probably. Do I like him? Not yet.

Tim Almond – “Few people will mention that Prince was a 6 day week guy, producing mountains of songs, and of those, a small number saw the light of day.”

The man wrote music. Great music. It was not brain surgery. Nor was it grand opera – which is mostly one step removed from musical hall anyway. People shouldn’t be so serious about it.

But to agree with the main point, it is amazing what Prince threw away. A lot of his best work was on the B-sides. A lot of other people’s best work was one of his B-sides. Would anyone have heard of Sinead O’Connor if not for Prince’s song? But Chaka Khan’s I Feel For You was a B-side for Prince. Alicia Keyes’ How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore was too. When You Were Mine was covered by Cyndi Lauper – and Prince never even released it on either side of a single.

I don’t know if Manic Monday was even released by Prince before it was picked up by the Bangles.

But my favourite Prince story is this one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_Back

The newlyweds were driving up to San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara when Prince’s song “Little Red Corvette” came on the radio. Nicks started humming along to the melody, especially inspired by the lush synthesizers of the song, and “Stand Back” was born. They stopped and got a tape recorder and she recorded the demo in the honeymoon suite that night. Later, when Nicks went into the studio to record the song, she called Prince and told him the story of how she wrote the song to his melody. He came to the studio that night and played synthesizers on it, although his contribution is uncredited on the album. Then, she says, “he just got up and left as if the whole thing happened in a dream.”

Uncredited. OK it was Stevie Nicks. But the man had class.

@SMFS
“The man wrote music. Great music. It was not brain surgery.”

True, that. Brain surgeons are ten a penny compared to great songwriters.

It’s why I never wanted to be a politician: there’s been loads of PM’s but only four Beatles (excluding Pete Best, George Martin, Geoff Lynn, Mal Evans, that bloke who played keys on Get Back etc.)

Serious point: music does loads for (mental) health: arguably a good musician is a better doctor than a doctor.

John square,

I agree. Brain surgery requires a lot of skill and experience, but it can be taught with books and if we got rid of the artificial limits on supply we’d probably have a lot more. Does it take more skill and experience than say, someone who can rebuild an engine or make a croquembouche?

Medicine is elevated by the public because they leave with pain gone. People talk about how ‘the nurses were wonderful’ when mostly, they do jobs no more complex than a mechanic. People fixing software would get fired if they were as poor at diagnosis as some GPs are.

@Richard

I’d agree there. Seen a fair few burn out myself. I (briefly) associated with Pete Doherty right at the start of the Libertines upswing into success. Scary thing to see up close.

I don’t know if Manic Monday was even released by Prince before it was picked up by the Bangles.

No, I think he wrote it specifically for them.