1Sasha said:

Thank you, Kara.

SoulAlive said:

purplerabbithole said:

The New Yorker's article about Prince's grammy tribute nailed why (no matter how well it was executed), it just didn't quite cut it. It lacked reverence for his death and the originality Prince was capable of..

http://www.newyorker.com/...-of-prince

Most reviews of Bruno's performance have been positive. He did his best and put a great deal of effort into it. they made it an historical re-telling and were kind of re-inventing the Purple Rain plot. But the accolades are more for the performance than for what it meant in terms of Prince. Prince was represented almost as the stereotype of Prince. Plus, the song lacked depth. Let's go Crazy is just not Prince's best work. I wonder why When Doves Cry is barely used in tributes. THat great and personal piece of work could have been both moving and funky.

Good execution, poor choice of song.

[Edited 2/13/17 15:21pm]

No no no! "When Doves Cry" should NEVER be performed by anyone else.

The only non-Prince version of When Dpves Cry that I like is by Green Sky Bluegrass who did, as you might expect, a bluegrass rendition. I think it works because it is so totally different from what Prince did; however, I have other Prince fan friends who don't care for it. (Thought, come to think of it, they don't like bluegrass. So it might be as much that as someone else doing Prince's song.)

Anyway...my point is that most people make the mistake of trying to do Prince songs as they think Prince would do them - which is a fool's errand. Nobody is Prince, nobody can do his songs they way he did. So if you're going to attempt it, do something completely different. Don't put on a ruffled shirt, shiny purple coat and play a cloud guitar. You just look like an asshat.

The Google ad that immediately followed Mars tribute was probably the best thing I watched the whole evening. Seeing all the different people from different age groups and backgrounds singing a Prince song was cool. Seeing Prince music being used in a modern, relevant context was refreshing and encouraging. (yeah, I know it was advertising but still).

I loved the The Time back in the day. They had better dance music than Prince, I always thought. I enjoyed seeing them play the other night but don't necessarily think they were the best fit for the tribute....especially with Bruno only playing one song. Who knows, maybe it will help the Time get back to touring a little again?

Bruno's performance was decent -not brilliant , certainly no worse than any of the other tributes over the past 9 months or so. His dress and fake Prince guitar was disturbing, however. Is he planning to play along Elvis impersonators in Las Vegas anytime soon? Still, its good to see the YOUNGER artists pay tribute. In a way, this is better than seeing Prince contemporaries roll out looking like old tired versions of who they used to be. Of those, Madonna's performance at least had a professional QUALITY. She has always had similar star power to that of Prince, in my opinion. (I didn't say talent).

By comparison, Sheila E rolling on the floor was just wrong. Sheila left her heart out on the floor, I give her that. She loved Prince. But, there is a time when you are too old to be doing tributes to old artists. Let the young pay tribute.

I initially thought Jay Z may be the person to put Prince's music (released and unreleased) to good use, i.e. bring it to market. But, he even looked like an elder among the young generation performers.

With such a variety of music genre's in the Vault, Prince left behind a gold mine for young artists to draw from and make music that is relevant today. I'd like to see some of these younger artists pick a few Prince songs and work with them and make them their own. I think I've had enough tributes.

Bruno did his very best to honor Prince. Very talented dude. Im cool with it. You all should be too.

purplerabbithole said:

It's the usual orgers who think they KNOW what Prince would and would not like and they don't know shit! At the end of the day Bruno was up there on stage and we weren't.

Hold up a bit. I don't care what Prince would want or not want. He didn't always think in ways that were in his own best interest. I respect what he was trying to do but it was at the expense of his legacy. I think the Spotify stuff is just fine and doesn't undermine the idea of artists' rights. And why? Because whatever money is earned off PRince's work from now on should be more about his legacy. If his family wants a lump sum to insure that the world learns his music, then so be it. Artists' rights go out the window when the artist is dead. As long as the music is respected and not exploited, I dont imagine he really would care since he is gone(well, he shouldn't anyway). Take for example the Vault. He once said that someday the music will be released but it probably won't be by him. The dude didn't have a will. How worried could he have been? Artists rights are for the living, not the dead or his/her mooching family. As long as Prince's music is available to be heard and his legacy is respected (and his songs are not placed on Nike commercials like MJ did to the Beatles Revolution), that is all that matters. My only problem with Spotify is that they don't have his later work. There are probably at least 50 songs from his later work that are worthy of a lot of his 80's work. Those gems should be heard as well even if people have to ignore some songs and acknowledge that Prince sometimes missed the mark.

Back to Bruno. Bruno's performance was good. But a tribute should be more about the artist who died than the performers who are doing their music. And they should never be impersonation. I dislike impersonations. THey turn the original performer into a serious of gestures and gimmics rather than a instinctive emotional conveyer of their artistry. I think music tributes are kind of awful as a concept. They freeze the musician in amber, give a limited perspective of his/her work, don't show the artists own stage presense. Run this through your mind...Prince's own Let's Go Crazy will probably never get more than 500,000 hits (the one from 2014 as well as the superbowl) on youtube. Bruno's impersonation will probably get 20 million hits. ANd this is not Prince's fault. He has been dead for nine months and many of these performances have been up since he died.

When the Oscars do a tribute to a deceased actor or writer/director, they don't have other famous and more youthful actors act out their scenes on stage. They provide a well-edited and heart-felt mini-documentary with clips in it. When Marlon Brando died, did they hire Johnny Depp to yell out "Stella" during the scene from On the Waterfront? Nope, because that would be disrespectful.

I think Bruno probably had the best intentions. His fan letter to P while he was alive proves that he likes him. But if I didn't know about that letter, I would think this wasn nothing more than an All About Eve scenario...a bit predatory and exploitive like Eve studying Margo (Bette Davis) and claiming that she is her biggest fan only to show her true colors later. She has been studying her in order to replace her. I don't think Bruno is delilberately being an Eve (after all, he already has this own career) but inadvertedly he kind of just became her.

You tell em Margo.

"Eve Harden ain't got shit on me"--Margo Channing.

It's the usual orgers who think they KNOW what Prince would and would not like and they don't know shit! At the end of the day Bruno was up there on stage and we weren't.

[Edited 2/13/17 22:17pm]

I guess you told me and I agree with your comment above. What I don't agree with is the orgers that think somebody's paying homage to them instead of Prince. I, for one am glad for these tributes. It's better than the VMA's or the Soul Train awards not acknowledging him at all!

Todd968 said:

The Google ad that immediately followed Mars tribute was probably the best thing I watched the whole evening. Seeing all the different people from different age groups and backgrounds singing a Prince song was cool. Seeing Prince music being used in a modern, relevant context was refreshing and encouraging. (yeah, I know it was advertising but still).

I loved the The Time back in the day. They had better dance music than Prince, I always thought. I enjoyed seeing them play the other night but don't necessarily think they were the best fit for the tribute....especially with Bruno only playing one song. Who knows, maybe it will help the Time get back to touring a little again?

Bruno's performance was decent -not brilliant , certainly no worse than any of the other tributes over the past 9 months or so. His dress and fake Prince guitar was disturbing, however. Is he planning to play along Elvis impersonators in Las Vegas anytime soon? Still, its good to see the YOUNGER artists pay tribute. In a way, this is better than seeing Prince contemporaries roll out looking like old tired versions of who they used to be. Of those, Madonna's performance at least had a professional QUALITY. She has always had similar star power to that of Prince, in my opinion. (I didn't say talent).

By comparison, Sheila E rolling on the floor was just wrong. Sheila left her heart out on the floor, I give her that. She loved Prince. But, there is a time when you are too old to be doing tributes to old artists. Let the young pay tribute.

I initially thought Jay Z may be the person to put Prince's music (released and unreleased) to good use, i.e. bring it to market. But, he even looked like an elder among the young generation performers.

With such a variety of music genre's in the Vault, Prince left behind a gold mine for young artists to draw from and make music that is relevant today. I'd like to see some of these younger artists pick a few Prince songs and work with them and make them their own. I think I've had enough tributes.

I saw the ad and thought it was wack because they're singing Sinead O Connor's version. If you're gonna pay homage to our man then sing his version, not hers. It's true her version was a #1 hit, but he wrote it and his version is better.

[Edited 2/17/17 19:39pm]

[Edited 2/17/17 19:40pm]

Tell It TurnItUp!

dance4me3121 said:

Bruno kinda sucked.Seeing him perform let's go crazy made me want to watch the beginning of purple rain.

liltalkm said:

If Bruno inspired one kid to listen to a Prince record...

which I believe he did, it was worth it.

I had fun with it.

Bruno knows he isn't Prince, but you could see that he really wanted to do his best to pay tribute. He put a lot of work into that.

All the post mortum award show tributes are done now, we can move on.

Ironically, The Time sang two songs not written by Prince and didn't include Jesse, the dude that wrote them.

That was my biggest issue. Not Bruno.

[Edited 2/12/17 20:10pm]

[Edited 2/12/17 20:10pm]

What is liltalkm??? Didn't Prince all the early Time songs, including the ones they performed: Jungle Love and The Bird ...?

lrn36 said:

I saw a pic of Bruno. Did this this muthf--cka really dress up like Purple Rain era Prince and played a knockoff cloud guitar? Seriously?! If P was alive, he would've cringed and gave him that same side eye he gave to Trey Songz for butchering Purple Rain. Do these new artists have any artistic integrity? Do you think Prince would've wore a James Brown wig in a tribute? Hell no. When Prince wrote that letter to Bruno and said be your own hero, he meant do your own thing and blaze a new trail. Obviously, Bruno didn't listen.

Thats just it, P ain't alive. Bruno was giving him a true homage and you got to Bitch about Bruno dressed up like Prince, when its a Tribute to a man that has Past!!!

ISaidLifeIsJustAGame said:

You all are a rough crowd.

If I was Bruno I would have said NO Im not doing a Prince Tribute song.

His fans will rip me apart.

P's fans are sooooooooooo judgey.

Well its not All of P's fans its just some _____!

ISaidLifeIsJustAGame said:

rogifan said:

I wonder if people would've thought differently about Bruno's performance if he wasn't dressed in a Prince costume. It did kind of give it the feel of a Vegas style impersonation.

Rogi, give it a break.

For Real...

RodeoSchro said:

I agree with what others have said re: Bruno. Prince would not have approved. And Prince dang sure would have never dressed up like someone else in this situation. I respect Bruno Mars for trying but it was a miss with me.

What can you say about The Time? They've earned my respect. They've aged, like we all have. They can still bring it. The problem I had was with booking them. This was allegedly a Prince tribute. Sure, Prince created The Time and wrote those songs. But that's not common knowledge, especially for the current generation. And they made no mention of it when they introduced The Time, so most of the audience had no idea that was Prince stuff they were hearing. Bad move, IMHO.

The Google commerical got me. I cried my eyes out. Then I watched it again. And I cried my eyes out again. Even though it was an ad, it was the perfect tribute, IMO. I just wished they'd have put his symbol or his picture up at the end.

I would still be crying today if they'd done that.

You do have a point. So what Prince recorded songs do you think they should have done???

gandorb said:

I'm not a fan of Bruno's performance but not offended by it. I am offended by Billboard claiming that his performance was BETTER THAN PRINCE

They Said THAT ?

Seriously ?

They are STUPiD...

I once seen Prince doing an interview and I think it may have been on Larry King, but not positive. He said that he gets tired of performing the 80's hits and that's all it seems the fans want him to perform. That he has many more songs that have been released. He didn't understand how the fans always accept people like Beyonce's new songs and don't expect her to keep doing her early years songs over and over. Why couldn't it be like that for him.

Lovejunky said:

gandorb said:

I'm not a fan of Bruno's performance but not offended by it. I am offended by Billboard claiming that his performance was BETTER THAN PRINCE

They Said THAT ?

Seriously ?

They are STUPiD...

I went back to post the article, which is Billboard's ranking of all the Grammy performances from worst to best, with the Bruno tribute at #1. I re-read the article and realized I had misread it in my lunchtime perusal of it. In the midst of lavish praise of the performance, there was a statement :"While it is nearly impossible to cover Prince and one-up him" and then proceeds with more praise of Bruno's performance. My first interpretation of this was that they were saying that he did one-up him, but a more deliberate read of the description seemed to just imply it was the best tribute yet of Prince. Still, it seemed way over the top in how great they thought it was. Apologies for my misinterpretation.

enough org covering of this most embarassing moment since his death

I’m not a fan of Bruno so I was never going to love it. In fact, I get annoyed whenever I hear him mentioned in the same breath as Prince, but I also think that the whole conception was poorly judged. I’d much rather see an interesting young artist take a Prince track and make it their own – something that illustrated Prince’s creative influence in a more subtle and indirect way. From the top of my head, I can imagine Anderson .Paak doing a good job reinterpreting a Prince ballad (seeing as he was there anyway), or FKA Twigs pulling off a stunning re-imagining of “The Beautiful Ones”. Even if you wanted to stick to a retro 80s sound, Dam Funk would have been a better choice. So many artists are influenced by Prince – it just felt like they were opting for the mainstream flavour of the month in picking Bruno.

[Edited 2/14/17 23:08pm]

To be fair to Bruno though, he can play and I’m sure that his heart is in the right place.

This sums it up, really.

http://www.newyorker.com/...-of-prince

TurnItUp said:

DarkKnight1 said:

pennylover said:

brunos watered down versions of the guitar solos were elementary, at best

people who aren't musicians are often impressed with mediocrity

brunos watered down versions of the guitar solos were elementary, at best

people who aren't musicians are often impressed with mediocrity

Genesia said:

.

[Edited 2/15/17 14:26pm]