Tag: bob george

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Patreon Exclusives

Patreon Exclusive: So, Let’s Talk About That Sign “O” the Times Reissue

Cover art for the forthcoming Sign "O" the Times Super Deluxe Edition; photo by Jeff Katz, © Warner Bros./NPG Records.

Last Thursday, after weeks of rumors and leaks, it finally became official: the next expanded reissue from Warner Bros. and the Prince Estate is Sign “O” the Times, and it’s a doozy: 8 CDs (13 LPs, for the wax-inclined) and a DVD covering the full breadth of Prince’s output from late 1985 to early 1987. I won’t be “officially” writing about this music until 2021 at the earliest (more on that later), but damned if I can’t share some preliminary thoughts about it now. Here they are, disc by disc (and, in the case of the Vault discs, track by track)…

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Prince Track by Track: “Dead on It”

"Master Rapper" Barney Rubble, an MC at least slightly wacker than Prince circa 1987; photo stolen from Overthinking It.

I’ve been trying to squeeze in at least one guest spot per album on Darren Husted’s Prince: Track by Track podcast, and for The Black Album I couldn’t resist taking on what is arguably its goofiest track, “Dead on It.” Listen to Darren and I dissect Prince’s skills on the mic here:

Prince Track by Track: “Dead on It”

I’ll be posting another podcast–one of my own–by the end of the week, then it’s off to Minneapolis!

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Podcast

Podcast: Vous êtes très belle – Joni Todd and Karen Turman on the Salford Purple Reign Conference

Prince in French Dandy Mode, Under the Cherry Moon, 1986; © Warner Bros.

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Just under two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of speaking with two more presenters from the University of Salford’s interdisciplinary Prince conference: Joni Todd and Karen Turman, who you may know by reputation as the “esoteric French panel.” But if all that sounds too highbrow, don’t worry; we mostly talked about Prince’s impeccable fashion sense and uncompromising artistic vision, just with a lot of references to Charles Baudelaire and Marcel Duchamp. It’s probably the only Prince podcast you’ll hear that mentions both “Pussy Control” and Walter Benjamin, and that’s the best endorsement I can give.

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Podcast

Podcast: The Evolution Will Be Colorized – Zack Stiegler on the Salford Purple Reign Conference

Cover for "The War" CD Promo, © NPG Records.

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This episode, it’s 2 Zacks United 4 Prince Conference (sorry) as your usual host, Zach Hoskins, talks to Zack Stiegler, Associate Professor in Communications Media Studies at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. As in my last episode with Jane Clare Jones, we’re here to talk about Zack’s time at the University of Salford’s interdisciplinary Prince conference back in May;  but we also touch upon a lot of other interesting subjects, including Prince’s ever-shifting attitudes toward the Internet, his racial consciousness, and the subtle (/sometimes not-so-subtle) current of Afrofuturism in his work.

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Dystopian Listening Party Podcast: Prince, 1958-2016

Prince tribute outside First Avenue; photo by Jeff Wheeler, stolen from the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

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Yesterday, I spent an unbelievably self-indulgent six hours on Skype with Jane Clare Jones, preparing and recording a podcast to mark the first anniversary of Prince’s death (because of our unbelievable self-indulgence, it will actually be several podcasts). The first installment of our conversation should be ready to post by Friday; but in the meantime, here’s another conversation from last year with my sister Callie, which ran on our blog Dystopian Dance Party just over a week after we heard the terrible news. In case you’re concerned–I know emotions are raw this week–it’s mostly a joyous discussion, focusing on Prince and what he means to us rather than the tragic conditions of his end. I thought now was as good a time as any to share it with a wider audience. Show notes are here, and I’ll be back tomorrow with a review of another recent addition to the canon of Prince literature.