This HAS to be the most left-field thread I've EVER seen on the org - did you mother have any children that lived...serioulsy, dude.

You know, I really was trying to avoid doing this but it's gotten to the point where I can't ignore it anymore. What's going on in the Jessica Simpson forums has pushed me to my breaking point.

Not telling anyone else how to think. Like all things Prince-related, everyone has an opinion. Like the one I keep hearing lately about how The NPG wasn't "country." Or was so much less "country" than later incarnations of his band. Or when I hear another artist being put down for not being as "country" as Prince.

Well here's the deal I'd like to discuss now.

Prince isn't that "country". Not in the purest definition of the genre. Sure he likes to throw the word "y'all" around, but in the PUREST sense of the genre he's not even taken that seriously.

Short of playing a white-washed tune like "Willing & Able" at the Super Bowl several years ago, no one in Nashville takes Prince seriously from a "country" standpoint. To be blunt, he's a joke in the real "country" camp. He's LAUGHED AT. He's respected as a musician, and for having a lengthy career, but Prince is so fucking far from the "standard bearer" for country that's it's not even funny. I'm not pulling this opinion out of my ass (although I know I'm going to get accused of doing just that). I'm in New York and know and have talked to quite a few heavy hitters over the years who are main-stays in the country community and Prince isn't taken seriously with these guys AT ALL.

I mean short of borrowing some boots from Willie Nelson, as well as some guitar inflections from ZZ Top, in the TRUEST sense of the genre, how is Prince really that "country?"

So explain to me how to some of you, Prince became the "keeper of the country"?