Were you watching the MTV Awards back in the day, all excited that
Prince would perform?

I remember sitting in front of the telly goin "Damn, this whole
stage set up looks kinda cool. Pretty impressive Prince"

And then, he turned around and smeared those buns across my screen



It was a shock for about 2 seconds before I cracked up. I loved it.
I thought it was cool and daring and self mocking in a way.



And what about the other MTV Music Awards performances? Which one
was your favorit?

Mine is still the MTV EMA performance of "Peach". It was a huge
disappointment to me at first because this performance had been
hyped months ahead as an event where Prince would play SEVERAL new
songs from THE GOLD EXPERIENCE throughout the show.

Then he finally came on and did "Peach" in his own Fuck Y'all way
with Mayte crawling across the stage.

First I hated it because I had hoped for Gold Experienc material
like we'd been promised. But over the years I've grown to love it
for the ultimate stab at the whole music bizz that it was.

It was a loud and clear Fuck You. And I just love it.

IstenSzek said:

"smeared those buns across my screen"

Yeah, I saw it live. I was 13 years old, totally into Prince. Diamonds and Pearls was the first album (well, tape) that I was able to buy with my own money, as soon as it came out. I remember sitting in my mother's bedroom, watching the performance. For some reason, I don't remember being too shocked. I just loved it. One of the things I loved most about Prince, especially when I was that age, was his attitude of "fuck you, I'll do what I please, as weird as it might seem to the rest of you lame-O's!" And when he swung his tight little ass around that night, that was a perfect example.



I think you're right about that. I think he was partly poking fun at his own image.

I was only 12 when I saw that Gett Off performance...so I was very excited and I turned red when he turned around...

I giggled for the rest of the night and kept mocking the performace myself until my mom locked me in my room.

The butt wasn't so shocking to me... he used to wear see-thru pants quite a bit from 1982-1985. What surprised me that night was the whole erotic nature of the entire performance -- all the other half-naked bodies doing nothing else but rubbing up against each other. Quite a performance, for sure.


edit: oh, i loved the "Sign O' The Times" MTV performance from 1987 -- the guitar, his facial expressions, the marching drumline. pretty wicked -- he shoulda left it there and not gone into the entirely different sounding "play in the sunshine"
[Edited 12/8/04 13:17pm]

Snap said:

And 86 too...just look at the "America" video.

FunkMistress said:

Yep, that's what I meant. But that was still '85, October or November I think.

Snap said:

Dammit, my geek-powers are slipping!

Yeah, Shocking and funny!

Yup. I was in high school when it came on, and I was making my whole family watch the awards show to see it. I was actually kind of embarrassed at the time, but looking back, I think I was more embarrassed by his hair than the pants.
D&P is still my LEAST favorite Prince era.

I was in college when it came out. We were all in the TV room watching the MTV Awards and I was thinking to myself "When is he going to perform?" I and another person were the only ones in the room waiting for Prince to appear. When he did and he turned around the first time, EVERYONE started laughing. I was a little embarrassed and shocked at the same time. I could not believe he had the guts to do that. It is still one of my favorite performances.

I love that perfromance, try and find the whole band, it's quite hard!


Didn't he do "cream" at one of the MTV awards? That video won best choreography one year, an award i never would of thought he would win!

I like the start, bizarre! (the whole pile onto prince thing.)

thesexofit said:

"pile on" --> sodom & gomorrah

Prince performed "Cream" on Arsenio Hall's show on 9-9-91 -- and what a performance it was! The best performance of "Cream" ever!