Tag: purple rain tour
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The Glamorous Life
Prince had tried before with his protégées, most notably Vanity, to Pygmalion a female version of himself; but while a few of these femme-Princes (Princesses?) could emulate him as a sex symbol, none before Sheila had the stage presence or musicianship.
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Erotic City
Here, Prince seems to hearken back to his electro-funk epics of the 1999 era; but rather than retreading past glories, he does so with a sense of tacit self-one-upsmanship, showing just how far he’d come as a musician and producer in the past two years.
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Possessed
Like many of Prince’s songs from this period, “Possessed” is the musical monologue of a man afflicted with chronic horniness. The unique selling proposition, in this case, is a dash of Christian demonology, as Prince’s narrator attributes the stirring in his loins to nothing short of infernal influence.
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When Doves Cry (Why the Butterflies)
More perhaps than anything else, “When Doves Cry” existed for Prince as a symbol of what he was capable of when he pushed his artistry to its absolute limits.
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Love and Sex (1984)
When Prince mentions “the upper room,” he seems to be literally referencing Heaven; and when he sings, “Will He let you hurt me in the upper room?”, he’s asking if God will allow him to fuck there.
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Podcast: 41 Years of Controversy – A Conversation with Harold Pride and De Angela Duff
Here we are again, my first podcast in more than a year, and I couldn’t have asked for better guests than Harold Pride and De Angela Duff to discuss Prince’s fourth and quite possibly most underrated album, 1981’s Controversy.