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#PrinceTwitterThread: “Endorphinmachine”

As I’ve alluded a few times recently, the last couple of weeks have been pretty hectic in my neck of the woods; but I still had to make the time to participate in this month’s #PrinceTwitterThread series on 1995’s The Gold Experience. I know I remain, somewhat unfashionably, an ’80s Prince guy, but The Gold Experience is one of my faves from the ’90s and “Endorphinmachine” is an absolute banger. Check out the thread below, and be sure to also make your voice heard on the poll I posted pitting the raw original mix against the clunktastic album version. Also, stay tuned to @PrinceThread on Twitter; the series just got started, and is going all the way through the Record Store Day release of The Gold Experience on Saturday the 18th!

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Ephemera, 1981-1982

No Call U

The months after Jill Jones joined Prince’s orbit were “one crazy blur,” she recalled in a recently-published interview with writer Miles Marshall Lewis. From the “spring of ‘82 all the way until July, we were pretty much in the studio daily,” working on the Time and Vanity 6 projects alongside his own fifth album. “And who knew what was going to end up where, with who, what. I was just ready for the ride” (Lewis 2020 “Part 1”). Initially, her role was strictly as a backing vocalist: providing support on the 1999 album and tour for both Prince and Vanity 6. But the Artist Formerly Known as Jamie Starr had grander plans: namely, turning his newest protégée into a star in her own right.

Not all of these plans went off without a hitch. Jones resisted Prince’s overtures to change her name to Elektra, after the recently-introduced Marvel Comics character; a decade later, that moniker would of course find a more willing beneficiary in Carmen Electra, née Tara Leigh Patrick (Lewis 2020 “Part 2”). But she did allow him to give her a makeover inspired by prototypical blonde bombshell Marilyn Monroe: “Prince said I looked like every girl with long brown hair and I needed something to stand out,” she told Michael A. Gonzales for Wax Poetics. “He said, ‘When Vanity walks in a room, people know she’s a star. You need your own thing’” (Gonzales 2018 66).

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Prince Track by Track New Year’s Roundup

As usual, I took the last couple weeks of December off for the holidays, which meant I didn’t post the links to my last two appearances on Darren Husted’s Prince: Track by Track podcast. So here they are now: one of my favorite tracks from Prince’s extended universe, as well as one of the most forgettable. I’ll let you guess which one is which:

Prince Track by Track: “Hynoparadise”

Prince Track by Track: “A Love Bizarre”

With this bit of business out of the way, I’m now officially on track to kick off the blog for 2019. We’ll start tomorrow with a belated post from one of our alternate timelines, then it’s back to the Time’s second album next week. Happy New Year!

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Prince Track by Track: “She Spoke 2 Me”

Let me actually start with an update: I’m now about halfway through my second post on “Controversy,” which means it will be on track to go live next week. Very excited to share it; the first “Controversy” post was one of my favorite things I’ve written for d / m / s / r, and this one feels to me like a worthy followup. In the meantime, here’s another episode of the Prince: Track by Track podcast, where host Darren Husted and I talk about one of my favorite deep cuts of the ’90s:

Prince Track by Track: “She Spoke 2 Me”

Again, I’ll be back with more next week! See you all soon.

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Prince Track by Track: “Crystal Ball”

My recent run of guest appearances on Prince: Track by Track has taken me out of my comfort zone, into some albums that I frankly don’t care much for. But now we’ve finally reached Crystal Ball, allowing me to return–however briefly–to the warm embrace of 1986. But first, Darren Husted and I had to address the elephant in the room that is Crystal Ball’s disastrous 1998 release. As I note, there may be a lesson to be learned in this for those who want Prince’s estate to be run “the way he would have done it.” Listen to both episodes below:

Prince Track by Track:
Crystal Ball Album Introduction

Prince Track by Track: “Crystal Ball”

I’ll be back on Track by Track to discuss another epic from Crystal Ball later this month; before then, you can expect another track or two from Controversy. It’s taken some time, but I’m finally getting back to the grind!