I have become obsessed with this man unlike any musician. I love music but have never really wanted to know EVERYTHING about a musician before before. My favorites are David Bowie, Esperanza Spalding, and Janelle Monae and I've never wanted to know everything about them to the point of obsession. Also, even though Bowie is (was?) my favorite, I still don't like early Hunky Dory era Bowie much for instance. There's entire eras of Bowie I don't fuck with. But I've listened to about every Prince album now, and I've liked the majority of them.
I love the aforementioned artists like crazy but never to the point where I'm scouting down their past concerts and tours. Something about Prince just is connecting with me in a way a musical artist never has and he's checking off every box. I have watched at least three or four Prince documentaries now. I can't explain it much less understand it. I mean, I got into other older musicians late like the Beatles during the last reprint in the late 2000's. I'll go from album and album and listen to them and fall in love but not to the point where I'm at now with Prince. Right now I'm going in every album in sequential order, looking at live music, analyzing the lyrics, listening to them over and over and over. Yesterday was Prince, today is Dirty Mind. I've listened to Dirfy Mind about six times today. Tomorrow is Controversy. I'm looking forward to watching the Controversy tour at Capitol.
No clue why I'm saying all this. I'm just obsessed and don't know why.
Okay, I've realized one reason Prince resonates with me: soul, rnb, and funk just happen to be my favorite genres. Add in 1999 which for all intents and purposes is an electronic album, and his music is just up my alley. I love guitar solos but I'm not huge on rock. On the other hand, Prince embraces funk rock in the Jimi Hendrix/P-Funk/Sly and Family Stone tradition, so it feels like home. His combination of music styles just hit all the notes for me.
On top of that I feel his lyricism is among the best ever in pop. Let's take Little Red Corvetfe. What a genius record. "The place where your horses run free" and the horse metaphor is amazing. On top of that, there's the fact he was so fucking sexy and he's generally not my type. When he says he's going to "tame your little red love machine" his delivery is soooo sexy that you actually believe he's going to. Funk has a big history with sexuality but Prince's manner of expressing it in his songs is explicit while still putting effort into I while still remaining classy I guess? He's explicit but it's not a gross skeet skeet skeet kind of explicit. Little Red Corvette being a great example. It'd be so easy to say something like I Want To Make Love To You. Instead, Prince makes the song a metaphor and compares it to a car. It works like The Contest from Seinfeld in a way. We know they're talking about masturbation but somehow not saying the word masturbation forces the writers to be more creative (read: funny) about it. The same works here, and it's a song writing technique that to my knowledge is no longer used. Today's music is far too literal. I could talk about the subject matter in his songs for hours. QCFX2 was right when he said Prince's music is for adults.
I guess it just so happens Prince combines every music style I enjoy and his image and manner of carrying himself appeals to me more than other musicians.
Just God-tier pop.
