Over the last 10 days we have been honouring the legendary Prince as we counted down the days til’ today – the release of his new (and free) album 20Ten. From videos, to performances, pictures to interviews – we’ve seen just a snippet into his genius. This feature could have easily run for weeks, months, years even. But here we are, the 10th and final day, the day the new album drops via The Daily Mirror – go get that freeness right now.
Anyways, this post is for those who have either not seen all 10 Reasons, or for those who want to relive it (like I’m going to). As you can see, we’ve also added a cool, jazzy banner up top (shouts to James!). So, without further ado, click the thumbnail images up top and relieve just 10 Reasons Why I Love Prince…
Prince’s new album 20Ten is waiting for you in your local newsagents. Make sure you go buy The Daily Mirror (pretty much the only time you’ll ever hear me say that) and enjoy The Purple One’s new FREE LP.
This of course means, ’10 Reasons Why I Love Prince’ has now come to an end. I’m actually pretty sad, I’ve really enjoyed having an excuse to post something on Prince everyday. But all good things and all that jazz.
Anyways, none of the posts so far have been in any type of chronological order, but this one was definitely saved til’ today. From the moment I came up with this idea, I knew this would be featured and would probably be the last thing I post. So, without further adue…
The video above is one of the shortest clips you’ll probably find, but it’s actually my favourite, favourite, favourite interview by him ever. In it, Chris Rock (?!?!) asks Prince about his rivalry with Michael Jackson and why he never featured on ‘Bad’ – Prince’s response is – PRICELESS.
This is exactly why I love Prince.
Thank you for taking this Purple journey with me, I’m off to listen to 20Ten about 20 million times. Hope you do the same!
P.s …Can you imagine what that meeting must of been like? Oh, man. And imagine if this collabo actually did happen – I’m sure the universe would have shifted or something. Shit.
I struggled today. Not because I ran out of material to post, haha, never that – but because I have too much to post. I could literally run this feature for months to get through all the greatness this man has given us. It was a toss up between ‘Purple Rain’, the video for ‘Musicology’ and a few other bits. I decided against ‘Purple Rain’ because that’s obvious and despite ‘Musicology’ being one of Prince’s best songs in recent years – I decided to go with something else.
I decided to post ‘The One’, a Prince song only really known by Prince stans. It’s a beautiful song which featured on his New Power Soul album which was released in 1998. I actually only recently discovered this LP myself. I knew of it and knew of ‘The One’ but had never heard it in full – got overly happy when I found it.
Anyways – ‘The One’ on that album was by far the stand out track. Prince is talking to his woman about being ‘The One’ saying “if you’re looking for a man who will run away from responsibly – I ain’t the one…If you’re looking for a man who will come and sweep you off your feet, baby, I’m The One”. Such a tune.
The video above is of him performing ‘Question of U’ & ‘The One’ live – they also incorporate Alicia Keys’ ‘Fallin’ in there too. His voice in this clip is sensational – from the highs of his falsetto to the depth of his baritone – the man does it all. And that funk scream? Do the damn thing Prince.
‘The One’ – definitely a reason why I love Prince. The fact that I can still discover new music from this guy is heavy.
Arguably one of his most experiemental and ‘out there’ albums I discovered The Rainbow Children in a second hand record store about 6 years ago. I was trawling through the ‘rubbish’ pile and noticed the albums artwork, instantly intrigued I took a closer look to realise it was actually an album by Prince. I brought it quickly (it was like, £3!) and rushed home to listen. When I pressed play I actually didn’t know what to think. It was crazy, weird, strange – but it’s heavy Jazz influence offered something all together quite smooth.
The album is quite heavy though, focusing on religion, mysticism, politics, social evolution and racism. It’s clear Prince (he began using his name again during/after this) had something to get off his chest as The Rainbow Children was most definitely some type of concept album with a particular ethos in mind.
The strangest parts of the LP are the sections which feature a deep, sinister, slowed down voice (which I assume is Prince’s) which runs through the entire album, interjecting between (and sometimes during) songs. It freaked me out when I first heard it, but once you get over it and listen to the songs in between – you do find something in there that’s quite intriging.
By no means his best offering, but without question a great insight into the universality and musicianship of this man. This is why The Rainbow Children is one of my ’10 Reasons Why I Love Prince’. I love the fact this is a snippet into his mind during this particular time – a time where he was obviously influenced by Jazz and had something to say. He decided to express himself by making a politically charged and experimental album when most would have ignored the desire or simply not released it.
Fearless.
There’s a lot to be said about The Rainbow Children, I’d definitely recommend you check it out. As I said, it’s a little weird and definitely not his best work but it does feature some nice tracks (see ‘Muse 2 the Pharaoh’ (press play above) and ‘The Work, pt 1′, ) and again offers a little more insight into his genius.
In 1996, just as Prince released Emancipation (which I briefly talked about in Reason #3) he appeared on the Oprah show for a rare TV interview. In the special Oprah got a chance to visit Paisley Park, Prince’s legendary studio/home/video production studio. They discuss a bunch of stuff including the name change, it’s funny watching Oprah trying to get to the bottom of what it is she is meant to call him, the album and about being in love. They also speak briefly about his son (who at this point was, according to the parents, well). Watch part 2, 3 & 4 plus his performance after the jump. Definitely worth the watch – it’s rare to see Prince so…Relaxed.
Prince has way too many songs for me to have one favourite, but if I had to make a top 5 – this would be in there. Quite high up too. ‘The Beautiful Ones’ is easily one of the most ‘beautiful’ songs Prince has ever written, heck, anyone has ever written. Produced, arranged, composed, and performed by Prince in “Purple Rain”, his autobiographical film, ‘The Beautiful Ones’ is without question one massive reason why I love Prince.
Update: Steph, in the c-section, reminded me about Mariah’s cover of this song on her Butterfly album featuring Sisqo. Such a massive version, loved it. But can’t say I prefer it to the original, close – but not quite there.
In 1984 Prince wasn’t able to use the word ‘devil’ in his songs – radio just wouldn’t play them. So, he substituted it for the word ‘elevator’. Everyone loves ‘Lets Go Crazy’ but did you ever realise what you were singing along to? We’ve come a long way since then, right KanYe?
(no longer Prince at this point) released Emancipation in 1996, the title of the triple-CD album referred to his freedom from Warner Bros. Record. This was ‘s third album that year and it being a 3-disc album meant that in actual fact he put out 5 albums worth of music within 12 months.
I personally love this album, it has so many wonderful tracks on there. Some will no doubt feature later on in ’10 Reasons Why I Love Prince’, but the one s0ng that always stands out in my mind is ‘Sex In The Summer’. Many will assume this is just another ‘raunchy’ song from but actually, it’s so much more than that.
What makes this song so poignant for me is that he used the sonogram of his son’s heartbeat as the base of the track. 10 seconds into it you hear a drone, which continues throughout the song – that is the sound of his baby’s heartbeat.
Many do not know that Prince had a son (with then wife Mayte) who sadly passed – not exactly sure when but it wasn’t long after his birth. As you would imagine very few details are known about the circumstances around this as Prince has naturally refused to discuss it.
The fact that he was able to hear music in the heartbeat of his unborn son to me sums up the genius behind this man. In an interview I plan to post in future edition of ’10 Reasons Why I Love Prince’ you will hear him talking about this very song and how he came to compose it.
A beautiful song made even more beautiful knowing what went into it.
If you haven’t already, I highly recommend you check out Emancipation – it’s a really great album.
Recorded in 2004 during his Musicology promotional special on MTV, Prince plays some of his biggest hits on just his guitar to a very small and verrrry lucky crowd. Starting with ‘Cream’ (listen to what he says about how he wrote that song, he’s “serious” too), ‘I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man’, a cover of ‘Sweet Thing’ (a song he “remembers from high school”), the first song he ever learnt on the guitar (‘Proud Mary’) and ‘Sometimes It Snows In April’.
I actually cannot tell you how many times I’ve watched this one video. Everytime I show it to someone, they’re completely shocked that they’ve never seen it before. I remember watching this on MTV back in ’04 – where was everyone? Just one more reason why I love Prince.
In 10 days, Prince – my musical messiah – will be releasing a brand new album, for free, entitled 20Ten via the Daily Mirror. In celebration I will be posting something (in no particular order) Prince related everyday for the next 10 ten days in a new feature called quite simply ’10 Reasons Why I Love Prince’, all leading up the the new LP.
I’ve been a long standing stan of The Purple One for years and so along the way have discovered many videos, interviews, live performances, pictures etc that many people haven’t seen before or just didn’t know existed (you’d be forgiven, Prince runs this internet ting) – and so with the new album on the way, I thought what better time to share these things than now? So, let’s kick things off…
Reason #1
Prince’s ‘Partyman’ video – so many people forget or don’t know that Prince provided an incredible original soundtrack for the 1989 “Batman” movie. While the film was somewhat questionable, the OST was superb – a brave move on everyones part to ‘allow’ Prince free reign on a big blockbuster movie soundtrack, but as part of Warner Bro’s contact with him the risk paid off. The album hit the top spot on the Billboard album chart and stayed there for 6 weeks and old over 3 million copies in the States.
‘Partyman’ sees Prince – half genius, half Joker – get down and rock out in Gothan City. He ain’t playin either. Backed by his full band Mr Nelson lets loose and goes all out this is sexy and rather odd video. The track is straight fire too.
