Guess it’s high time I did another one of these, huh? I had intended to hold off on another newsletter update until I finished my post on “17 Days”–but, well, I’d also planned on having that post finished by the end of October. The good news is, I’d say I’m about halfway through writing the post in question (and last night I got through a part that was giving me particular trouble), so the wait shouldn’t be too much longer; in the meantime, this is me checking in and assuring you that I’m not dead.

So what have I been doing, aside from slowly writing about beloved 1984 B-sides? Well, as I shared last time, I spent the first two weeks of October on a combined work sabbatical, second honeymoon, and 40th birthday trip to Ireland, England, and Iceland. Here’s a picture of me at our hotel in the Cotswolds, wearing a Prince shirt and very tentatively trying black pudding:

(For the record, it tasted fine as long as you don’t think about what’s in it–so, pretty much like most American food!)

After returning to the States, I was predictably slow to get back into the swing of things; then the election happened and, well, I had to extend my mental health break by a couple weeks. As an aside, this is now the second time I’ve traveled internationally weeks before Trump was elected; if I find myself in Europe again in the fall of 2028 or 2032, I’ll probably just claim asylum.

Aside from the unfolding hellscape that is 2020s America (or perhaps relatedly?), I can now finally share one of the reasons I’ve been so busy with work this year: my workplace has unionized, and I’ve been one of the main organizers of this effort. I’m proud of this achievement, but as you might imagine, the added responsibility–combined with the already-heavy workload that led us to organize in the first place–hasn’t left much room for serious writing.

But believe it or not, I’m not here to complain and make excuses! The TL;DR of all this is, I’m back in my home country (for whatever that’s worth), reasonably well-rested, and of sound enough mind and body that I can finally get back to “work,” so you’ll be seeing more from me here by the end of 2024–and hopefully more from me in general in 2025!

If you’re truly starved for Zach content, though, I do have some fun stuff to promote that I haven’t gotten around to sharing on social media. First, back in October the University Press of Mississippi released a new collection of Prince scholarship titled The Purple One: Prince, Race, Gender, and Everything in Between. And while I’m not a contributor, if you look on the back of the book (or just follow the link I shared), you’ll see a blurb by a preeee-tty recognizable reviewer. I get the feeling this book is flying under a lot of people’s radars (it is, after all, a collection of academic essays), so check it out if you haven’t already!

Second, something I have been seeing discussed in fan circles is that the esteemed Purple Music collective from Spain has put out a 180-page magazine dedicated to Purple Rain, and I’m in it! My contribution (appropriately enough) is an article on the B-sides and Vault tracks that didn’t make it onto the album, but I’m slowly reading the other pieces and am blown away by the quality of the whole package. And don’t worry, if you’re a fellow dumbass who only speaks American, the magazine is in both Spanish and English!

Of course, the purple world continues to go on without me. Last month (the fourth day of November, no less, a date freighted with significance for Prince fanatics), Prince’s younger sister Tyka Nelson died of cardiac arrest at the age of 64. Like I said about Cat Glover last time, I’m not the right person to eulogize her, but I wish the best for her family. I also hope that this is the last newsletter I write, at least for a while, that coincides with someone’s obituary.

In happier news (at least for us; probably not so much for the estate), the last week or so has seen a steady drip of unofficial leaks from the Vault–a welcome relief from the year-long drought since the release of Diamonds and Pearls Super Deluxe. First out the gate was “Keep On Loving U,” a previously unheard track estimated by Prince Vault to date from “between 2005 and 2007.” A plush R&B groove built on a sped-up sample of Anita Baker’s 1988 single “Giving You the Best That I Got,” it would have fit in just fine on 2006’s 3121 or 2007’s Planet Earth; in fact, I’d argue it’s a more memorable tune than most of what came out on the latter. In the ensuing days, we’ve also heard an unreleased “promo mix” of 1999’s “The Greatest Romance Ever Sold,” a solo piano recording of a late 1987 song called “No Changes”–quite possibly, Prince Vault notes, the first track ever recorded at Paisley Park–and a stripped-down 1995 version of the Emancipation cut “Soul Sanctuary.”

A common theme in the reactions I’ve seen to these leaks online is that bootleg traders are now doing the job the official custodians of Prince’s legacy can’t or won’t do. And, yeah, no arguments here: If you still needed confirmation that the current estate is more interested in serving as a gatekeeper than as a curator, you need look no further. But this is hardly new information, so–for the sake of my own mood as much as anything else–I’m choosing not to view the unofficial release of “new” Prince material purely, or even mainly, through the lens of institutional incompetence. Instead, what I’m taking from all of this–the leaks, the new publications, and yes, even the continued existence of this goofy little pet project of mine–is something I’ve said here before: Whatever Prince’s legacy ultimately amounts to, it won’t be decided by record labels, estranged lawyers and family members, or faceless “brand management” enterprises. It will be decided by us–the historians, curators, and connoisseurs, both formal and informal, to whom his music means something more than dollar signs. When I listen to “Keep On Loving U”–and I have many times in this past week alone!–I don’t think about the other unreleased music that “should” be hitting the shelves like clockwork, the better to maximize the intellectual property of Warner Bros. Discovery, Sony Music Entertainment, and Prince Legacy LLC; I think, my God, this exists, this was made by a real human being in my lifetime, and now I get to hear it. In a time when it feels like so much of our society is going–or has gone!–irrevocably to shit, that means something.

(Incidentally, I think there’s a broader lesson here about the risks of putting too many of our hopes and desires into institutions, especially within a capitalist system; but unpacking that is a little above the pay grade of a hobbyist music writer, so to quote the great C. Liegh McInnis, I’ll shut up.)

Last time I ended by sharing a Spotify playlist of the music I’d been listening to in September. I fell out of this habit pretty hard last month, but here’s what I was listening to both during and immediately after my trip in October. I think I’m going to call November a loss and pick it up again this month–good advice for all of us, really! I’ll see you when “17 Days” is done–for real this time.