Saturday 7 June 2008

Prince On His 50th Birthday

I have always been pretty much indifferent to Prince. To me he was one of those singers who were always around in the charts and on the radio in the 80s and 90s with some OK-ish tunes but never actually had that huge song that got me excited about him. He also seemed more than a little weird and creepy but luckily he had Michael Jackson around at the same time who out-weirded him so he managed to escape under the radar for a while until he completely lost the plot and scrawled Slave on his cheek and changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol.
It was during this period of being very strange that he got his only UK number one but his star was waning and the vertically challenged man with the high pitched voice who had wrote that song for Sinead O'Connor and the brilliant Manic Monday for the Bangles, just seemed to disappear.
He has been on a bit of a comeback recently and played a set of widely acclaimed concerts at the O2 Arena last year and his career seems to be on a bit of a renaissance still i feel that it has always smouldered but never really caught fire.
With a more mature mind i do find myself looking back to some groups and singers that i had overlooked in their heyday for whatever reason and realising that actually they were not as bad as i thought at the time but i still find the total indifference to Prince still there.
Apart from Manic Monday which he wrote, i do have one Prince song on my Ipod, Sign O' The Times, but that's more to do with the opening lyric being one of my favourite opening lyrics ever.
If only he had done more along the lines of "In France a skinny man, Died of a big disease with a little name" but he never so Happy 50th Birthday anyway Prince. Your music was never my cup of tea but you are obviously a huge hit among many music fans, i just never managed to work out what they saw that i never.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm with you. Not very impressed with his music either, although I just heard one of his songs today for the first time that was kind of nice. Its called "U Make My Sunshine" and features Angie Stone, Kip Blackshire and Milenia. It has a gospelish sound to it, and is quite nice. The only other Prince song that may be a bit close to it is "Call Me", which isn't too bad either. His songs unfortunately just don't compel me to listen to them over and over.

Stephen K said...

He is pretty darn talented though, and also, I should note, a very underrated guitarist.

Anonymous said...

Never knew he wrote Manic Monday - and I can't believe he is 50! Good grief where has the time gone?

He is a very talented writer, if not vocalist.

Anonymous said...

Open Your Ears

Falling on a bruise said...

I did anon, and put some Ramones on instead.

Falling on a bruise said...

Nah, too easy.