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Prince Track by Track: “REVELATION”

Prince Track by Track: “REVELATION”

(Featured Image: Prince takes a bow at the Sydney Opera House, February 20, 2016; photo stolen from SERPAN99’s Twitter.)

Well, here we are: my last episode ever of Darren Husted’s Prince: Track by Track podcast. All told, we recorded 36 of these things over the last 20 months, and it’s been a real pleasure to both talk about some of my favorite songs and educate myself on some other songs I didn’t know much about. Thanks to Darren for taking a chance on me, a complete stranger who responded to his call for guests on Twitter almost two years ago. I think we went out on a pretty good note, if I do say so myself:

Prince Track by Track: “REVELATION”

If you just can’t get enough of listening to me ramble about Prince, I will hopefully be making some other podcast appearances in the near future; and of course, I still hope to put out another one of my own someday. For now, though, you’ll just have to content yourself with reading me ramble about Prince. I’ll be doing some more of that very soon.

Revisit: Vanity 6

Revisit: Vanity 6

(Featured Image: Cover art for Vanity 6, 1982; photo by Allen Beaulieu, © Warner Bros.)

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’re probably wondering where I am with my next Vanity 6 post. Well, with all the hubbub around Celebration 2019, I got the feeling that anything I posted last week would become background noise; then, a few freelance obligations caught up with me, so I had to turn my attention to those. Fortunately, those freelance obligations happen to be related to what I’m doing here–in this case, very related, as I decided to write about the Vanity 6 album for Spectrum Culture’s recurring Revisit/Rediscover feature:

Revisit: Vanity 6

If you’ve been reading my recent d / m / s / r posts, you’ll recognize a lot of familiar themes here; basically I’ve always wanted to evangelize on behalf of this album for a slightly more general audience, so I took this opportunity to regurgitate some of my recent thoughts. But this also gave me the opportunity to start thinking about a few of my upcoming posts, so expect to see a few of these ideas explored in greater depth here. As for when you can expect that, well, I have a review of the Ultimate Rave set in the pipeline for Spectrum on Thursday, so I’ll be back to my regularly-scheduled programming by Friday. See you then!

Prince Track by Track: “BOYTROUBLE”

Prince Track by Track: “BOYTROUBLE”

(Featured Image: Lizzo pays tribute to Prince in the music video for “Boys,” 2018; © Atlantic Records.)

It’s crazy to think about, but I’m nearing the end of my guest appearances on Darren Husted’s Prince: Track by Track podcast: just three more to go, one track each from ART OFFICIAL AGE and HITnRUN Phases One and Two. In the meantime, though, the topic is “BOYTROUBLE” from 2014’s PLECTRUMELECTRUM:

Prince Track by Track: “BOYTROUBLE”

This episode is serendipitously well-timed, since Lizzo–one of the featured artists on the track, who has really blown up in the last few years–is releasing her highly-anticipated third studio album Cuz I Love You next week. If all goes according to plan, I’ll be sharing a review of that album soon. And if all goes even more according to plan, I’ll have another track from Vanity 6 posted before then. Stay tuned!

Nasty Girl

Nasty Girl

(Featured Image: “D.D. Winters,” a.k.a. Denise Matthews, a.k.a. Vanity, in Tanya’s Island, Alfred Sole, 1980; © Jef Films International.)

While Prince wasn’t nominated for any American Music Awards in 1982, the night of the ceremony would turn out to be fortuitous for another reason. It was at an AMAs after-party on January 25 when he first met Denise Matthews: a 23-year-old model who, under another name, would soon become the most infamous of his 1980s paramours.

Born in Niagara Falls, Ontario to a German Jewish mother and an African American father, Matthews shared with Prince a tumultuous childhood: her parents divorced when she was young, and she and her six siblings grew up without their mother in their lives. In Matthews’ case, however, the trauma also extended to sustained physical and, it’s been alleged, sexual abuse at the hands of her father, who died when she was only 15. “For 15 years, he beat me badly,” she later told Aldore Collier of Jet magazine (Collier 1993 58). “I wish I could see my father in heaven, but I won’t. He’s in Hell” (59).

Despite–or perhaps because of–the low self-esteem she suffered as a result of this troubled upbringing, the stunningly beautiful Matthews went on to pursue a career in modeling: winning the Miss Niagara Hospitality pageant in 1977, and competing for the Miss Canada title the following year. She signed with New York’s Zoli Agency and appeared in a few ad campaigns in the U.S. and Japan. Under the pseudonym “D.D. Winters,” she acted in the 1980 Canadian slasher film Terror Train, starring Jamie Lee Curtis, and had the dubious honor of playing the title role in Tanya’s Island: a truly bizarre erotic fantasy about a model embroiled in a violent love triangle with her painter boyfriend and a bestial, apelike creature (no, seriously, see photo above).

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