Features
Friday, May 27 2011
Prince: Chaos, Disorder, and Revolution
Prince imbued his art with his idiosyncratic view of life, turning out music from the mind of a sex-obsessed deviant, a bomb-fearing party-animal, and a God-fearing man searching for a ways to reconcile the spiritual with the sexual… and so much more.
Friday, June 5 2009
Inside the Revolution
Hundreds have books have been written about Prince and the Revolution, looking for hints and clues about his life and motivations within his lyrics, his images, and film scripts. Yet there are two people who know Prince better than anyone else, and those are the people who were there when it all happened. Speaking exclusively to PopMatters, longtime prince manager Alan Leeds and Revolution keyboardist Matt Fink speak candidly about their experiences recording, filming, and making Purple Rain, and what it was truly like being inside the Revolution.
Friday, June 5 2009
Let’s Go Crazy: Celebrating 25 Years of Purple Rain
Some 25 years after it was released, PopMatters proudly celebrates Purple Rain in its entirety, looking at the album and film from every angle.
Thursday, June 4 2009
Prince's Anxiety of Influence and 'Purple Rain' in the Context of '80s Pop Music
Harold Bloom's The Anxiety of Influence notes how that we often attribute artistic success to being able to reconstruct our influences to create something unique, yet, as we all know, it's much more complex than that. Analyzing similar conceptual ground covered by the Police and Michael Jackson prior to Purple Rain, James Fleming dissects Prince's reaction to these other artists landmark songs, and how he was able to manifest these other pop monoliths into his own, reactionary style.
Wednesday, June 3 2009
"The Minneapolis Sound"
Purple Rain showed "The Kid" and Morris Day fighting for control of the same club in Minneapolis, with artists like Dez Dickerson and Apollonia 6 trying to get their own share of stage time as well. The film perpetuated the notion of "the Minneapolis sound", synth-based funk workouts that featured artists like Vanity 6, The Family, The Time, and several more -- the irony, of course, being that all of their songs were written, performed, and produced by Prince.
Columns
Thursday, June 16 2011
Prince's Parade: It's Really All About the Music
A large part of what I love about Prince is his ability to take his influences and synthesize them into a whole that suits his fancy. So it's not so much that he brings a new dish to the table. It's more that he explores new ways to enjoy what's already there.
Monday, February 5 2007
The Purple Experience: Your PopMatters Primer on Prince's Pop Life
So many Prince albums, but where do you start? Here's a funky little list designed to aid your quest.
Reviews
Friday, July 27 2007
Prince: Planet Earth
Looking at the world through purple-colored glasses, opinions about music, especially Prince's, are all over the map.
Tuesday, December 12 2006
Prince: Prince and the N.P.G.: Diamonds and Pearls [DVD]
Prince's pansexual, pan racial, and Dionysian vision remains genuinely inspired, and inspiring, to this day.
Thursday, March 30 2006
Prince: 3121
Many of the classic elements of a Prince record are here, but it also feels considerably safer -- like a poorly concealed attempt to recapture past glories at the expense of his wilder creative muse.
Monday, May 10 2004
Prince: Musicology
While Musicology isn't a brilliant brushstroke or a complete return to his past, it is without a doubt the best record Prince has made in a long time, a release that provides plenty to be excited about while he continues to find his way back to pop bliss.
Blogs
Tuesday, January 3 2012
Prince - "Dance 4 Me" (stream)
Somewhere in this infinite universe there’s a club which only jumps to Prince tunes. Do yourself a favor and call back in – you’ll wonder why you ever left.
Friday, September 16 2011
Counterbalance No. 50: Prince’s 'Purple Rain'
“Wendy?” “Yes, Lisa.” “Are you ready to listen to Eric Klinger and Jason Mendelsohn talk about Prince's Purple Rain?” “Yes, Lisa, it’s the 50th most acclaimed album of all time.” “Shall we begin?” “Yes, Lisa.” Ow!
Friday, March 25 2011
Counterbalance No. 26: Prince’s 'Sign o' the Times'
Prince’s 1987 Sign o' the Times was His Royal Badness’ second double LP, and it’s Number 26 on the Acclaimed Music list. Jason Mendelsohn and Eric Klinger discuss this critics’ darling over starfish and coffee.
Thursday, December 9 2010
Prince Makes Surprise Appearance on 'The View'
Prince crashed the set of The View today to promote his forthcoming Welcome 2 America tour. The video of the rock icon’s brief cameo on…
Friday, July 30 2010
Prince's '20Ten' and the Cheapening Effect of the Newspaper Release
Using a newspaper promotion to get an album out to the masses might be a mutually beneficial arrangement for artist and publication, but what happens to the listener's perception of the music?
News
Friday, November 4 2011
The Time or the Original 7ven: By any name, they’re still ‘Cool’
MINNEAPOLIS — The band that made the Minneapolis Sound famous is back — with an asterisk. Make that two asterisks. First, it is the only…
