Prince RIP

Too young. Mourn here.

prince is not allowed to die

sometimes it really fucking snows all year

This is bullshit.

http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-super-bowl/0ap3000000633788/Prince-rocks-out-Super-Bowl-XLI-halftime-show

RIP. good grief.

prince is not allowed to die

― flappy bird, Thursday, April 21, 2016 10:30 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sometimes it really fucking snows all year

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, April 21, 2016 10:30 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is bullshit.

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.)

OTM x3

putting this here cuz this is where I'm gonna start publicly mourning and the rest of you can either commiserate or complain idgaf

thinking about the first time I saw the video for Little Red Corvette, the first time I heard Darling Nikki and my next door neighbor friend's older sister explained what "grinding" was, picking out "Starfish and Coffee" on the piano as a kid and years later playing it at some uber-rich friend's Halloween part on a big white grand piano, my girlfriend/future wife's extensive collage of Prince posters/ephemera in her walk-in closet wall

fuck

so gutted

2016 can seriously go suck a fuck already.

just heard a minute ago. there are no words. :(

RIP

for the moment, i have nothing intelligent or eloquent to say, just anger. rip.

I never liked his music, but he was unquestionably a top-notch songwriter, the only standout on [insert random guitar magazine]’s “GREATEST SHREDDING OF ALL TIME” features, and made pop music way more fun than it should’ve been.

I also owe him for influencing so much of the music I love and being an entertaining celebrity when everybody else seemed so droll.

I was in the Columbia House Record Club (lol) in HS and I remember after I first saw the video for "1999" on MTV, then heard the album after my sister bought it, I quickly ordered For You, Dirty Mind and Controversy. Thank heavens my mother had no idea what was on those records or she would have confiscated them, but I spent night after night after night listening to those records on headphones in my room. Prince made me want to learn the guitar. He opened me up to an entirely new world of music.

Oh man. This is just awful news.

no GODDAMNIT NO!

I never liked his music, but he was unquestionably a top-notch songwriter, the only standout on [insert random guitar magazine]’s “GREATEST SHREDDING OF ALL TIME” features, and made pop music way more fun than it should’ve been.

I also owe him for influencing so much of the music I love and being an entertaining celebrity when everybody else seemed so droll.

― Allen (etaeoe), Thursday, April 21, 2016 1:35 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

cosign. I feel for everyone who was much closer to his music than I.

I admittedly don't listen to Prince as actively as I have in the past but I don't think a week goes by when SOMETHING Prince-related comes up in conversation or something reminds me of a particular song of his. Like the multiple times it snowed earlier this month. Goddamn, I'm never going to be able to listen to that song again.

Horrible news. Loved those early albums and seeing him live in early 1980s.

terrible.

RIP

seeing him live in early 1980s.

whoah really? where was this?

My first sighting was his black-undies SNL performance of "Partyup."

Then two fiery shows at MSG 16 years apart, '88 and '04.

amazin'

It doesn't seem possible that so many musicians that were so huge (in terms of popularity or influence or both) over the course of my life have died young when there's, like, still two living Beatles and shit. What the fuck.

Oh, and I don't listen as actively as I used to but I used to listen more actively and I love Prince at least as much as Bowie, so this is just fucking garbage.

It's a cliche to say, but his was the best live show I've ever seen — 2002 in Montreal. I snuck in (I was a poor cartoonist at the time) and he played 3 hours, had Maceo Parker and Larry Graham on stage with him, just an electrifying performance that left me high for days.

I guess he's truly ageless now.

x-post -- saw him 1980 and 1984 (I think) at Capital Centre near DC.

FUCK

saw him last year at the show in baltimore. very glad i did. he seemed ageless, not that he was even old.

this year is unbelievable.

Prince is the greatest artist to have made popular music in my lifetime.

I've been a fan for so much of my life that I cannot even really remember when it started, though it was likely around the time I found a cassette of Purple Rain that one of the kids my dad coached left behind in our car one day, and which I started playing the hell out of, mostly out of curiosity at first (I remember not knowing what "masturbating" meant, but figured it couldn't be something I should ask my parents about because it was said in "Darling Nikki," and everything about that song felt like something I shouldn't be listening to).

My mom always maintained that Prince must be gay. I never did, but as my fandom grew even more intense during my early teen years, I like to think that there was something about the palpable queerness of Prince's music that might have eased my coming-out process somewhat.

When David Bowie died, I had a long email convo with a young, queer Bowie-loving friend of mine who had just recently started getting into Prince, in which I explained to him that while I always liked and appreciated Bowie, Prince was *my* Bowie.

If I'm not as gutted as so many other people are right now, as much as I should be, I think that 2016's endless parade of unexpected celebrity deaths (Bowie was a big one, yes, but also Garry Shandling, for me), I'm just kind of numb to it all right now.

Fuck 2016

i can't even process this yet.

Any cause of death confirmed? He was too young and didn't seem sick. OD?

Dinnerboat I guess I know who you are <3

Prince was the only irl superhero to me

He also, especially w the revolution, evoked this feeling in me of a WORLD THAT COULD BE and that basically WAS, all you had to do was invoke it

I never got to see him play

Feeling a weird sense of pride at being a Prince fan right now

I was lucky to see Prince live several times, in several different settings. I saw him in clubs, arenas, middle of the night surprise shows, sets where he played all the hits, sets where he played none, sets where he cursed, sets where he cleaned up songs, sets where he barely sang and never touched his guitar. I took my wife to see him when she was very pregnant with our first daughter, and she (my in utero daughter) was not digging it. Some of those shows were up there with the best I ever saw, and some down with the worse. And I wish he was still here in all his hit or miss genius glory. Some of my favorite music of all time, all the time.

I barely know what else to say, but I mostly feel like posting Questlovle's story about rollerskating with Prince. He was one of a kind. All of a kind.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/06/18/questlove_on_roller_skating_with_prince_an_excerpt_from_his_new_book_mo.html

he was on my bucket list to see live :(

i bought 1999 the week it came out and he ruled my 80's from that moment on. i can't believe he was 24 when that record came out. how is that possible? he seemed immortal/ageless even then.

Any cause of death confirmed? He was too young and didn't seem sick. OD?

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Thursday, April 21, 2016 5:

He was taken off his plane sick just a little bit ago and said he had the flu.

evoked this feeling in me of a WORLD THAT COULD BE and that basically WAS, all you had to do was invoke it

a unique factor I always appreciated about this longed-for world that Prince both explicitly and implicitly invoked - a social utopia transcending race, class, gender etc. - was that it was based on sexual pleasure. There were pop stars in the past who preached about leftist politics, about peace and love, about racial equality, whatever, but for Prince the unifying factor that cut across all lines was sex/pleasure. In Prince's world it was something everybody wanted and that everyone could have, and it would make everything all right.

xp

I saw him in Dec. 1984 on the Purple Rain world tour at Richfield Coliseum outside of Cleveland. It was, up to that point, far and away the best show I had ever seen. As a bonus, my sister and I got to miss school the next day because there was a horrible blizzard during and after the concert. On the next school day, I wore my concert shirt and got called a "faggot" and a "pussy" all day long by the shithead burnouts that comprised my high school, but I didn't care, because fuck you, I saw the greatest musician on earth at the greatest concert ever. And he probably fucked your girlfriends after the show.

He was my white whale of concerts. Never came to Philly when I was old enough to see him. I curse myself for not going to Baltimore. I've got a broken heart again.

i really hope he didn't pull some steve jobs christian science type of shit and be like 'i trust in my own body to heal me, namaste' :(

i never saw him either. my wife did. he did like 20 concerts in a row in london and i missed every one.

A friend of mine who was actually irl friends with Michael Jackson (!) just said on Facebook that MJ once described Prince to him as "really weird, but the most talented motherf'er you'll ever meet."

a unique factor I always appreciated about this longed-for world that Prince both explicitly and implicitly invoked - a social utopia transcending race, class, gender etc. - was that it was based on sexual pleasure. There were pop stars in the past who preached about leftist politics, about peace and love, about racial equality, whatever, but for Prince the unifying factor that cut across all lines was sex/pleasure. In Prince's world it was something everybody wanted and that everyone could have, and it would make everything all right.

xp

people call me rude
I wish we all were nude
I wish there were no black or white
I wish there were no rules

WRECKA STOWE

only major performer (besides, uh, Bowie) I haven't seen live

This isn't possible.

I saw him a second time on the Musicology tour at the MCI Center in DC. That was the "in-the-round" show with the band including John Blackwell, Candy Dulfer and Maceo Parker and it was fucking amazing.

a world of neverending happiness, you can always see the sun, day or night. farewell sweet prince!

This world has officially stopped making any sense at all. RIP

Christ

It is inconceivable how good the Batman soundtrack is. It has absolutely no business being as 100% legit as it is.

― DJP, Wednesday, April 22, 2026 10:01 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

very rarely will i think of a scene from a show or movie that was so woefully off the mark, but the Prince record moment in Shaun of the Dead always comes to mind.

xpost yes breakdown is on that same level but just not part of that weird death suite...
we are fortunate in that two out of three of the last things he released were really good (AOA, Hit n Run Phase 2).

My dearest hope is that we get to hear some of the hybrid orchestral stuff he was doing with Michael B Nelson when he died. I assume the leaked full arrangement of "Rumeta" is a WIP from that and oh man.

We don’t know how good we had it, back in the days when some comic book blockbuster would have a wholly original Prince soundtrack. Now we get Foo Fighters over the closing credits.

Ingrate.

Listened to the special dance mix of LRC for the first time in years. When it hits the 3 min and 7.25 mark and you hear those rhythm guitar parts, it's just bliss, but the original is just perfect pop, how when you were mine is. Only version I like more than the regular edit is when he does it in the SOTT movie and extends the intro and adds an extra synth part. I can't remember if that's the same as in the PR Syracuse film but when it moves into housequake in the SOTT film, its somehow one of the best transitions I've ever heard.

LRC?

^^

Petite Rouge Voiture.

ty, was v confused by the SOTT reference

Louche Rouge Corvette

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0KpfrJE4zw

Forgot that questlove also included she spoke to me from the 90s, which was nice to see, but don't talk to strangers (from the same planned soundtrack for a James l brooks film) has to be one of the sweetest, loveliest songs prince ever made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjfWAjZuv34

new interview with one of the prince estate's directors. hopefully this doesn't mean that they are going to add new elements to unreleased songs.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PRINCE/comments/1tukwbj/new_interview_with_londell_and_yes_its_yet/
L. Londell McMillan: What he's referring to as a box set was.. which is a box, of cds, both both formally released, remastered, remixed, as well as new songs, <um> And he's asking, is it going to have Claire Fisher, <um um> tracks on it, <um> with the violins, and add it to the music, and so, these are the things that we add to the songs, and the compositions to make them better.

Angela Davis: How do you describe the status of Prince music that has not been released?

L. Londell McMillan: Right. That's a big question. They're in the vault. And some of them are,<um> songs that are either fully complete, partially complete, haven't been really developed enough. And so we're getting an inventory of all of these songs. Because it's very important that we put out music in a way that Prince would have appreciated, rather than just open them up. I'm often <clears his throat>, often the target of many of the fans' desire to want all of the music, and all of it now. And while I don't make all of the decisions for everything in The Prince Vault, I'm certainly agreeable that they should have more music as we can, but we've released over 190 unreleased tracks. And many of these tracks are in the box sets. So people are asking for, so much more unreleased music, but many of them, haven't even bought the box sets to actually access and listen to the unreleased music that has already been released. So, the part of me now starting to speak, is to communicate and educate people, hey, you want unreleased music? There's already over 192 unreleased tracks that's out there. But they want more, and we'll continue to kind of give them more, because many of these folks that are the major fans, they've said things to me such as "We want to hear everything before we die". But we also have an obligation to make sure that it's produced sonically in the right way. So generations of now, are able to hear the music, and hear the production, not as it was done 40 years ago, 30 years ago, but hear the production sonically for the moment so they don't just initially turn off. Because we have to keep younger generations engaged.

oh no lmao what on earth are they thinking

i think that's exactly what they're saying

Oh my god, they are going to fuck up my Parade box aren’t they

https://images.eil.com/large_image/THE_ROYAL_PHILHARMONIC_ORCHESTRA_HOOKED%2BON%2BCLASSICS-500110.jpg

^otm

ugh just hand all the tapes over to Rhino, retire and let the cash roll in

why are you doing this to yourselves and the fans, wtf

Younger generations are not the ones buying the big-ass box sets and yeah, there’s probably piles of Diamonds and Pearls box sets because how many people wanted that

These people are trying to reinvent the wheel and it’s gonna be square.

feels like best case scenario it's the drum sound on the VU / Another VU comps

Willing to bet that they are going to “finish” unreleased tracks with AI.

conversely Dylan's archives series is now run by Princeton history professor/author/Dylan superfan Sean Wilentz

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/bob-dylan-folk-era-bootleg-series-sean-wilentz-1235447854/

lol it's totally going to be AI Prince, isn't it

the legacy team work closely with people like Susan Rogers, I can't believe she'd be OK withthem applying AI to Prince's work.

they'll just get an AI Susan Rogers

these are the things that we add to the songs, and the compositions to make them better.

Oh my god

i think they fired archive people like duane tudahl who has written two meticulously researched (i found the writing bad but thats me) books on princes studio sessions in the 80s. they do work with his old band members etc, but how much they are really letting them have their say, idk. they released the diamonds and pearls box set, but AFAIK that was done by the team who were heading the estate before the two new guys took over (and it was going through warners then, not sony). parade from that interview i posted above isnt going to be the next album they do, but theres one new released announced this week, but its pretty stingy IMO, this one.

https://store.prince.com/products/timeless-cd?srsltid=AfmBOooR_n7t8fuiXN-Wtz1rkhJyP-aKHlAd7gFp45gma0L2-6YXbVXG

i liked the content of the originals album that came out about a decade ago, but id rather they do more themed/era specific releases, rather than this odds and ends type of stuff. i dont want the prince estate releases to be like the hendrix estate releases. they also dont have to be as he has way more that could be released in comparison to hendrix.

i quite like stone, the first single. cool mid 90s track that would have made gold or emancipation better IMO if he had used it then.

FUCK (xps)

So people are asking for, so much more unreleased music, but many of them, haven't even bought the box sets to actually access and listen to the unreleased music that has already been released. So, the part of me now starting to speak, is to communicate and educate people, hey, you want unreleased music? There's already over 192 unreleased tracks that's out there.

To be fair to "many of them", the 1999 box was very pricey and has been out of print now for years.

I was shocked that the box set not only went OOP but actually sold for $200 last time I checked. I figured it was just supply chain issues since COVID hit around the time it went out of stock, but they never re-pressed it. I'm not a flipper or seller, anything collectible I own is for listening, but it also gives me like unwanted anxiety every time I pull this stuff out or someone asks "ooh, can I borrow that?"

I’m hoping the D&P box gets cheap one day.

I’m hoping the D&P box gets cheap one day.

I hope so. With the Sign O the Times box set, the official Prince store heavily discounted it a couple of years ago, apparently to clear out the CD inventory - only "new" copies left anywhere are basically from third-party vendors (though they may be listing them on Amazon or Wal-Mart). The vinyl edition was never discounted to the same degree but it also sold out, so I'm guessing they simply had a lot more CD box sets in their warehouses. I figure they'd eventually do the same with D&P.

Contrarian opinion: whatever's in the vault should stay in there. Don't need more Price outtakes imo.

^this. Let Wally be

when I interviewed the Revolution a few years back they spoke about how much they wanted to hear again the unreleased stuff they'd played on. they'd had people at Paisley Park feeding them tracks over the years, etc, but they'd speak with such spirit about the stuff they'd cut that was never heard again and had never slipped out.

i wouldnt be surprised if prince encouraged or made it easy for leaks to slip out to help his legend etc, at least in the 80s. later on, i think he made it harder for that to happen (or recording on hard drives made it tougher, not sure) when he was off warners. not really sure what he wanted to do with all that stuff later in life, but he didnt destroy it, he didnt have it specified not to release it (like stevie wonder iirc), though ofc he didnt write any instructions either.

thing is, there's already hundreds if not thousands of tracks that have leaked since the 90s. Demos don't need to be remastered much at all. The estate could do a subscription service and kill it.

i wouldnt be surprised if prince encouraged or made it easy for leaks to slip out to help his legend etc.

Despite Prince's open disapproval towards bootlegs of his work, he paradoxically made it easy for his stuff to get leaked out. It would take too long to find it again, but there was an article published after he died where quite a few of his associates discussed how careless Prince could be with unreleased recordings. The consistent reason for this is because he always wanted to "test" out his work, meaning he gave away a LOT of copies for people to listen to, presumably to give back their input, and he would rarely retrieve these copies or ask for them back. One common practice was taking an unreleased recording to a club and giving it to a DJ to play, just to see how the crowd would react to it. (It was implied he more or less debuted quite a few intended singles this way.) And again he frequently wouldn't ask for these back or leave copies behind in cars and other places like a toddler leaving behind his candy wrappers.

(It's possible in the case of club tests, he did get the disc or tape back and then proceeded to leave it lying around somewhere.)

He definitely gave 12”s to First Avenue DJs in Minneapolis.

Contrarian opinion: whatever's in the vault should stay in there. Don't need more Price outtakes imo.

is this where I get to haul out my extremely unpopular, yet absolutely correct, opinion that consent to publish survives the grave and the absence of same means the stuff shouldn't be published no matter how much people want to hear it, will say it saved their lives, improved world literature, etc? no? ok never mind

Oh, I'm aware of it! My opinion about Prince's outtakes has nothing to do with the value I find in Kafka and Woolf's diaries or whatever.

If the biography he started was never published I would be ok with it (it was touching in part but too much late prince thinking. if he wrote it in 89 it'd have been better. he was also just not a guy who knew how to spill the tea). Id be sore if the unreleased songs remained where they are.

The best poor control of his vault story I read was that he would leave demo tapes lying around in his car when he'd taken it to get cleaned.

I decided to skip the staged reading at the DC go-go music museum tonight of “The Night Prince was Killed” by local dc activist & music fan Kymone Freeman.

Re adding strings to tracks
Are they just talking about using some of the Clare Fischer arrangements that Prince commissioned but didn’t use? Clare Fischer recorded tons of strings/orchestral stuff for him and a lot of it he chose not to include in the released mixes. If they are talking about making some alt mixes that use those recordings, I absolutely want that to be part of a parade box.

There was a boot called charade back in the 80s that had the parade tracks without strings and Christopher Tracy's parade was still little girl Wendy's parade. Worth seeking out. Id hope those would make it into the parade box set if/when it gets released.

He used samples of Fischer's strings all over "Batman" and some other stuff from that era.