Hello again! After almost a year and a half of radio silence, it now seems I can’t shut up. Let me explain. During my extended leave of absence, I did a lot of thinking about the future of this project. While it was never really in doubt (not consciously, anyway) that I would continue writing, something about the structure was feeling deeply demotivating. One of the strengths of the blog format–and the reason why I stubbornly cling to it, despite it already being borderline anachronistic when I started–is the serialized nature; I like that I can release my work piece by piece, as it’s finished, rather than just fucking off for 10 years to write a book. I also like the elements of community: the built-in feedback mechanisms and ability to share updates and news directly with my audience. The problem is, when I’m not able to write as regularly as I prefer, these two strengths of the format are at odds with each other: Informal “check-in” posts clutter up the homepage, and only serve as a reminder–to myself and the readers alike–of the meatier work I’m not sharing. Eventually, tired of the endless cycle of checking in to explain why I hadn’t been writing, I just stopped posting updates entirely.

The thing is, there’s been a lot in these past 15 months that I’ve wanted to share or talk about, but didn’t, because they weren’t the long-awaited “When Doves Cry” post. I never talked about #EroticCity40 in April, despite it being a highlight of my year. I never talked about Andrea Swensson’s excellent new 40th-anniversary Purple Rain book (granted, I also didn’t get around to reading it until last weekend, but still!). Hell, a whole Super Deluxe Edition of Diamonds and Pearls came out last October, and while I had every intention of writing about it, I ultimately scratched that post to focus on “Doves.”

What you’re reading now is an idea that I’m hoping can be a solution to this issue moving forward: A semi-regular, newsletter-style update for subscribers, where I’ll offer a peek behind the curtain about what I’m working on (for the blog and otherwise), fire off the occasional take about goings-on in the Prince world, and generally talk about anything else that doesn’t fit the song-by-song format of the blog proper. I’m limiting it to subscribers partly because I want to incentivize signing up for email notifications, and partly because, let’s face it, the only people who would want to read this are the ones who would sign up for email notifications. It will not, however, be behind any kind of paywall in the foreseeable future. Okay, so that’s the deal; now let’s get to it!

“When Doves Cry” is finally up!

First and foremost, if you’re not already aware, the aforementioned “When Doves Cry” post was finally let out of its cage last week. I’m way more pleased with it than I thought I’d be when I was in the early days of writing it; of course, that might just be the relief of getting it off my plate talking, but at this point, I’ll take it!

Since this post was the cause of my longest ever period of writer’s block, I thought it might be instructive to give some background on its troubled gestation. If you can believe it, I started writing the post soon after I finished “Love and Sex” in late November 2022; there’s an outgoing message in my email dated December 9 where I asked my informal Prince brain trust if anyone had a copy of Dez Dickerson’s “She Loves 2 Video” that I could use to check his (as it turns out, very reasonable) claims about that track’s similarities with “Doves.” Before I could get there, though, I got hung up on the connections to “Why the Butterflies” from Piano & A Microphone 1983. I remember both this section and the preceding one on the song’s lyrics being like pulling teeth; I spent the rest of 2022 tinkering ineffectually, with little progress made.

Once 2023 rolled around, I had to shift gears to work on my presentation for #TripleThreat40. I usually leave De Angela’s symposia reenergized and ready to get back to work; last spring, however, I was hitting a stage of burnout in my day job that, frankly, I still haven’t fully recovered from. That, combined with my ongoing struggles with the first section of the post, led me to basically put the whole project on hold until I got my head above water; it was around this time that I shut down the Patreon. I continued to half-heartedly chip away at the post on and off for the rest of the year, but the next major breakthrough was in early 2024 when I decided to get my ass in gear and try to finish in time for the 40th anniversary of the song’s recording. Obviously I did not hit that target, but I did finally get through the tricky lyrics/”Butterflies” section before I had to switch gears again to get ready for #EroticCity40.

From there, it was a much more normal process. The only real frustration was when I kept blowing past milestone dates that would have been perfect to launch the post on: I missed the 40th anniversary of the single release on May 16 and the album on June 25. In a weird, distant brush with the zeitgeist, I clearly remember I was working on the section about Michael Jackson when Kendrick Lamar dropped his verse on “Like That” by Future and Metro Boomin, the first shot across the bow in the war with Drake that dominated the discourse this past spring; I saw all the talk about the “Prince outlived Mike Jack” line on social media and worried I would be making my return just in time to walk into a full-blown inter-fandom brawl. Luckily, by the time I was finished, we had all since moved on (sometimes not being relevant pays!). I made my final push the week of July 22, in an effort to finish before the anniversary of the film release that Saturday; obviously I missed that milestone too, but it was close enough that I think I caught some of the residual celebratory mood (also, anniversaries are a marketing ploy, time is a trick, etc.).

I recount all this mostly to give some transparency for what the hell I was doing all this time–which, to be fair, was mostly a lot of nothing. The work-related burnout would often leave me so depleted that I didn’t have the energy to do much more than pop an edible and zone out in front of a video game (I may have only finished one post in the last year and a half, but I also finished Final Fantasy XVI, Alan Wake 2, Baldur’s Gate 3, and am about halfway through a second playthrough of Elden Ring as we speak). Now that I am feeling slightly less like an empty husk, I’m going to make a concerted effort to dedicate an hour or so to writing most days–this focus on time spent, rather than volume written, was what helped me push through the last few weeks of the “Doves” post. But also, I hope it gives a sense of the mental and (slightly dramatic though it may sound) emotional labor that goes into this project. There’s a reason why so many Stephen King novels are about writers struggling with writer’s block; it’s a genuine nightmare scenario, and if part of your identity and sense of self-worth comes from your craft, not being able to access the muse (or whatever) can make you feel defective.

Okay, sorry, that got heavier than intended! To close this section, I hope “When Doves Cry” was worth the wait. At the risk of sounding like the worst kind of YouTuber, if you read and enjoyed it, please consider sharing it with someone you think would like it! I obviously haven’t had anything of substance to promote in a long while, so I want to make sure people know I’m alive and still doing the work. But even if you’re not a sharer, I appreciate everyone reading this; knowing there is an audience out there is what keeps me writing!

A new look for D / M / S / R… and I came crawling back to Spotify

Now, for some real inside baseball: If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you probably already noticed that I gave it a facelift before relaunching last month, updating to a more recent WordPress theme and tweaking the design a bit. One of the major changes, which I feel compelled to comment on, was doing away with the end-of-post TIDAL links and replacing them with (sigh) Spotify links at the top of each post and throughout. For the last few years, I tried to take a principled stand against Spotify, for all the reasons you’d guess: Mainly, their payouts to artists are famously garbage, and their CEO seems like a real prick. I wanted to support TIDAL as an at least somewhat artist-friendly alternative; but the fact is, Spotify’s market share is so dominant at this point that it feels fruitless to try and resist–especially when their integration with platforms like WordPress is so much better than TIDAL’s.

I am slowly updating past posts to the new format, in reverse chronological order; so if you go back and read older posts, you might notice them looking slightly shitty compared to the newer ones. I also cleaned house by removing a bunch of podcast links and update posts; my intention is for these subscriber dispatches to fill that role moving forward, so the front page of the blog can highlight, you know, actual blog content. I’m hoping the return to Spotify won’t be too controversial; obviously I support physical ownership of media wherever possible, but I do like to throw the Prince estate some streaming revenue here and there, even if it’s only a fraction of a cent per stream.

Lastly, I don’t know how much this needed an announcement, but just in case: I’ve decided to formally retire the D / M / S / R podcast for the foreseeable future. With my limited capacity and the already ridiculous scope of this project, I need to get back to basics and focus on what I do best; and while I’m proud of the episodes I recorded these past seven (!) years, I’m a better writer than I am a podcaster. That being said, if any of the Prince podcasts out there ever want me to drop by as a guest, you know where to find me!

Some (self-)promotion

To make up for all the navel-gazing I did this time out, here’s a few quick things I’d like to promote. First, I’ll be appearing on What Did Prince Do This Week? with De Angela and Michael Dean tomorrow (Saturday, August 3) at 12 p.m. ET! Facebook and YouTube streaming links are available here if you want to watch live; it will also be archived on De Angela’s YouTube. De Angela asked me to come on and talk about “Happy Birthday, Mr. Christian” by Apollonia 6, which was recorded 40 years ago this week. Not gonna lie, I love that I’ve become “the Apollonia 6 guy”; if you haven’t already, check out my #EroticCity40 presentation for more of me gushing about my girls.

Speaking of #EroticCity40, I’m a little sad that I never got around to writing about the experience, which was my favorite of De Angela’s Prince symposia to date. Luckily, De Angela already sent out an excellent recap newsletter that I highly recommend you check out, with links to each and every presentation from the weekend. All I will add is that I remain honored to be included in this phenomenal group of scholars (credentialed and otherwise), and I will keep coming back for as long as she keeps asking me to.

Which brings me to next weekend’s #Come30 virtual symposium, where I will be presenting on Sunday, August 11 about (the Artist Formerly Known as) Prince’s early-’90s engagement with an alternative rock aesthetic. I still need to finish my presentation, but from what I’ve seen of my co-panelists I am confident it will be a good time. You can register to attend (for free!) here.

Finally, one thing I want to do with these newsletters is share some of the other stuff I’ve been listening to, which believe it or not is not all Prince, all the time. The song I’ve had in heavy rotation these past few weeks is “Le Risque,” the lead single from the upcoming album by hyper-prolific Australian rockers King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. I started getting into them earlier this year when I decided to make a real effort to listen to new rock music, which I haven’t kept up with in any real way since I was in college. I enjoyed their 2023 album PetroDragonic Apocalypse quite a bit, but from what I’ve heard, I think this next album is going to be the one that really “clicks” for me; “Le Risque” in particular is pure boogie rock bliss. Can’t wait for it to drop next week!

Okay, this already went way longer than intended, so I’ll call it here. Let me know what you think of this new way of keeping in touch with you all (I promise next time won’t be such a wall of text!). See you at #Come30!