purple rain in the rain

nuff sed

Prince, Super Bowl XLI
It had been a while since The Purple One had a huge hit, but on that night in South Florida he showed he's still got it by running through his most well-known classics to rave reviews.

http://msn.foxsports.com/...to=8443166

Prince was voted the Number 1 Super Bowl Halftime show. Over Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, Tom Petty, etc..etc.

so there beyotch!

PurpleKnight said:

Fair points, but even in his heyday, I don't think that status was fully appreciated stateside. Part of that is on him (for choosing not to tour stateside for pivotal albums like SOTT and Parade) and part of that is on American audiences who likely weren't going to support his post-PR tours. The poor showing of the Lovesexy tour is evidence of that. Back then, his US support on the road was commensurate with his album sales.

I noticed that changing in the last ten years.

Anxiety said:

Good heavens, man!!! Are you daft??? This is the Org!!!

ThreadBare said:

yeah, never mind. i think i was high on cough syrup when i posted that. carry on.

lspear76 said:

Okay the nerd in me has awoken. Listen, I defend Prince's lesser liked albums, such as NewpowerSoul, all the time, so I feel justified in saying this to you:

The Prequels were just as successful as the original Star Wars Trilogy. Look at how many thousands of copies Prince's NPS sold and compare that to George Lucas' box office dominance.

Furthermore, the criticism leveled at the new Star Wars flicks are ironically the same criticism that were leveled at the Original Star Wars films when they were 1st released(claims of the films being childish,filled with wooden acting, poor script/dialog, and being overly reliant on special effects). If you don't believe me, go dig up some reviews from the late 70's and early 80's...they were mostly mixed. It is revisionist history that says the Original Star Wars films were universally loved and touted as "classic".

Bottom Line: Regardless of how much I like or dislike NewPowerSoul, I'll never be able to say that it reached the same level of worldwide success/popularity as Purple Rain. With his Prequel Trilogy, George Lucas matched the success of the original Star Wars and created a whole new generation of Star Wars fans, not to mention that he (again) re-revolutionized how movies are made.

So, be a film snob if you like, and let purple knight be a Prince music snob. Also, take a long look at your icon because the film Lolita wasn't nearly as good as the book.

PurpleKnight, I am sorry that Prince isn't doing it in the studio for you these days, and I disagree with your assessment. However, that can be a conversation for another time....

[Edited 1/29/09 20:32pm]

skywalker said:

Who cares about box office dominance? Everyone knows the Star Wars prequels are utter crap, and don't hold up in any way to the original trilogy. As films, they're complete failures. They only made money because of the legacy of the original films, and were forgotten immediately.

I would die to see P perform live. I still can't get over the fact that this girl I knew said she didn't like the performance, that she would have preferred to see someone else. I shouldn't have been surprised though...

skywalker said:

I know this Star Wars debate is off topic, but I need to respond. I would say I'm in the middle in terms of the Prequel Trilogy. While I would say that each had their moments (I think the Maul-Kenobi-Jinn fight was the best of all six movies), I think they're overall worse than the Original Trilogy. I think that Revenge of the Sith may be on par with Return of the Jedi, but I think that Lucas got too muddled up with blue screen technology and CGI with the prequels. They just didn't have the heart of originals. Also, while I agree that there's a chance they'll age well, let's not forget that The Phantom Menace came out nearly ten years ago (hard to believe, I know) and public opinion of it hasn't gotten much better. One addition to a franchise I love that I think will be more acclaimed in the future is Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I loved that movie and thought it was a welcome addition to the Indy franchise, but I think there were a lot of people just itching to hate it. Anyway, let's have this conversation again in a decade.

PurpleKnight said:

Yet your icon comes from one of the Star Wars prequels... some of the worst films of all-time. All three of those films are worse than say... Newpower Soul.

skywalker said:

I know this Star Wars debate is off topic, but I need to respond. I would say I'm in the middle in terms of the Prequel Trilogy. While I would say that each had their moments (I think the Maul-Kenobi-Jinn fight was the best of all six movies), I think they're overall worse than the Original Trilogy. I think that Revenge of the Sith may be on par with Return of the Jedi, but I think that Lucas got too muddled up with blue screen technology and CGI with the prequels. They just didn't have the heart of originals. Also, while I agree that there's a chance they'll age well, let's not forget that The Phantom Menace came out nearly ten years ago (hard to believe, I know) and public opinion of it hasn't gotten much better. One addition to a franchise I love that I think will be more acclaimed in the future is Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I loved that movie and thought it was a welcome addition to the Indy franchise, but I think there were a lot of people just itching to hate it. Anyway, let's have this conversation again in a decade.

yvanehtnioj1214 said:

With all due respect, if I walk down the street and see a piece of dogshit on the pathment, I don't need to wait a decade to finally conclude that it was a piece of dog shit...

namepeace said:

PARADE "was" toured in the U.S. ... I think??

A quite different film that I've recently enjoyed re-seeing and studying is "Revenge of the Sith" (2005) from George Lucas' "Star Wars" saga. The climactic light-saber duel between Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi on the volcano planet of Mustafar (with footage of actual explosions and lava flows at Mount Etna in Sicily) is nearly mystically sublime in the High Romantic sense. The convulsive, manly passion between the two tortured Jedi is hyper-sustained by John Williams' powerful music. Then there's Anakin's shocking mutilation and Wagnerian immolation, leading to the grisly Frankenstein surgery that turns him into Darth Vader and that is cross-cut with a parallel hospital sequence, as Anakin's wife, Padme, dies while giving birth to the twins Luke and Leia.

It's amazing how much primal emotion Lucas is able to generate from such scenes. The finale of "Sith," with an adoptive couple tenderly cradling the infant Luke (separated from his sister) as they stand before a brilliant sunset, is reminiscent of "Gone With the Wind," produced at a time when Hollywood could speak in universal emotions (rather than cheap irony) to a mass audience.