EmmaMcG said:

cloveringold85 said:

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I get where you are going with this, but it's not the same thing. Prince would never keep his music from his fans -- I don't see him ever wanting to do that.

I don't mean to try catch you out or anything like that. I'm genuinely asking how you would handle a situation like that. Obviously you're free to choose to do whatever you want but if this hypothetical scenario was real, then I would have no qualms whatsoever about going against his final wishes. I'm a Prince fan purely because I love the music he made. His personal wishes and whims are completely secondary to me. Now, that's not to say that I'd go out of my way to go against them but if they got in the way of me listening to his music, then I'd tend to ignore them. That's why I can understand where JT, and anyone else for that matter, doing Prince tributes that may go against what Prince himself would have wanted. He's a Prince fan so he has every right to sing Prince songs. However, if I was to approach the situation differently, and think "how would I feel if part of the reason for me being a Prince fan is because I liked Prince, the person, in equal measure to Prince, the musician", then I can understand why you feel as strong as you do regarding the whole Justin Timberlake situation. Basically, what I'm saying is that I don't believe that you're "wrong" for taking umbrage to the tribute. But, you also have to understand that not every Prince fan cared that much about his personal wants or wishes. Some Prince fans just love the music he made and that's as far as it goes. It doesn't make them any less of a fan, they just approach fandom differently.

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I understand your point-of-view. With regard to his music; yes, his fans should have full-access to it. The beauty of life is that we all have our own opinions. Prince said we have the right to choose or to not choose at all.

I thought the tribute was fine. I was underwhelmed by JT's performance as a whole, but I didn't see anything wrong with the tribute section. I think some folks frustration with various tributes might stem from their frustration that Prince isn't alive to perform himself. The reality is, if we want there to be any awareness of Prince in pop culture, it's going to come mostly through recordings of him, video and audio. When Prince was alive, he had certain viewpoints about how his music should be presented and available (no YouTube, etc.) But he also had ways to keep himself at least somewhat in the public eye, with live concerts, appearances at award shows, etc. But those options involving Prince himself are now over, so I think that fans have to accept that there have to be new ways to reach audiences, including ways that didn't get his complete stamp of approval while he was alive and "out there" promoting his work himself.