SPIN'S TRIBUTE TO PRINCE'S PURPLE RAIN

I honestly haven't spent much time reading Spin in the last few years, but the new issue has a great feature on Prince's Purple Rain that I had to check out. It's an oral history of the album and film with almost all of the players (except, of course, for Prince himself). Definitely worth reading, and the magazine also allows you to download a track by track tribute to the album by the likes of The Riverboat Gamblers, The Twilight Singers and Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings.

THE PMRC's "FILTHY FIFTEEN" -- SO CUTE!

Remember back in the day when the PMRC was getting all crazy about "dirty" lyrics in music, and everyone hated Tipper Gore, who was the most famous person in her family?  Ah, the '80s. Anyway, Idolator just posted a list of the PMRC's "Filthy Fifteen" songs from back then, and even some of the videos. I'm not sure that Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It" or Madonna's "Dress You Up" would still offend too many people today. Prince's "Darling Nikki" and Sheena Easton's "Sugar Walls" -- maybe.  WASP's "Animal (Fuck Like A Beast)" -- yeah, that might still raise eyebrows.  Not that I'm endorsing it or anything: there's definitely a line between clever and stupid, and there's also a line between sexy and douchey, and they fall all over it. 

TOMORROW ON OUTQ: PRINCE, PETE TOWNSHEND, BOB MOULD AND RECORD STORE DAY

After a week off from The Morning Jolt with Larry Flick on OutQ, I'll be back tomorrow (Wednesday) morning at 9 am ET. Up this week:

Prince's triple album: Lotusflow3r, which is sort of a guitar album, MPLsound, more of a dance thing, and Elixr, the debut by his protege, Bria Valente. Bria is kind of like Sade but not as good. As for the two Prince discs, like most Prince post-Diamonds and Pearls, you have to sort of search through an album to find the gems. It's like that.

Rachel Fuller Presents In The Attic: a 2 CD/1 DVD set you can only get at Best Buy, but it is a bargain at $11.99. As I mentioned, it was recorded at Rachel and boyfriend Pete Townshend's "In The Attic" shows, at small venues during off nights on The Who's tour. It features Pete doing some Who classics solo, Pete dueting with Lou Reed on some Velvet Underground classics, and younger artists like Ben Harper, Rachel Yamagata and Joe Purdy (who I discovered from this set), often backed by Pete.

Bob Mould's new album, Life and Times. I don't always love Bob's stuff lately, but this seems like a cool album. Mould is also writing an autobiography, which should be interesting: Husker Du were on SST during an incredible era, his band Sugar almost got huge, he was a writer for WWE, he's just done some cool stuff.

And finally, Saturday is Record Store Day!

PRINCE'S TARGET DEAL

Last month, I wrote about the three albums Prince is working on. Well, it turns out the only place you'll be able to get them is Target (at least it's better than Walmart). All three albums - the rock album Lotusflow4r, the electro album MPLSOUND and the album by Prince's protegee Bria Valente, Elixr, are going to be available together as a $11.99 bundle starting March 29. As I mentioned earlier this month, I really liked the "rock" song, "Colonized Mind." It's weird, Prince is still a major icon, he can still fill arenas when he wants to, and there's still no format that he fits in. Or maybe that's why he's so big, and why he is so enduring.

PRINCE'S LATEST MOVE

I'm not sure what I'm allowed to say about Prince here: I know the man gets touchy about it. But the web is buzzing about a small party he had at his mansion last night where he debuted some new music and also played a bunch of covers. The party was to launch his new website, Lotusflow3r, where you can listen to one song from each of the three albums he's planning to release this year.

The song which I presume is from the "rock" album, "Colonized Mind," is pretty incredible. I also liked the more funk/pop one, "Discojellyfish," and his protege Bria Valente's song, "Another Boy," was sweet also.

PRINCE TO BRING TRIPLE TROUBLE IN THE '09

Prince - The Artist Who Doesn't Like To Be Blogged About - is going to release three albums this year, according to a story in Billboard. MPLSOUND is supposed to be more "electro," while Lotus Flower is more of a guitar rock record.  And he's also involved in an album by his protege Bria Valente. I just hope he does another tour like the one he did a few years ago for Music. 

PRINCE TO RELEASE PHOTOBOOK, ALBUM

Prince - The Artist Who Doesn't Like To Be Blogged About - has a new release coming. According to Billboard, it will be called 21 Nights, and it's a photobook with pictures from his 2007 21-night stand at London's O2 Arena. It will also have a CD with 15 tracks recorded during his post-concert after hours jams. That's cool. But what would be really cool would be if Prince started releasing live recordings of his concerts.

COACHELLA REPORT

A friend of mine goes to the desert every summer to go to the Coachella festival. She loves her indie rock. She told me that this year's highlight was none other than Roger Waters, and that the crowd loved his performance, which not only included Dark Side Of The Moon in its entirety, but lots of other Pink Floyd tunes.

I have to admit I was suprised by that. I mean Roger's songs hold up to anyones, but still, the indie crowd has an aversion to artists that are firmly "classic rock." It's cool to like the Syd Barrett-era Floyd, but not the more commercially successful version that followed.

You can find reports on Coachella all over the web, I don't have to point to them. Most of them rave about Prince's performance: he covered Radiohead's "Creep" and The Beatles' "Come Together," and was joined by Morris Day and Sheila E. during the show. (My friend wasn't super-impressed with Prince, which I found shocking). Prince was a sort of last minute addition, and was allegedly paid north of four million - and also cut into the set time of the original day two headliners, Portishead, who haven't played the U.S. in like a decade or something. I like Portishead, but it's kind of weird that Coachella had to go so "off-brand" (to use the marketing term) to be successful - their headliners were Prince, Waters and scourge of indie rockers Jack Johnson.

UPDATE: I don't know if this is a joke, but as I published this last post, I got an email from Coachella's publicity firm offering a $1000 reward and four lifetime Coachella tickets for the safe return of Roger Waters' giant inflatable pig, which apparently "escaped" during his performance.

Anyone with information on the lost pig should email lostpig@coachella.com.

GREAT SONGS FROM 2007 - part 1

So, I've already written about my favorite albums of 2007, but there are a lot of songs that I love that were one-offs, or just come from albums that didn't make my list (I don't get albums for free as much as I used to, and I can't buy everything!).

Kanye West, Nas, KRS-One and Rakim: "Classic (Better Than I've Ever Been)" This song was actually comissioned by Nike to celebrate their anniversary. But to me, it's about how age ain't nothin' but a number. I don't know what new MCs are considered hot, but I doubt many of them would hold a candle to KRS or Rakim. The original version of this song, by the way, was produced by Rick Rubin, and didn't feature Rakim. But the version I like is the remix, done by the legendary DJ Premier. I love Rick, but Premier killed it. Premier is one of the great producers ever, and hip-hop heads know it, but since he doesn't throw his name into every song he works on, and he doesn't show up in videos, he doesn't really get his due. But he was a member of Gang Starr, and also produced Rakim, KRS-One, Nas and lots of other great hip-hop artists. He expanded into pop recently by working on Christina Aguilera's album, cooking up some really cool tracks for that one.

Mick Jagger: "Too Many Cooks (Spoil The Soup)" I wrote about this one last year: it's a lost track from the '70s, was produced by John Lennon, and features Jack Bruce of Cream on bass. Kind of unfair to even rate anything from 2007 against a Jagger/Lennon collab. It's a great, funky song.

Rilo Kiley: "Silver Lining" I wrote a bit about this one also: great song. I've read some writers compare them to Fleetwood Mac, due to the fact that the singer has had a relationship with someone in the band? That doesn't sound as tangled as the Mac, it's more like No Doubt. Whatever, I really like this song, and I'm also digging the rest of the album, Under The Blacklight.

Prince - "F.U.N.K." This was a one-off single he released on iTunes. One of his funkiest, most rocking jams in years. I think it was a dis to his fansites. Prince also released a pretty good album, Planet Earth, which had at least two cool songs: "Guitar" and "Chelsea Rogers." Prince also gets points for his cover of "A Case Of You" from a Joni Mitchell tribute that came out in '07.

Patti Scialfa - "Town Called Heartbreak" From her latest, Play It As It Lays, her best yet. This song is so good, Bruce Springsteen added it to his sets on this tour (which he hadn't done with any of the songs on her previous two albums).

I've got more songs to write about - from Green Day, Rush, The Dropkick Murphys, Grace Potter & The Nocturnals, Wyclef Jean, Social Distortion, Ray Davies, The Hives, The Arctic Monkeys and more.

PRINCE: "NO PHOTOS 4 U!"

OK, I'm sure I'm like the millionth person to come up with that headline. And I'd also like to point out that in the following post, I do not use any images, authorized or otherwise, of The Artist Whom I Am Writing About.

Prince, one of the greatest artists of all time, has proven to be an innovator, not only as an artist, but as a businessman. Selling his albums with concert tickets, bundling his albums with a weekend newspaper, offering fans subscriptions to his music... he's always taken innovative approaches to getting his music to the fans, often bypassing record labels to do so.

Like any other artist who bypasses the major label system these days - including The Eagles, Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead and Madonna - he would not be in a position to do that without the fanbase that he built through the major label system. I don't think that any of these artists would claim that they would be able to make a living at what they're doing - much less live a very comfortable lifestyle as a result - without the muscle of the major labels. The labels empowered them to cultivate huge fan bases.

It's kind of mind blowing to me that Prince is now suing his fan base: particularly some Prince fan sites that are using his images, lyrics, album covers, etc. True, they may be copyrighted images and lyrics, but these sites are non profit, and anyway, it's 2007. You should be so lucky to have fans who are dedicated to do all that work to create an online shrine to you.

This doesn't - in my opinion - take away from Prince's great music. But still, lighten up dude. You can read more about this at Prince Fans United. And again, at no time were any images of said Artist used in this blog. And if the royal purple lawyer squad is reading this, and you don't want me to use His name - by all means, let me know. I can change it to "The Guy Who Did The Soundtrack of The First Batman Movie," or "The Guy Who Played That Awesome Guitar Solo During 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' At The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony A Few Years Ago," or something else like that.