The artist formerly known as Prince

I always felt sorry for him thinking he had unfairly been grouped in with the standard cookie cutter pop junk.

Besides, why Prince…because not Michael Jackson.

In reply to Dr. Hess:

Keep your mandolin Lamentations out of this guitar player RIP thread!

slefain wrote: That was right out of nowhere. He was feeling ill last week but had just done a show in Atlanta. Why, WHY COULDN'T IT HAVE BEEN JUSTIN BIEBER?!?!?!?!?

I have fantasies about the Bieb going out Paul Walker style...

etifosi wrote:

You beat me to it!

No surprise that the radio has been playing nothing but Prince all afternoon. I've got to say most of it has aged quite well. There is not a lot of music from the eighties that you can say that about.

RIP. I guess that now makes you The Former Artist Known As Prince. .

Great. Who the hell is going to make homophobic jock teens question their sexuality now?

Jay wrote: Great. Who the hell is going to make homophobic jock teens question their sexuality now?

Justin Timberlake

Dr. Hess wrote: I believe he was "The Artist formerly known as The Artist formerly known as Prince." They play his stuff on the 70-80's pop station. I don't hear a lot of guitar work in his stuff. I hear like 2 notes and singing. I don't hear The Battle of Evermore.

That's because Evermore was led Zeppelin.

Heck, just listen to the last 30 seconds of "Let's Get Crazy", just to pick a random one of his songs that got a lot of airplay.

I saw some footage the other day. It was a E36 M3ty video shot in a club. Prince was doing some slow noodling, and it let into purple rain. As it turned out, that was the video for the audio that became the album recording, and it was recorded live, the first time he ever played that song in public and the club was first Ave in Minneapolis. Id seen shows there before, and i knew he was instrumental in the clubs existence, but i had no idea just how intertwined he was in the local music scene.

Dr. Hess wrote: I believe he was "The Artist formerly known as The Artist formerly known as Prince." They play his stuff on the 70-80's pop station. I don't hear a lot of guitar work in his stuff. I hear like 2 notes and singing. I don't hear The Battle of Evermore.

I am not necessarily a huge fan, but I do appreciate the talent. I always thought Purple Rain was an excellent blues rock song (although with a bit of a silly title).

Skip to 3:30

https://www.youtube.com/embed/6SFNW5F8K9Y

Pay attention to how clean the sound is.

Genius rarely comes in a common wrapper.

Rampant O.D. speculation from the talking heads already. And now, more speculation about the speculation that has already been speculated.

I hate talking heads.

The old bus station that is now First Avenue has been a nightclub since 1970; first as The Depot, then as Uncle Sam's during the disco era and finally it became First Avenue in 1981. Lots of big names appeared there over the years - for instance, the Joe Cocker version of 'The Letter' that you hear on the radio was recorded there. U2 played there at one point early in their career.

I spent a lot of time there during the Uncle Sam's and early First Avenue era, had a lot of fun. An old girlfriend was an extra in the Purple Rain movie, although you pretty much have to put the video on hold to find her in the crowd.

kazoospec wrote: Rampant O.D. speculation from the talking heads already. And now, more speculation about the speculation that has already been speculated.

On the local news the reporters were interviewing each other, since there was no actual news to talk about. There's an autopsy scheduled for tomorrow but no other actual information has been released.

One of the local radio stations is running through his whole catalog in chronological order, you can listen online: http://www.thecurrent.org/listen

The Current, in, and of itself, rules.

In reply to aircooled:

Throwing his guitar up in the air and then pimp walking offstage was pretty berkeleying badass.

Much better than a mic drop.

I've been playing his music all day. And sometimes just in my head. Was listening to Purple Rain on my Walkman, because cassette. So miss him. In high school I built a swb Chevy van in candy grape over silver base I dubbed Purple Rain.

I haz sad.

The crowd around First Avenue tonight for the all night Prince party:

This year sucks balls. When Bowie passed, the only thing I could think was "oh god, at least we still have Prince". Virtuoso musician, incredible guitarist, and sexy little dude.

Well, at least MTV is playing videos today instead of reality show crap.. RIP Mr. Nelson

I prefer Husker Du and The Replacements when I want to listen to some MSP 80's music, but there is no denying Prince was an artist.

Nick (LUCAS) Comstock wrote: In reply to aircooled: Throwing his guitar up in the air and then pimp walking offstage was pretty berkeleying badass. Much better than a mic drop.

If I recall there's a bit of a story behind that. Many folks didn't want him there and didn't think he could do justice to a tribute to George Harrison but it was Dhani Harrison (George's son) that wanted him there. He's the young kid on guitar smiling his head off in the video. That exchange of smiles between them is priceless right there. Anyway the exit was just kind of his way of saying "nailed it" to all the detractors.