This is the first in what will be a regular feature here on The MUSIC, Fools. In the "Much Love To:" series, I will heap praise upon an artist that I think richly deserves it. Basically, this is my chance (cuz it's my blog) to tell you what I really like.
So, today, we begin with much love to PRINCE, the granddaddy of them all when it comes to giving much love. There is no one who is more important to my musical life than Prince. No one. Everyone else falls short, and this includes other artists who I am absolutely crazy about, like Tom Waits, Iron and Wine, XTC, Tori Amos, Tool, Ricky Skaggs, and Radiohead.
I began listening to Prince about the same time everyone else did, around the time Purple Rain came out. I was on the way to the beach with my family and "When Doves Cry" came on the radio. I didn't like Prince at all at the time (for stupid, childish reasons), so there was some resistance. It didn't last.
Soon, I was shakin' my ass along with the rest of America, doing air piano, and pounding on every surface with reach to keep the beat with this totally bitchin' song. 1983 turned into a Purple Rain festival for me, as I grew to know songs like "The Beautiful Ones," "Computer Blue," "Let's Go Crazy," and, lord help me, "Darling Nikki." Hell, "The Beautiful Ones" became so important to me that I recorded it over and over on a 120-minute tape just so that I could listen to it when some damn girl had done me wrong. Think on that: A two hour tape filled with nothing but one three to four minute song! Ah, teenagers who torture themselves willingly....
Whenever I discover an artist that already has a body of work in progress, what usually happens with me is that I go backward as well as forward. This is what I did with Prince. Around The World In A Day came next, and then I went back in time to 1999. I was thoroughly amazed.
Many more albums followed, and I followed with them. Years later, when the Daily Texan (the University of Texas at Austin's daily paper) ran a picture of Prince and Appolonia, I went out and got hundreds of copies, put a song title on each picture, and taped those suckers to my wall. Prince was present at almost every turn. If he wasn't there when something important was happening to me, his music certainly worked as a context for my life. "Friend, Lover, Mother, Sister, Wife" was the song I danced to with my wife for the first time. My kids like (and sometimes request) Prince's music, which gives me fatherly pride like you wouldn't believe.
Prince's music is like an heirloom of sorts, something I can pass on after I am gone. And I know that his music will never lose its relevance because it is timeless and universal and inventive and ever-changing. Prince endures.
So much love to Prince, for being the most important musician of the last 25 years. Keep it up, fool, because not everyone does it as right as you do.
So, today, we begin with much love to PRINCE, the granddaddy of them all when it comes to giving much love. There is no one who is more important to my musical life than Prince. No one. Everyone else falls short, and this includes other artists who I am absolutely crazy about, like Tom Waits, Iron and Wine, XTC, Tori Amos, Tool, Ricky Skaggs, and Radiohead.
I began listening to Prince about the same time everyone else did, around the time Purple Rain came out. I was on the way to the beach with my family and "When Doves Cry" came on the radio. I didn't like Prince at all at the time (for stupid, childish reasons), so there was some resistance. It didn't last.
Soon, I was shakin' my ass along with the rest of America, doing air piano, and pounding on every surface with reach to keep the beat with this totally bitchin' song. 1983 turned into a Purple Rain festival for me, as I grew to know songs like "The Beautiful Ones," "Computer Blue," "Let's Go Crazy," and, lord help me, "Darling Nikki." Hell, "The Beautiful Ones" became so important to me that I recorded it over and over on a 120-minute tape just so that I could listen to it when some damn girl had done me wrong. Think on that: A two hour tape filled with nothing but one three to four minute song! Ah, teenagers who torture themselves willingly....
Whenever I discover an artist that already has a body of work in progress, what usually happens with me is that I go backward as well as forward. This is what I did with Prince. Around The World In A Day came next, and then I went back in time to 1999. I was thoroughly amazed.
Many more albums followed, and I followed with them. Years later, when the Daily Texan (the University of Texas at Austin's daily paper) ran a picture of Prince and Appolonia, I went out and got hundreds of copies, put a song title on each picture, and taped those suckers to my wall. Prince was present at almost every turn. If he wasn't there when something important was happening to me, his music certainly worked as a context for my life. "Friend, Lover, Mother, Sister, Wife" was the song I danced to with my wife for the first time. My kids like (and sometimes request) Prince's music, which gives me fatherly pride like you wouldn't believe.
Prince's music is like an heirloom of sorts, something I can pass on after I am gone. And I know that his music will never lose its relevance because it is timeless and universal and inventive and ever-changing. Prince endures.
So much love to Prince, for being the most important musician of the last 25 years. Keep it up, fool, because not everyone does it as right as you do.
2 comments:
Oh hell to the yeah
Well now... you do have some validity after all...
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