Musicology Lessons
In annoyed about the world news…
Still working my way through this catalog of P bootlegs.
I often find myself side eying a lot of “fams.” I know P is a storm of a person himself, but it iggs me when people label themselves fans of him as a musician…and then complain when he does just that, THE MUSIC.
Lots of these shows feature someone shouting for him to play a hit like Raspberry Beret…while he’s doing covers or playing side man to another act or they complain when a side act is being featured…or when P’s doing brand new music…
Listening to an aftershow now of a very funky latino music group. It was just them at first and P came out as hype man a bit later. They were funky before he came out and just as funky after…but I guess because he’s around it’s…”better” because the crowd is more responsive even though the band sounds the same.
Or one time Maceo Parker, Renato Neato and others were performing What a Wonderful World and someone shouted “RASPBERRY BERET! COME ONNNN!”
(Why is it always that song btw…?!?!)
It’s also interesting when people don’t really support the musicians he worked with and helped grow. Like there’s not a big opinion of Andy Allo’s Superconductor project…and musically, that album is very heavily Prince. Same with Bria Valente’s Elixir album…pretty much ALL Prince in a puppet way like he did in the 80’s. Or Liv Warfield’s The Unexpected…executive produced by Prince with many NPG band members as backup and even a few Prince penned songs on it… Or Shelby J or Adrian Crutchfield or MonoNeon or Judith Hill…
All really talented musicians…mostly panned by P’s main fanbase…and their music easily lives in his musical family sonically.
I know P comes with the P flair and such…but if it’s really about THE MUSIC more than anything else, shouldn’t they be supported too by the same people?
And again a lot of time P himself wasn’t as popular when there wasn’t a moderate dose of provocative sexy times mixed in with the work.
It’s okay if you want to admit that it’s more about Prince the man (or even your nostalgic memories that are attached to him) than it is about his actual work if it’s that for you…just be honest you know?
He once commented on how musically sophisticated his fam base is, but I wonder if a large majority of them really are…or if they just gassing him because he Princed them…
