Hi, friends! I did not expect to be sending out another newsletter so soon after the first one, but there’s a compelling reason for it: Recordings of this past weekend’s #Come30 virtual symposium are available to watch on Zoom Events until this Sunday, August 18 at 11:59 pm ET. You can register for the event at this link. The recordings will also eventually be uploaded on YouTube, but De Angela warned us that it will take a while (so don’t bug her about it!).

I’ll share more detailed thoughts on the symposium when those YouTube videos are available; I’m playing catchup myself, having missed all of Saturday’s programming and about half of Sunday’s due to pesky family commitments. But what I was able to catch live on Sunday was up to the usual standards of De Angela’s symposia, with excellent presentations by Kamilah Cummings, Crystal Wise, Robin Shumays and Mauriciere de Govia, Scott Woods, and Erica Thompson. I have to single out for special praise Chris Rob’s and Tammy Sharpe’s joint presentation, which De Angela wisely programmed to close out the event; they delivered a whole short documentary, complete with a bespoke arrangement of “Come” with piano by Mr. Rob. It’s a must-see–and I recommend making an effort to see it this week, since I’m not confident it will make it past the copyright police on YouTube!

I also want to take this opportunity to expand on something I referenced in my presentation, since I was speaking off the cuff and I don’t think I gave enough context. While preparing for my presentation on Sunday, I happened to log in to Facebook (which I only do about once a week at most) and saw this interesting exchange on music critic Miles Marshall Lewis’ page:

Basically, Miles tagged Chuck Eddy (another veteran music critic) about a piece he wrote for L.A. Weekly back in 1994, which posited, “Nobody will remember two minutes of Come a year from now, just like every other record Prince has put out since Sign o’ the Times.” Chuck (to his credit!) responded, initially with understandable confusion (I’d have a hard time remembering something I wrote 30 years ago too). But, while I bear him no ill will, I have to confess that his response kind of rubbed me the wrong way (more so, frankly, than his original dismissiveness of the album, which was pretty much par for the course for rock critics in ’94). He wrote, “sure, some people ‘remember.’ Some people apparently even have symposiums!” (Miles had let him know that we were convening to mark the 30th anniversary of the album he said no one would remember in a year.) After a little more back and forth, he added this defensive rejoinder: “Like plenty of artists of all colors, fans and critics of all colors cut [Prince’s] later, less exciting stuff slack, because, well, that’s what fans and critics tend to do. Especially old ones. Hero worship generally isn’t my thing; I tend to have a low tolerance for great artists once they start spinning their wheels and resting on their laurels. Hope the symposium went swimmingly.”

Like I said in my presentation, I probably shouldn’t have even waded into this. I don’t know Chuck (I’m sure I’ve read some of his work); I barely know Miles (but have definitely read some of his). I’m certainly not trying to pick a fight with anyone, and maybe I’m reading a tone into Chuck’s comments that wasn’t intended. To me, though, his response felt patronizing–like, “Oh, how cute, the obsessed Prince fans are having a convention about this mediocre album us serious critics have all forgotten about.” And that annoys me because, quite frankly, the criticism I see at these symposia is leagues beyond the vast majority of what I have read in traditional print publications–especially when it comes to Prince, who, let’s face it, “serious” critics have been wrong about since before Sign “O” the Times. Chuck is of course free to dismiss any album he wants to; taste is taste. But his writing off the for-real scholarship I saw last weekend as uncritical “hero worship” only demonstrates how important and thankless a task De Angela is doing by highlighting these overlooked albums. The time is long overdue for a critical reevaluation of (The Artist Formerly Known as) Prince’s early-’90s work, and as this exchange made clear, we can’t wait around on the old guard of music critics to do it. Luckily, if this past weekend was any evidence, we are more than equipped to handle it ourselves.

Okay, enough internecine music writer squabbles. Before I sign off, I want to share the recording of my appearance on What Did Prince Do This Week? the Saturday before last. I was ostensibly there to discuss “Happy Birthday, Mr. Christian” by Apollonia 6, but the highlight (for me, at least) was a wide-ranging conversation with De Angela, Michael Dean, the inimitable C. Liegh McInnis, and the live chat about porn tropes and Prince’s evolving artistic presentations of women. I know we could have easily gone on for another hour if we had the time! Check the recording below, and make sure to tune into #WDPDTW live on Saturdays at noon ET:

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for you today! In closing, I just want to reiterate how grateful I am to be part of this incredibly smart, thoughtful, diverse, talented community of critics, scholars, thinkers, and yes, fine, okay, “fans.” I’m already looking forward to #PopLife40 next year; in the meantime, I’ll be back ASAP with a new post on “Possessed.”