Tag: susannah melvoin

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Controversy, 1981 Podcast

Podcast: 41 Years of Controversy – A Conversation with Harold Pride and De Angela Duff

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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. If you’ve been listening to these deep-dive album retrospectives, Harold needs no introduction; and, since the Prince scholarly community is a pretty small one, De Angela may not need one either. Suffice to say that she’s the biggest advocate of Controversy I know, and she makes a convincing case that it’s not only a great album in its own right, but also the linchpin of Prince’s entire career.

One quick note: you will likely notice that there was a significant drop in audio quality this episode; this was due to a perfect storm of technical issues that, unfortunately, left the low-quality Skype call recording as the only usable audio source from our conversation. I think you’ll get used to it, but I will assure you anyway that I’m taking steps to make sure we sound better next time. And yes, speaking of “next time,” I do have plans for more episodes in the coming months–probably not in October, but maybe one more before the end of the year, and then more to come in early 2023. If you want to hear the episodes as soon as they drop, remember to subscribe on your podcast service of choice using the links above!

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Ice Cream Castle, 1984

Ice Cream Castles (Old and Ignant)

Night falls on Ice Cream Castle; L to R: Jellybean Johnson, Jerome Benton, Paul Peterson, Morris Day, Jesse Johnson, Mark Cardenas, Jerry Hubbard. © Warner Bros.

After the completion of “My Drawers” on January 12, 1984, the Time had five new songs in the can–enough to form the core of their third album. But they were still missing the pièce de résistance. For this, Prince turned once again to a half-finished song by Jesse Johnson: a funky jam called “Old and Ignant” which the guitarist had demoed with singer Morris Day. “Prince kept telling me[,] ‘It’s so cool how you played the bass on the AND instead of the 1,’” Johnson shared on Facebook in 2014. “[G]reat compliment[,] even though at that time I didn’t know what he was talking about” (Johnson March 21).

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Purple Rain, 1984

The Beautiful Ones

© Warner Bros.

On August 1, 1983, Albert Magnoli arrived in Minneapolis to finish his revised screenplay for Purple Rain. He spent his first week in town interviewing the prospective cast members, including Prince’s band, the Time, and Vanity 6, to mine their real-life relationships for dramatic potential. As he explained to sessionographer Duane Tudahl, “My research was for me to sit down and say, ‘Okay, I have a scene I’m developing between you, Wendy, Lisa, and Prince, and you’re very angry at him. And you’re in the dressing room and you’re about to go on and you want to know if he hear[d] your music. Give me what you feel like?’ And they start, ‘Oh well, yeah that happens all the time!’ So all their shit comes up because they’ve been in that with him” (Tudahl 2018 117).

The director supplemented his research by sitting in on band rehearsals and attending the August 3 First Avenue performance where the film’s title song received its debut. Mostly, though, he wrote: spending his days in a motel room drafting in longhand, “from seven to seven… with a ruler and pencil, on paper. Then a secretary would come in and type everything up from that day in script form” (Light 2014 91). By the end of the month, when Magnoli flew back to Los Angeles to finish editing James Foley’s Reckless, his first draft was complete.

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Press Rewind: “Strange Relationship”

Single cover for "If I Was Your Girlfriend"--not "Strange Relationship," but close enough. © Warner Bros.

Last week, I made my long-awaited (by somebody, I’m assuming) return to Jason Breininger’s Press Rewind podcast to talk about one of my favorite songs, “Strange Relationship.” Turns out it was actually the 100th episode, so I’m honored to have been able to participate in this milestone. Check it out below–and, if you haven’t been keeping up with Jason’s podcast, check out the other episodes, too. Every Sign “O” the Times episode I’ve listened to so far has been great.

Press Rewind: “Strange Relationship”

Now, here’s the part where I give a general update of where I am with my own stuff. The next post, on “Computer Blue,” is still coming along, but probably won’t be ready this week. In the meantime, I just recorded a podcast with Jack Riedy, author of a really cool new collection of writing about Prince. That will be available (to patrons, anyway) by the end of the week. See you then!

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#PrinceTwitterThread: “Crystal Ball”

Well, looks like I’m beginning another year by apologizing for my inactivity at the end of the previous one; at this point, is there any more predictable tradition? I’m not a big believer in New Year’s resolutions, so I’ll refrain from making any grand promises. Just know that I’m eager to get back to work and out of the months-long rut that my “Cloreen Bacon Skin” post has become, so the drought should be over soon.

In the meantime, embedded below is the #PrinceTwitterThread with which I technically broke my two-month break from writing about and even, largely, listening to Prince. In a real “famine to feast” move, the subject was “Crystal Ball,” one of the densest and headiest tracks in Prince’s greater oeuvre. “Doing it justice” was, of course, an impossibility; but I think I at least succeeded in starting a conversation. Thanks as always for sticking with me, and here’s to a happy and fruitful 2021.

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