I just wanted to post this, because I only got to read it recently, and I thought it was a really well-written, balanced article.

But hey, what do you think?



I WANNA BE YOUR LOVER
You've got to know. Prince was an OVERHYPE!

Some little dude from Minneapolis who wrote all his tunes and played all the instruments who lied about his age.

Yeah, they said he was sixteen. When he was years older. And at THAT age, it MAKES A DIFFERENCE!

Why can't anybody tell the truth? That's what the audience is looking for, HONESTY! They want to feel the artist is on the same wavelength. And they ARE! We're all just people, in case you haven't noticed. Flesh and blood. Culture's all turned upside down now. It's all about status, CELEBRITYHOOD! Like these people are better than you, or me. God, if Matt LeBlanc is really better than me, shoot me NOW! But, really, most of these revered people are uneducated dolts who are massaged by handlers. There's nothing real THERE!

And whatever was real in Prince's first album was obscured by the lying oversell. That record STIFFED!

Had the label and management scratching their heads. Maybe we shouldn't market him to whites, maybe we should market him to BLACKS!

Yes, all that advertising. All the spin. It was directed at the WHITE MARKET! I mean in the black world everybody revered Stevie Wonder, but it wasn't that big a deal if you did EVERYTHING! There was not a whole list of musicians like Todd Rundgren, Emitt Rhodes, WUNDERKIND! It was always about the END RESULT! The black market didn't care about the story, they cared about the MUSIC! And labels that catered to the black market, like Atlantic, Columbia, and of course MOTOWN, understood this. But Warner Brothers? Warner Brothers didn't know what to do with Earth, Wind & Fire!

"I wanna be your lover
I wanna be the only one that makes you come running
I wanna be your lover
I wanna turn you on, turn you out, all night long, make you shout Oh, lover! yeah
I wanna be the only one you come for"

If you want to have hits, you've got to have HOOKS!

It's amazing. The band will sit in your office. And tell you the platter they've delivered is CHOCK FULL of radio songs. And you want to laugh.

Now in the old days, the acts DIDN'T WANT radio songs. Not Top Forty radio. But today's acts are all sold out pricks who will do anything for money, anything to have to hire a publicity agent to keep them OUT of magazines. But, they understand the trappings, and not the GAME!

The game is creating a record with changes, with riffs, that's INFECTIOUS!

They could listen to Prince's "I Wanna Be Your Lover".

There's that GREAT keyboard sound. Like being beaten on the head by a foam bat. It's violent, but it doesn't really hurt. Kind of feels GOOD!

And then Prince BOUNCING AROUND the track with his falsetto.

But really, the song takes off with the pre-chorus. When all of a sudden he goes down...

"Didn't wanna pressure you, baby
But all I ever wanted to do"

Whew! Talk about SEXY! In a FIRM, cooing way. Like we're having fun here, but you KNOW where we're going.

And then the memorable chorus quoted above.

"I Wanna Be Your Lover" is a minor MASTERPIECE! It's understated, yet it feels so GOOD! Writing about it can't convey its magic. The way the first three minutes set up the instrumental fade-out, which makes you think the song's gonna go on FOREVER, like the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive". The track has a life unto ITSELF!

Suddenly, Prince was a star in the black world.

But his NEXT record. It straddled the line. Oh, it had some of the disco beats so unpopular with white suburbanites, but it also ROCKED! But the lyrics were akin to a Redd Foxx or Richard Pryor album. Could you SAY these things on a mainstream record?

Prince could. And suddenly, the critics, the cognoscenti, they went WILD!

If you don't own "Dirty Mind", then you're in for a treat. This is the black AVALON! Just like there were not hits from "Avalon", but it's one of your favorite albums, same deal with "Dirty Mind". But, instead of being dreamy, "Dirty Mind" was an instant HOUSE PARTY!

Pink singing about getting the party started...BULLSHIT! She can't sing, there were no changes. Maybe a great riff. But the song didn't BUILD!

Yet from the very first note of the very first cut, the title track "Dirty Mind", there was a sexual tension, an ANTICIPATION! Almost like "Hell's Bells" on "Back In Black".

Yet, it wasn't over the top. Prince wasn't ADVERTISING! It's just like you went into his house and entered this WORLD!

I'm the whitest guy on the planet, but I can't help but tap my toe to this album. It draws me into a world I didn't know existed, that EXCITES ME!

Just like "Dirty Mind" started off side one, "Uptown" began side two. This is "Back In Black" to "Hell's Bells".

"Now where I come from
We don't let society
Tell us how it's supposed to be
Our clothes, our hair
We don't care"

THIS is the rock ethos!

Today EVERYTHING is mainstream. Kids WANT to sell out. Who the fuck can look themselves in the MIRROR! The music, the CULTURE, used to be about being an INDIVIDUAL, beholden to NOBODY, following one's own muse.

And you could follow "Uptown". With its strange amalgamation of disco beat and rock guitar. A perfect MELDING!

And, of course, there were the two famous tracks following "Uptown", "Head" and "Sister". The first about...well, you know. The second...well, let your imagination run wild.

And the piece de resistance, "When You Were Mine". Covered most effectively by Mitch Ryder. Yes, of DETROIT WHEELS FAME! You see this little black dude from Minneapolis was a ROCKER!

"I know
(I know)
That you're going with another guy
I don't care
(don't care)
Cuz I love you, baby, that's no lie
I love you more than I did
When you were mine"

I got e-mail from some asshole telling me I was a loser. Saying that I'd never make it with a girl because of my attitude, my lack of confidence. He said he was surrounded by exes, people he'd fucked, he exuded CONFIDENCE

Fuck confidence. Fuck attitude. Give me REALITY!

I get my instructions from ARTISTS, not pricks like him on the street. I don't have to play the game, I've just got to be REAL, I've just got to be ME! And to have emotions and to express them, that's REAL! And if you're fake, with your plastic surgery and borrowed assets, I want nothing to do with you, I can't relate to you.

The loss of a love. If you've never experienced this, you've never played. It's a fact of life. It was so great that Prince OWNED IT!

And if you heard "Dirty Mind", you HAD to go to the gig. Had to see what this was like live.

It was STUPENDOUS!

Matt Fink dressed like a doctor. Prince stripping to his underwear. Making love onstage. All the while, blowing the roof off the joint. It was me and about...two hundred and fifty other people at Flipper's, the roller disco at the intersection of Santa Monica and La Cienega. One left feeling not that one had seen a star, but a SUPERSTAR!

And this was true. It just took the rest of the world a few years to catch up.

The inside now knew. This little kid, he was a GOD, he was a force to be reckoned with. So, he got a slot on the Rolling Stones tour. Where he was alternately ignored and booed.

And you're pandering to the audience? THIS is what the audience will tell you.

But then came MTV. And finally, everybody could see this dude's act. And having it appear OVER AND OVER again inured them to his magic.

"I guess I should've known by the way U parked your car sideways That it wouldn't last"


NOTHING sounded like "Little Red Corvette". The way it faded up. The way it built to that full-force CHORUS! And then the way Prince twisted and danced through the fog. This was one guy who was HELPED by MTV.

Culture Club was BROKEN by MTV. Same deal with Duran Duran. They hit the scene AFTER the service launched. They used it to MAKE themselves. Whereas Prince had been around for a few years, but radio and the public didn't know what to make of him. Was he white or black? SUDDENLY, that all didn't matter, for almost universally, everybody agreed he was GREAT!

And then came "Purple Rain".


BURBANK
I never go anywhere anymore.

Well, that's not COMPLETELY true. But really, I'm on a well-trodden path. Whereas years ago, when I MOVED to L.A., I'd go EXPLORING! CONSTANTLY! I mean the place was FOREIGN! There were towns like Burbank, seemingly settled by Okies, whose descendants still inhabited the place.

Make no mistake, if you're not L.A. savvy, Burbank is FAR! Right there on NBC on your TV, but an hour away in traffic. REASONABLE traffic, not RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC!

There's no reason to go to Burbank unless you're in the movie business. And I haven't been in the movie business in decades.

But this gig was taking place at Dolby Laboratories. In Burbank.

You go past Universal City. You're on the 134. You're drifting towards another country, you see lights on the hills, you might as well be in Italy.

And then you exit. And find a neighborhood alternately comprised of decrepit residences and sleek modern office buildings.

It's a war between the haves and the have-nots. Those who've come to L.A. and MADE IT and those who've arrived and found themselves in the same lower socioeconomic class they've always inhabited. As I pulled a u-turn on Alameda, I was confronted by two twentysomething males wearing the leather jackets and mullets of the eighties. Maybe here in Burbank it WAS the eighties. God, I've got to get out of here QUICK!

But first, my destination. The simulcast of Prince's concert from Staples Center at Dolby.

I arrived just moments before the telecast began. As I started scarfing a hot dog, the big screen in the lobby lit up with Alicia Keys' face from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, and Prince hit the stage.

Let's see. I was conversing with the amazon with the boob job and platinum hair I was introduced to. The dude whose company sells the DVDs of these productions. And Mark Gorlick, a promotion man from Lava.

The broadcast? Who gave a fuck. Music on TV. It's BULLSHIT!

But then I went into the theatre...

Maybe it's the dark room. But this WORKS!

How can I tell you it works? The assembled multitude, the partygoers, DIDN'T SPLIT! Everybody usually comes for the food and the hang. Whereas here, everybody stayed to the final minute.

Here's the deal. While the record companies have been BITCHING and CONSOLIDATING, other entertainment players have been BUILDING and MANEUVERING!

While everybody was bitching about Clear Channel, Philip Anschutz went into COMPETITION with them. While movie theatre chains were going bankrupt, Philip Anschutz was BUYING THEM! And now, with these assets, he's inventing NEW ways of exhibition. Like simulcasting concerts.

It shouldn't work. Nobody wants to go to a movie theatre to see a concert somebody ELSE is at.

But it does.

Suddenly, one wonders about the economics.

People are reluctant to pay fifteen dollars for a CD. But they'll go to a movie theatre to see a live concert and get the disc for FIFTEEN! It seems that the disc has no value anymore. What the record companies see as being exotic is pedestrian to the public. Its worth denigrated by all the AOL trial CDs people have received in the mail.

Now this simulcast took place on a Monday night because that's a weak movie night. What if EVERY Monday were live music night at Regal Theatres? You could BREAK acts. Come on, think about it. The price for these concerts WITHOUT a CD is ten bucks. If you're a teenager, if you're in college, you've got to do SOMETHING! You pay ten bucks to see a lousy movie every week, not name brand talent. Yup, get high in the parking lot and then sit back in the darkness in the multichannel sound and groove. For overexposed superstars, it's a NATURAL! But, if you create Fillmore style bills. Three acts. One headliner, and then two support acts. You could revolutionize the business.

Yup, while labels are focusing on radio, they're ignoring alternative areas of exhibition. There's millions of dollars of advertising at Regal's cinemas. And the direct-on concert experience. And this isn't MTV, with jive videos and commercials, this is pure music.

And that's what Prince was, pure music.


PURPLE RAIN
Put somebody on a screen, and they lose their magic, their charisma.

Oh, maybe if you're on once. If Michael Jackson had moonwalked ONCE on that Motown anniversary special and had then stayed off TV. But look at Pearl Jam. They still exist, they still do business, whereas their MTV contemporaries from 1991 are working day jobs.

When you see someone live, they're at a DISTANCE! It's about the music, the VIBE! Once you leave, it's all in your mind, there's no replay, nothing to hold on to but your memory. Whereas once you commit it to disc, or play it endlessly on TV, it's commonplace.

After watching Prince live from Staples Center last night, I felt like the guy could come over for dinner. I could see him cracking a joke, asking for the milk, telling about his day. All the mystique, the production EVISCERATED IT!

Maybe that's what we're going to have in the future. Oversold stars. And the mysterious everybody else.

Or, maybe savvy mangers and labels will expose and then pull back. Nah, they're too greedy.

But Prince is a special case. He was ALWAYS ABOUT the mystique, the charisma, you couldn't KNOW HIM! This broadcast HUMANIZED HIM!

Prince is from Minneapolis. He's a SUBURBANITE! He's no ghetto denizen. It's not about his background, his pedigree, but his ability to PLAY!

And play Prince can.

It's like he suddenly woke up. He was close to broke, his fame was diminishing, he realized it was now or NEVER!

But, strangely, unlike almost all the other reunion acts, he DELIVERED!

It's the same act, but with a smile on his face. It's not about PROVING he's great, it's about exulting in the MUSIC!

Oh, there were always support players, but Prince always made you know that was their role. Whereas now, he hands off to Candy Dulfer, he allows a support player to sing "Soul Man". He's just fronting the BAND!

It was George Clinton with DISCIPLINE! They blew the roof RIGHT OFF THE SUCKER!

It was theatre in the round. Which, with so many players, somehow worked, even though it usually doesn't.

And, towards the end, Prince allowed members of the audience to come up on the x-shaped stage and DANCE! For a few NUMBERS! And what was amazing was, these were not the people you see on TV. MOST of them were overweight. The women had their purses over their shoulders. Prince bumped up against them. The people behind me in the theatre were laughing HYSTERICALLY! THIS is life, not that artifice on regular TV.

But the piece de resistance was the encore. Prince came out alone and sat in a chair and played his ACOUSTIC! Just like he was in your living room. He smiled, he laughed, even cracked jokes. One got goose bumps even across town in a THEATRE!

And then came the finale.

There was that guitar figure, and then...

"I never meant to cause you any sorrow
I never meant to cause you any pain"

And there were a million false endings. With Prince exhorting the assembled multitude to sing, which they did, at the top of their lungs, one could hear it on the simulcast.

"Purple rain purple rain
Purple rain purple rain
Purple rain purple rain"

It was like the last twenty years hadn't happened. It was like we were still young. Still thin. We weren't worried about weapons of mass destruction. We still believed in America, and ourselves.

And then Prince jumped onto a fireman's pole, and in a final flash of showmanship, he disappeared into the bowels of the arena.


POP LIFE
I haven't yet spun the copy of "Musicology" I received at the door.

But somehow, the disc doesn't matter.

That's the OLD paradigm. We judge everybody based on their CD sales, on their radio airplay.

Whereas now, there's another way.

With the troika of the Grammys, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and last night's simulcast, Prince has been vaulted back into the first stratum of rock stars. He's gone from has-been to top tier in two months, seemingly OVERNIGHT!

I'd always heard he still had it, that his live performances killed.

But you had to go in order to know.

Now going is much easier. And, with all this hype, you don't need MTV and radio to sell your CD, no, more accurately, TO GET THE MUSIC OUT!

Prince is charging for the music on his Website. But in the not too distant future, acts will give the tunes away for free, just like he did at movie theatres. For, having been paid a fee to perform, it behooves you to eliminate the barrier between artist and fan. Why make them contemplate, DECIDE whether to buy, you can just GIVE IT TO THEM! And, if they like it, they'll play it, and come to the shows and buy merchandise. You'll be bigger than you EVER WERE!

Or, people could pay for the music as part of a file-trading fee.

The major labels are behind the 8 Ball, they've tried nothing innovative. And soon, both superstars and nascent acts are going to realize/decide they don't need them. That there's another way to get their music out there, to build a career.
~ Bob Lefsetz 2004


Bob Lefsetz, Santa Monica-based industry legend, is the author of the e-mail newsletter, "The Lefsetz Letter". Famous for being beholden to no one, and speaking the truth, Lefsetz addresses the issues that are at the core of the music business: downloading, copy protection, pricing and the music itself. His intense brilliance captivates readers from Steven Tyler to Rick Nielsen to Bryan Adams to Quincy Jones to EVERYBODY who's in the music business. Never boring, always entertaining, Mr. Lefsetz's insights are fueled by his stint as an entertainment business attorney, majordomo of Sanctuary Music's American division and consultancies to major labels.

While Rhino may occasionally disagree with some of Bob's opinions, we certainly agree with his right to state them. At the bottom of each column we give you, the reader, the opportunity to respond and we encourage you to do so. We will post select comments.

Original article here

Very nice read

the way that person writes, i woulda thought it was the anti-zelaira.

Anx said:

I have to admit, I had a hard TIME! getting THROUGH! that arTiclE.

FunkMistress said:

YeAH i KNOW whAt YoU mEAn but iTS WHAT he sAID thAT cOUntS isnT it?

BananaCologne said:

yeah, and in that respect he sounds like another orger who doesn't show his cherubic indigo self around here much anymore. won't name any names, though.

BananaCologne said:

PRINCE is My PURPLE BISCUIT MAN!!!!!1111!!!!

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

'oooohooooohoohohohohohooooohh...'

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

I Willed Prince My VAGINA...SEXY SEXY S#EY PURNCE!!!

Anx said:

BANNED!

BananaCologne said:

Anx said:

you win.

yea, but there were parts of it that gives you goose bumps, cause you can think in ur mind, hey, i remember that...and i remember that, and i remember how that made feel. wow.

*gets out anti-thread jackin' shotgun*

Y'ALL GET OFFA MA THREAD WITH YER BLABBY-YAKKIN' MOUTHS Y'HERE ME? *chh-chink*

Bob Lefsetz

That's surely an anagram of "zeL: booB fest"???

If only

langebleu said:

langebleu said:

"you've been rehearsing that all night haven't u?"