Tag: marvin gaye

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Prince Track by Track Presents Stevie Wonder Classics: “Keep on Running”

I took a break from both externally- and self-imposed work on Monday and spent all day yesterday catching up, which means I’m tardy in sharing my latest appearance on Darren Husted’s miniseries of track by track podcasts on the “classic era” of Stevie Wonder. So, for those who are interested, here it is now:

Prince Track by Track Presents
Stevie Wonder Classics:
“Keep On Running”

For those who aren’t interested–and just simply for everyone’s information–a quick update: “Horny Toad” will be up on the blog tomorrow, with “Lust U Always” (the winner of our Patreon poll) following for patrons on Friday. If you want to read the post on this still-controversial track a week ahead of the general public, consider supporting dance / music / sex / romance on Patreon. I know things got inexcusably quiet in October, but I have some good stuff planned from now through the holidays:

Support d / m / s / r on Patreon

In any case, thanks as always for reading!

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Uncategorized

Prince Track by Track Presents Stevie Wonder Classics: “If You Really Love Me”

Cover art for Where I'm Coming From, © Motown Records.

I know, this isn’t what you want from me right now–but I recorded this podcast with Darren Husted of Prince: Track by Track fame a couple months ago and I wanted to share it here for anyone who might be interested. If you’ve listened to any of my appearances on Track by Track, this will be familiar territory–with the obvious exception that we’re talking about Stevie Wonder, an artist with whom I am less familiar than I am with Prince, but who I obviously still appreciate on account of my functioning ears:

Prince Track by Track Presents
Stevie Wonder Classics:
“If You Really Love Me”

If you enjoy this, there’s more on the way: I’ve already recorded an episode for each of Wonder’s albums from 1972’s Music of My Mind to 1976’s Songs in the Key of Life. Also, while we’re on the subject of stuff I’ve done recently that is only vaguely Prince-related, my other project Dystopian Dance Party released a podcast the other week about George Clinton’s 2014 memoir Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard on You?, co-written by Prince book author Ben Greenman (and if you remember my review of said Prince book, rest assured that this one is better):

Dystopian Book Club vs. George Clinton’s Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard on You?

That concludes my shilling for this week! The next time you hear from me, it will be with a full post for “Purple Music.”

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Patreon Exclusives Reviews

Patreon Exclusive Review: On Time – A Princely Life in Funk

Cover art for On Time: A Princely Life in Funk by Morris Day and David Ritz, from Amazon.

The announcement of Morris Day’s autobiography seemed to come out of nowhere. Where other former Prince associates teased their books for months in advance–sometimes with disastrous results–the first hint of Morris’ memoir came complete with a title, a cover, and a prestigious collaborator in David Ritz, coauthor of books with Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Rick James, and many others.

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Controversy, 1981

Controversy, Part 3: Do I Believe in God? Do I Believe in Me?

Prince's electric church in the music video for "Controversy," 1981; © Warner Bros.

Note: This is the third and last post on “Controversy”: a song that presents so much to unpack, I’ve opted to split my analysis into parts. Please read the first and second parts before proceeding.

Do I believe in God? Do I believe in me?

Of the famous questions Prince asks in the lyrics to “Controversy,” he only answers one–or two, depending on how you count them. The questions are, “Do I believe in God?” and, “Do I believe in me?” The answer–to both, presumably–is “yes.”

More even than the nuances of race and sexuality, this distinction between “God” and “me”–the sacred and the secular, the spirit and the flesh, etc.–was the prevailing theme of Prince’s career. This in itself hardly makes him unique: the “comingling of the profane and the spiritual is an age-old Black music trope,” writes cultural critic Touré. “Quite often in Black music history the erotic and the divine, or the concerns of Saturday night and Sunday morning, are close together in a song or a playing style or an album or a career”–including those of Prince progenitors like Little Richard, James Brown, Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, and others (Touré 125). But while the majority of these artists vacillated between “God’s music” and “the Devil’s,” Prince’s innovation was in combining the two: making gospel-informed music that erased the fine line between matters of the body and the soul.

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For You, 1978 Podcast

Podcast: 40 Years of For You

Cover art for For You, 1978; photo by Joe Giannetti, © Warner Bros.

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dance / music / sex / romance is fast approaching its third year, so to celebrate, we’re going…backwards? That’s right, to mark the 40th anniversary of Prince’s debut album, I thought now was the perfect time to go ahead with an idea I’ve been toying with for a while: our own sub-series of review podcasts looking at each of Prince’s albums in isolation.

I’m doing this for a few reasons. First, it’s a way to bring those of you who have been listening to the podcasts but not reading the blog into the loop on my chronological Prince project–and also a way for me to work through some of these albums before I can get to it with my glacially paced writing schedule.

Second, I’ve known from the beginning of this project that if I really wanted to do Prince’s catalogue justice, I would need to incorporate more voices and perspectives than just my own. We all have our biases and blind spots, and as a Prince fan I am acutely aware that one person’s sentimental favorite can be another’s unlistenable mess (and vice versa). That’s why I asked my friends Harold and KaNisa, both of whose encyclopaedic knowledge of Prince’s career dwarfs my own, to join me. I think you’ll find that our tastes and opinions both intersect and diverge in a lot of interesting ways, which allowed us–and hopefully, will allow you–to take a different perspective on some of these songs and the context in which they were created.

I hope you enjoy this new approach to an album that remains underappreciated in Prince’s catalogue. If you do, I hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on your streaming app of choice (iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play), and if you’re so inclined, leave a review! No matter what, thanks for listening, and see you again soon.

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