As I divide my writing time this week between d / m / s / r and the various year-end list obligations from my other side hustle as a freelance music writer, here’s the latest of my guest appearances on Darren Husted’s Prince: Track by Track podcast, talking about a nice-but-not-beloved song from a nice-but-not-beloved album:
Prince Track by Track:
“What Do U Want Me 2 Do?”
Speaking of end-of-year stuff, I suppose now is as good a time as any to give some indication of how I see the rest of the month shaking out. I plan to get at least one or two songs into the Time’s second album–ideally starting this week, though the aforementioned freelancing obligations mean that next week is a safer bet. Before I shut down for the holidays, I also plan to post (by request!) a new installment in my series of alternate universe fan-fics masquerading as serious historical thought experiments. And I think I’m on the slate for at least two more episodes of Track by Track in 2018. My own podcast is currently dormant, but will return in the new year with, at the very least, another album review. And then we’ll be on to 1999 before we know it in 2019! As always, a heartfelt thanks to everyone who takes the time to read and/or listen to my thoughts–I know you have many choices when it comes to Prince-related commentary, etc., etc.
8 replies on “Prince Track by Track: “What Do U Want Me 2 Do?””
we have many choices, but none as thoroughly researched and well told. I spend most of my time in eager anticipation of the next post. No pressure 😉
On top of that, your opinions on the quality of tracks is mostly only somewhat wrong. :-p
All the best for 2019 already. I hope you’ll have a wonderfull time with your loved ones.
Never want to give the impression that I’m fishing for compliments, but knowing that people are out here actively reading this stuff really helps me push through my less enthusiastic moments!
The ‘you’d get beheaded in other lands’ line is one of his most problematic lyrics to me. Totally shifts all responsibility on the ‘evil seductive’ woman. Gross, Prince. It reminds me of a quote of his I read somewhere about life in Saudi Arabia. I couldn’t find it on the interwebs unfortunately, but it was something about how life was so orderly there, and everyone knows their place, and some other wildly conservative patriarchal nonsense. Anyone remember that?
Yeah it really is a perfect storm of weird Islamophobic propaganda and rape culture-y lecturing (that also comes off as an endorsement of Sharia law?). It just seems like the kind of thing a racist family member would say, and “racist family member” is not my preferred incarnation of Prince. Haven’t seen the quote you remember, but yeesh, his mid-2000s interviews were rough.
if I recall correctly, the quote was about how everyone having the same religion was a good thing.
LOL of course it was
Yeah it really is a perfect storm of weird Islamophobic propaganda and rape culture-y lecturing (that also comes off as an endorsement of Sharia law?). It just seems like the kind of thing a racist family member would say, and “racist family member” is not my preferred incarnation of Prince. Haven’t seen the quote you remember, but yeesh, his mid-2000s interviews were rough.