Gooddoctor23 said:

keywiz said:

Also wrong. No one cares about documentaries, well balanced or otherwise, except diehard fans.

Far more people would be interested in a well done (if perhaps imperfect and the diehard fans pick apart for the imperfections) biopic, like "Bohemian Rhapsody" or "A Complete Unknown" than a documentary.

And Prince's lifestory -- even if it's to take just a small slice of it, like "A Complete Unknown" did -- would make a great movie if presented well.

I'm thinking more along the lines of the OJ movie/doc. Not only was it great, it won awards.

Well, Prince didn't kill his ex-wife and wasn't the defendant in the "Trial of the Century" that ended with him being acquitted for a crime 99% of the world believes he was guilty of, so any documentary about him won't have the same draw.

No offense to Prince, but nothing in his life was as compelling as that.

No. What you do is this: You write a movie about the early part of Prince's life -- his coming of age as a young musician in Minneapolis, his insistence on playing every instrument by himself and WB going along, his wanting to break barriers with sexuality, his getting booed off the stage warming up for the Stones, his breaking ground by being (one of the) first black artist(s) played on MTV, and then his ultimate triumph with the success of Purple Rain. End of movie.

Maybe you go out-of-sequence and throw in how he wrote big hits for The Bangles and Sinead O'Conner and tuck those in as well. Get some hot, up and coming actor that all the young girls want to go see to portray him. Yeah, all the older, diehard fans will hate it. They'll whine about the timeline being wrong and all the facts that weren't correct and stuff added in that didn't actually happen and how the actor didn't nail certain aspects, yada yada. This forum will explode in anger.

But if it's otherwise done well and is huge box office? THAT will secure his legacy FAR more than a documentary or releasing vault tracks.

[Edited 7/13/25 7:15am]

[Edited 7/13/25 7:16am]

[Edited 7/13/25 7:16am]

[Edited 7/13/25 7:17am]

[Edited 7/13/25 7:17am]

keywiz said:

ShellyMcG said:

keywiz said:

What upheld ABBA's legacy? (And my 17 year old can sing for you a dozen ABBA songs) Not releasing vault tracks and Super Deluxe Editions of old albums that only the diehard fans would care about, but "Mamma Mia". While fans here have constantly mocked and derided the upcoming "Purple Rain" musical, the fact is that should is be successful (which, sadly, my instincts tell me it will not for a number of reasons, but hopefully I'm wrong) that will do FAR MORE to uphold his legacy than will any multi-disc boxed set of a re-released album with vault tracks.

[Edited 7/13/25 4:13am]

But would you really want a Mamma Mia style Prince musical? Can you imagine how awful that would be?

.
You don't have to imagine it for long, it's been in the works for quite a while now, so hopefully coming out soon.

[Edited 7/13/25 8:44am]

Kares said:

ShellyMcG said:

keywiz said:

Nobody wants to see more vault stuff released than I do. Nothing would make me happier than to see every note of music and every pixel of video from the vault released.

But the truth is this will do NOTHING to 'uphold his legacy'. The vault stuff ONLY appeals to the diehard fans who loved his work when he was alive so much that we want to hear every note. And most of us are on the downside trajectory of life.

I have a 17 year old daughter who knows who Prince is, knows he was cool and important, and even has a "Purple Rain" t-shirt she wears. But I doubt she could name a single Prince song. Why? Because virtually no effort has been put towards upholding his legacy with younger generations. Kids her age know more Connie Francis songs right now than they do Prince songs.

What upheld ABBA's legacy? (And my 17 year old can sing for you a dozen ABBA songs) Not releasing vault tracks and Super Deluxe Editions of old albums that only the diehard fans would care about, but "Mamma Mia". While fans here have constantly mocked and derided the upcoming "Purple Rain" musical, the fact is that should is be successful (which, sadly, my instincts tell me it will not for a number of reasons, but hopefully I'm wrong) that will do FAR MORE to uphold his legacy than will any multi-disc boxed set of a re-released album with vault tracks.

[Edited 7/13/25 4:13am]

But would you really want a Mamma Mia style Prince musical? Can you imagine how awful that would be? The music of Abba lends itself well to that kind of thing. It already appealed to the...em...theatre crowd. Prince is a very different artist to Abba with a very different fanbase. You're not going to have a bunch of teenage girls and middle aged gay men joining together in unison to sing Darling Nikki. This Purple Rain musical has disaster written all over it. They will inevitably try to update it for "modern times" and it will lose all sense of what it actually was. Is that really the best way to preserve Prince's legacy? I honestly can't think of a better way of looking after Prince's legacy than by releasing music. But if they want to appeal to more than just the hardcore Prince fans then they need to advertise it a lot better. Prince was always saying that he was all about the music. So that's what his legacy should be. Not watered down musicals, not themed bed sheets and raincoats, not documentaries filled with the same information as the countless other unofficial documentaries already out there. Plus, does anyone really think that a truthful documentary would be the best thing for Prince's legacy? I mean, I don't believe Sinead O'Connor's stories for a second but even leaving her aside, Prince wasn't really the nicest guy in the world was he? Most Prince fans can look past a lot of his behavior and/or are just able to separate the art from the artist. But can you imagine how damaging it would be for his legacy if little things like how he treated Mayte or how he tried to convert Wendy & Lisa were more widely known. [Edited 7/13/25 8:33am]

As I said, I am skeptical about whether the musical will be any good. But it doesn't HAVE to suck. The best way to do it (IMO) would be to follow the basic outline of the story, but include songs from throughout his career. If "Darling Nikki" doesn't work, then don't use it. Use "Kiss" or "I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man" or something else instead. The idea SHOULD be to present Prince to new audiences in a new light. If they take that approach it COULD be successful. But if they just want do a live theater verbatim recreation of a movie anyone can download for a couple of bucks? It will almost certainly fail, I agree.

"All sense of what it actually was" is something the hardcore fans complain about. i.e. the people who don't need to be told the story of Prince or be exposed to his music because we already know it all better than anyone. On the contrary, what you do is tell the story in a different way that appeals to NEW audiences. THAT is 'legacy preservation' and isn't rocket science. It's been done repeatedly over the years in movie and theater to often great success. Does the movie "Elvis" get everything about his life 100% correct? Or did "A Complete Unknown" do so with Dylan? Of course not. But they were hugely successful and introduced great music about legendary artists to new audiences. And if they get truly hooked, which we all hope they will, then they can dig deeper and learn for themselves more about the 'real truth' if that's what they are inclined to do.

"Releasing music" actually accomplishes little. The proper albums are already out there. They don't need to be 'released' and the vault tracks only appeal to the hardcore fans. Are the new sets of Springsteen tracks or all the Dylan vault stuff drawing in new fans? No, they aren't. But of course all this stuff needs to be PART of what is released.

Documentaries do little as well. The Bee Gees and Eagles documentaries I've seen streaming were great. I even went to the theater to see the recent Led Zeppelin doc. Great stuff. But did these reach any NEW fans? Hardly, if at all. That just isn't how these things work.

keywiz said:

ShellyMcG said:

keywiz said: But would you really want a Mamma Mia style Prince musical? Can you imagine how awful that would be? The music of Abba lends itself well to that kind of thing. It already appealed to the...em...theatre crowd. Prince is a very different artist to Abba with a very different fanbase. You're not going to have a bunch of teenage girls and middle aged gay men joining together in unison to sing Darling Nikki. This Purple Rain musical has disaster written all over it. They will inevitably try to update it for "modern times" and it will lose all sense of what it actually was. Is that really the best way to preserve Prince's legacy? I honestly can't think of a better way of looking after Prince's legacy than by releasing music. But if they want to appeal to more than just the hardcore Prince fans then they need to advertise it a lot better. Prince was always saying that he was all about the music. So that's what his legacy should be. Not watered down musicals, not themed bed sheets and raincoats, not documentaries filled with the same information as the countless other unofficial documentaries already out there. Plus, does anyone really think that a truthful documentary would be the best thing for Prince's legacy? I mean, I don't believe Sinead O'Connor's stories for a second but even leaving her aside, Prince wasn't really the nicest guy in the world was he? Most Prince fans can look past a lot of his behavior and/or are just able to separate the art from the artist. But can you imagine how damaging it would be for his legacy if little things like how he treated Mayte or how he tried to convert Wendy & Lisa were more widely known. [Edited 7/13/25 8:33am]

As I said, I am skeptical about whether the musical will be any good. But it doesn't HAVE to suck. The best way to do it (IMO) would be to follow the basic outline of the story, but include songs from throughout his career. If "Darling Nikki" doesn't work, then don't use it. Use "Kiss" or "I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man" or something else instead. The idea SHOULD be to present Prince to new audiences in a new light. If they take that approach it COULD be successful. But if they just want do a live theater verbatim recreation of a movie anyone can download for a couple of bucks? It will almost certainly fail, I agree.

.
The Mamma Mia style (jukebox-style) musical is an upcoming MOVIE, produced by Ryan Coogler. It will be a greatest hits-type thing. The Purple Rain one is different, that is a stage production that opens this fall.

Kares said:

keywiz said:

As I said, I am skeptical about whether the musical will be any good. But it doesn't HAVE to suck. The best way to do it (IMO) would be to follow the basic outline of the story, but include songs from throughout his career. If "Darling Nikki" doesn't work, then don't use it. Use "Kiss" or "I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man" or something else instead. The idea SHOULD be to present Prince to new audiences in a new light. If they take that approach it COULD be successful. But if they just want do a live theater verbatim recreation of a movie anyone can download for a couple of bucks? It will almost certainly fail, I agree.

.
The Mamma Mia style (jukebox-style) musical is an upcoming MOVIE, produced by Ryan Coogler. It will be a greatest hits-type thing. The Purple Rain one is different, that is a stage production that opens this fall.

Yes, I know they are two different things. And the upcoming musical movie will, if its good, probably do more to further Prince's legacy than anything the hardcore fans are clammoring for. (which seems to mostly be "don't do anything new that Prince didn't approve and don't change anything Prince did. Just keep releasing all the stuff he didn't release during his lifetime until the vault is exhausted.")

But the Purple Rain musical should, in my opinion, be done similarily and incorporate different songs. It almost has to as stage productions generally run 2 to 2 1/2 hours (plus intermission).

And musicals generally have songs that further the storyline along. That's part of what makes them work. "Purple Rain" the movie was never that. The songs used in the movie vary between musical-montage type stuff (here's something to listen to while we watch Prince ride around on his motorcycle!) to live-concert sequences where the songs themselves could have been anything. None are particularly integral to the storyline.

If they are going to make it work, they'll have to change it up quite a bit. Otherwise, what will it be? Just the audience watching a band play Prince and The Time songs on stage with some bits of dialogue interspersed? That won't work. They'll need to take great liberty with the story and the song selection to make it work well. IMHO.

[Edited 7/13/25 22:59pm]

keywiz said:

ShellyMcG said:

keywiz said:

As I said, I am skeptical about whether the musical will be any good. But it doesn't HAVE to suck. The best way to do it (IMO) would be to follow the basic outline of the story, but include songs from throughout his career. If "Darling Nikki" doesn't work, then don't use it. Use "Kiss" or "I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man" or something else instead. The idea SHOULD be to present Prince to new audiences in a new light. If they take that approach it COULD be successful. But if they just want do a live theater verbatim recreation of a movie anyone can download for a couple of bucks? It will almost certainly fail, I agree.

"All sense of what it actually was" is something the hardcore fans complain about. i.e. the people who don't need to be told the story of Prince or be exposed to his music because we already know it all better than anyone. On the contrary, what you do is tell the story in a different way that appeals to NEW audiences. THAT is 'legacy preservation' and isn't rocket science. It's been done repeatedly over the years in movie and theater to often great success. Does the movie "Elvis" get everything about his life 100% correct? Or did "A Complete Unknown" do so with Dylan? Of course not. But they were hugely successful and introduced great music about legendary artists to new audiences. And if they get truly hooked, which we all hope they will, then they can dig deeper and learn for themselves more about the 'real truth' if that's what they are inclined to do.

"Releasing music" actually accomplishes little. The proper albums are already out there. They don't need to be 'released' and the vault tracks only appeal to the hardcore fans. Are the new sets of Springsteen tracks or all the Dylan vault stuff drawing in new fans? No, they aren't. But of course all this stuff needs to be PART of what is released.

Documentaries do little as well. The Bee Gees and Eagles documentaries I've seen streaming were great. I even went to the theater to see the recent Led Zeppelin doc. Great stuff. But did these reach any NEW fans? Hardly, if at all. That just isn't how these things work.

The Elvis and Bob Dylan movies benefited from smart casting. Both movies featured actors who are popular with a younger demographic, thus guaranteeing that old people who are fans of those artists will be joined by younger people who don't really care about Bob Dylan or Elvis at the cinema. Now, whether those movies created any new fans of Elvis or Bob Dylan is not something I know. But I'd probably say that if they did, the number of new fans were small anyway. And probably had more to do with the actors who played them rather than anything else about the movie. Which begs the question, who the hell could play Prince in a movie? They could go for a complete unknown but if they do, they're not going to have the benefit of name recognition amongst the cast. Older people might go. Existing Prince fans might go. But you won't get any new fans. At this point, the only surefire way of getting new, younger Prince fans would be to license out his music to a show like Stranger Things or something. Or beg Rockstar to feature his music in Grand Theft Auto VI. And, given that GTA VI is set in Vice City which has a bit of an 80s vibe already, that actually wouldn't be a bad idea. Tom Petty's streaming number shot up by a few hundred percent after his song was featured in a GTA VI trailer. But will the estate do something like this? Would they have the business sense to realise how big something like that could be? I'd love to be wrong but I doubt it's something they'd even considered. You say new releases add very little. You're probably right. Certainly with how they managed the release of Diamonds & Pearls. If not for the org, I would never have known it had been released. They really need to advertise more. But I guarantee that if, say, they were to include a Prince song or two on the GTA soundtrack and time another SDE or unreleased recordings compilation to release around the time of the game, and advertise it properly, then it would create more new Prince fans than any biopic would.

I agree they need to license out his songs to TV shows, movies and video games. That Prince refused to do that during his lifetime is Reason #1 his legacy has been so stalled. You basically either grew up with his music or never heard any of it. And since his death, the Estate hasn't handled his material much better in this regard.

As far as a name actor to play him? Not needed. Every name actor became such with a hit movie or TV show when they were unknown at the time. There's no reason a Prince bio-pic couldn't be some new actor's breakthru. If it's a good story done well and the kid connects with younger audiences, they won't care if the movie is the story of Prince or a remake of Romeo and Juliet. And besides, there are probably a couple of young musicians looking to break into acting who the kids know about who could do it but we've simply never heard of him because we're old farts.

As far as the SDEs go, there's no audience for those outside the hardcore fans. No one shells out $100 for multi-disc sets of an old album plus unreleased vault tracks besides the hardcore fans. Younger folks just stream it all anyway. They add the one or two songs they like to their playlist and that's that. No one cares about the album format anymore.

keywiz said:

Gooddoctor23 said:

ShellyMcG said:

JorisE73 said: Interesting. Just curious though. What, aside from music, do you think could turn someone into a Prince fan? I know you say "teaching people what Prince was about" but could you expand on that? Like, his charitable contributions? Things like that?

Nothing except a well done balanced documentary like the one ther Estate just destroyed.

Lol, I guess you haven't seen it and heard who complained and what was in it to say this, you're just parrotting the director's friends and not lisytening to the peole who already comoplainwed when they diudn't like the interview questions and the narrative the documentary was going for, and of course, the fact people complained about the interviewer pushing them (and even demand in some cases) themj to 'confess' they were physically or metally abused and that PRince was that way to everyone who worked for him which they all denied.
Also the bullshit stories from some who claimed they were the originatior of certain songs and wrote them etc.

Holding out for a Prince skin in Fortnite.

dustoff said:

What y'all blind optimists seem to miss is the flowerless Elephant in the room:
Prince isn't bankable, he never was.


Alan Leeds said it best: Purple Rain was an alignment of the stars, something that shouldn't have happened but happened nonetheless.

Prince sold a lot of records and tour tickets in the 1984 U.S., sure.
But we should keep in mind that the horny american youth went to see the movie two, three times, so a good portion of the entries is related to the fact that it was instantly perceived as a cult movie, a forbidden one even: Prince's hand grabbing Appolonia's crouch must have make the temperature climb a few degrees in every cinema, to the point where everyone panted a sigh of relief when the scene finally dissolved into the Minneapolis dawn.

The movie and the tour introduced a genuinely shocking persona to an audience that was knee-deep immersed in the puritanism of the Reagan years.
Finally! Some sweat, some chest hair, some genuine screaming, at a time where the summum of a societal transgression was to just... dance (cf. "Footloose", or the God-awful "Dirty Dancing").

The American Youth was simply bored to death with a long string of saccharine acts, faux-metal, squeaky clean virgin manchild Michael Jackson, the inoffensive, phony rebel posture of MTV, the commodification of it all.

In 1984 Prince shook America like Elvis the Pelvis did, he fell from the heavens, a seemingly out-of-nowhere phenomenon, reintroducing sex and danger in an era that was sleepwalking socially and culturally (Elvis, while a fantastic singer, was a universal success only because he was a white washed-down version of all the heroes that opened the door for him: Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and many more. Prince, on the other hand, was unapologetically black, and stole all the whiteys sound back, like a vengeful pirate).


And this one-of-a-kind epiphany, my friends, is simply irrepetible, it's a once in a decade (or more) event, something that is very, very hard to communicate or describe to all the folks that came after, less alone have them engaged in the same excitement that the world experienced at the time.

After "Darling Nikki", there was no other way for pop but to transition from erotica into pornography, the apex being all of America laughing like imbeciles to "Wet Ass Pussy", not having a care for their own kids and what this level of crass does to their brains or hearts.

Do you really expect the 2025 desensitized kids to be sensible to Prince's concepts of sensuality in the Pornhub era? "If I Was Your Girlfriend" to resonate at all with a generation stuck in between toxic masculinity, women rights receding into the Middle Ages, and the vulgarity of the Kardashians?


In 1984, the vast majority of the public came at the Purple Rain concerts because of all the shocking value, also for the incredible showmanship, but they were your average John Doe, who got bored any time Prince cut the music to have a conversation with God, about the difference between Love and Sex, or about his ass being nicer than your boyfriend's.
And therein lies precisely the schism between the main public, and the people who fell in love with Prince and continued to support him through the years, no matter what.
The most provocative thing about it was precisely to elevate orgasm to sanctity.

By "Around The World In A Day", Prince was already back to his natural underground status, except he had gained hardcore fans in the millions, which is unheard of. This explains why "Parade" sold relatively well, given the very demanding artistic statement it is. And the same goes for SOTT and Lovesexy.

Sure, Prince had the flair for "Kiss", got very lucky with being assigned with the "Batman" OST, obviously sold, albeit briefly, his artistic integrity for D&P, which, now time has passed, is very, very difficult to listen to without thinking that this is pure "Prince in it for the money", and it's among the albums that are very, very poorly ageing, despite all the self-induced enthusiasm caused by an SDE (yet, as always, Skipper redeems himself with just one "Live 4 Love", an opus that requires pushing the volume to 11 until your speakers go red and plant his axe into your spine).

But the sellout couldn't last, in fact, he shot himself in the foot on purpose, because being a star after Reagan and Thatcher meant nothing but to literally sell yourself, to be a product, sponsored by Pepsi, to take a 3 years hiatus between each release.
The MBA's were taking over, pissing in the face of heroes such as Ahmet Ertegün, ruining every nascent talent with cynicism. Only a few passed through, like grass growing on concrete.

To us fans, it was clear from the B-sides that Prince had nothing to do with such vessels-turned-empty like Michael Jackson, Madonna or Springsteen, who were glad to bathe in millions and renounce their beliefs.
Comparing Prince to them has always been a marketing schtick, a way for the Thieves in the Temple to grab a few dollars more.


Oh, he tried to persuade himself for a short while that he also was after it : the absurdly impossible WB contract clauses, the MJ impresario, the sleek videos, but deep underneath, the real Prince was screaming for integrity, ready to sink his own ship.

In the end, he chose the path of George Clinton and Sly (although poor Sly really went down in the gutters): he chose music. But of course you can't go through the experience of crowds shouting at you louder than the Beatlemania, the awards, the Oscar, without being left deeply traumatized by the "star" system.
But "Baby I'm a Star" is about your inner adolescent fire forever burning, not status.

That's why all that came after the eighties is controversial: on one hand, Prince wanted to be a musician first and foremost, but there was always this pathological need of keeping this now rusted crown on his big ol' head, and it caused a lot of arrogance, a lot of inane muzak, the folly of a guy persuaded he's the biggest shit in town : and he still was to us fans, willing to separate wheat from chaff, but the rest of the world couldn't care less, and still doesn't to this day.

It's time to acknowledge that the Musicology Tour introduced the "Hits" playlist gimmick I personally despise, a sort of innocuous jukebox, which by sheer miracle he allowed "Shhh" to be part of, along with a more than welcomed unplugged session, where his humour was finally back, proof that his inner conflict between making money and having fun was still alive and kicking.

Same goes for the Super Bowl: some (blinded-by-capitalism) fans look at these numbers, these rotten corpse smelling events as if they were proof of Prince being capable of attracting the masses, but they were only revered because of this awful stench of nostalgia that has now invaded every creative endeavour, the same pathetic, repetitive, stuck-in-a-circle childish feeling that is currently filling the Gallaghers pockets.

Thank God he stayed in a fragile equilibrium during his whole career, and never fully went the U2 way, their Las Vegas Sphere shows representing the apex of this empty, devoid from all purposes, ridiculous Barnum exhibitions to which all the so-called stars submit, because their doubloons and their mirrors have since long eaten their faith.
Tiny little men who could lip sync their whole show and no one in the audience would care, lost as they all are, staring at bigger-than-gigantic screens uninterruptedly vomiting torrents of pixels with no purpose.

I can't stand the Prince of 21 Nights, all this useless bullshit where there's nothing new but a record aimed at a press release in Billboard Magazine, the sampler medley massacre, where he becomes the total opposite of the creator he's always been. I can't stand the Prince who owns a property in Turks and Caicos, a reclusive six-stars mansion with more rooms and square feet than you can imagine, surrounded by the very billionnaires who turn Planet Earth into hell, at one thousand light years from the original spirit of Uptown.


I'm glad that by the end he was finally contemplating the emptiness of it all, I'm glad for his (too) late realisation that he was losing himself in the process. The return of the Afro is further proof that he wanted to remember who he was in the first place. But I also understand how having being on top of the world may cause a life-long trauma which you can never truly shake off, and that it brings an incapacity to distinguish between a Yes Man and a friend.

The ghost of Greta Garbo kept him imprisoned in both Xanadus, the physical one, an empty building that could have become a school, and the spiritual one, now drowned in a fog of "Opium", as one bag lying on a shelf of The Vault cruelly confirmed.


I'm glad that in the end, it's the son of an addiction specialist that found him, because it says to us all that at least he tried to get out of his own prison.

Now believing that this immense loss can be turned into a Broadway show is just a symptom of how sick some of us have been made by the system, obedient little slaves obsessed by goals that lead to nowhere, yearning for a glory that would not speak of music, but of return on investment.

I, I, I, the one and only bonatoc, spit in the face of the ones that have the power to spread the forceful joy Prince was able to summon, but use it to do nothing but commerce, and pity the ones who encourage such deeds. Or, more bluntly, borrowing an apt SKipper's metaphor: for those who know the number and don't call, Fuck all y'all.


What we witnessed during Prince's presence, his joys and struggles, it all belongs to us fans, because we are the ones who stayed during good times and bad times, who will always believe he was a Vector, and his Sacrifice on the altar of celebrity was unneeded.
Because there would never have been poverty, we still would have filled his plate, celebrating and chanting like friends the incredible life pulse he had been gifted with, which still makes our hearts beat, our asses wiggle and our faces make faces.

You can't sum up his life and ours in two hours, nine episodes, or a T-shirt.
He was here, and so were we.

[Edited 7/15/25 18:53pm]

The Prince Emoji has been on Whatsapp for years.
What else do U want?

BonnieC said:

What y'all blind optimists seem to miss is the flowerless Elephant in the room:
Prince isn't bankable, he never was.


Alan Leeds said it best: Purple Rain was an alignment of the stars, something that shouldn't have happened but happened nonetheless.

Prince sold a lot of records and tour tickets in the 1984 U.S., sure.
But we should keep in mind that the horny american youth went to see the movie two, three times, so a good portion of the entries is related to the fact that it was instantly perceived as a cult movie, a forbidden one even: Prince's hand grabbing Appolonia's crouch must have make the temperature climb a few degrees in every cinema, to the point where everyone panted a sigh of relief when the scene finally dissolved into the Minneapolis dawn.

The movie and the tour introduced a genuinely shocking persona to an audience that was knee-deep immersed in the puritanism of the Reagan years.
Finally! Some sweat, some chest hair, some genuine screaming, at a time where the summum of a societal transgression was to just... dance (cf. "Footloose", or the God-awful "Dirty Dancing").

The American Youth was simply bored to death with a long string of saccharine acts, faux-metal, squeaky clean virgin manchild Michael Jackson, the inoffensive, phony rebel posture of MTV, the commodification of it all.

In 1984 Prince shook America like Elvis the Pelvis did, he fell from the heavens, a seemingly out-of-nowhere phenomenon, reintroducing sex and danger in an era that was sleepwalking socially and culturally (Elvis, while a fantastic singer, was a universal success only because he was a white washed-down version of all the heroes that opened the door for him: Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and many more. Prince, on the other hand, was unapologetically black, and stole all the whiteys sound back, like a vengeful pirate).


And this one-of-a-kind epiphany, my friends, is simply irrepetible, it's a once in a decade (or more) event, something that is very, very hard to communicate or describe to all the folks that came after, less alone have them engaged in the same excitement that the world experienced at the time.

After "Darling Nikki", there was no other way for pop but to transition from erotica into pornography, the apex being all of America laughing like imbeciles to "Wet Ass Pussy", not having a care for their own kids and what this level of crass does to their brains or hearts.

Do you really expect the 2025 desensitized kids to be sensible to Prince's concepts of sensuality in the Pornhub era? "If I Was Your Girlfriend" to resonate at all with a generation stuck in between toxic masculinity, women rights receding into the Middle Ages, and the vulgarity of the Kardashians?


In 1984, the vast majority of the public came at the Purple Rain concerts because of all the shocking value, also for the incredible showmanship, but they were your average John Doe, who got bored any time Prince cut the music to have a conversation with God, about the difference between Love and Sex, or about his ass being nicer than your boyfriend's.
And therein lies precisely the schism between the main public, and the people who fell in love with Prince and continued to support him through the years, no matter what.
The most provocative thing about it was precisely to elevate orgasm to sanctity.

By "Around The World In A Day", Prince was already back to his natural underground status, except he had gained hardcore fans in the millions, which is unheard of. This explains why "Parade" sold relatively well, given the very demanding artistic statement it is. And the same goes for SOTT and Lovesexy.

Sure, Prince had the flair for "Kiss", got very lucky with being assigned with the "Batman" OST, obviously sold, albeit briefly, his artistic integrity for D&P, which, now time has passed, is very, very difficult to listen to without thinking that this is pure "Prince in it for the money", and it's among the albums that are very, very poorly ageing, despite all the self-induced enthusiasm caused by an SDE (yet, as always, Skipper redeems himself with just one "Live 4 Love", an opus that requires pushing the volume to 11 until your speakers go red and plant his axe into your spine).

But the sellout couldn't last, in fact, he shot himself in the foot on purpose, because being a star after Reagan and Thatcher meant nothing but to literally sell yourself, to be a product, sponsored by Pepsi, to take a 3 years hiatus between each release.
The MBA's were taking over, pissing in the face of heroes such as Ahmet Ertegün, ruining every nascent talent with cynicism. Only a few passed through, like grass growing on concrete.

To us fans, it was clear from the B-sides that Prince had nothing to do with such vessels-turned-empty like Michael Jackson, Madonna or Springsteen, who were glad to bathe in millions and renounce their beliefs.
Comparing Prince to them has always been a marketing schtick, a way for the Thieves in the Temple to grab a few dollars more.


Oh, he tried to persuade himself for a short while that he also was after it : the absurdly impossible WB contract clauses, the MJ impresario, the sleek videos, but deep underneath, the real Prince was screaming for integrity, ready to sink his own ship.

In the end, he chose the path of George Clinton and Sly (although poor Sly really went down in the gutters): he chose music. But of course you can't go through the experience of crowds shouting at you louder than the Beatlemania, the awards, the Oscar, without being left deeply traumatized by the "star" system.
But "Baby I'm a Star" is about your inner adolescent fire forever burning, not status.

That's why all that came after the eighties is controversial: on one hand, Prince wanted to be a musician first and foremost, but there was always this pathological need of keeping this now rusted crown on his big ol' head, and it caused a lot of arrogance, a lot of inane muzak, the folly of a guy persuaded he's the biggest shit in town : and he still was to us fans, willing to separate wheat from chaff, but the rest of the world couldn't care less, and still doesn't to this day.

It's time to acknowledge that the Musicology Tour introduced the "Hits" playlist gimmick I personally despise, a sort of innocuous jukebox, which by sheer miracle he allowed "Shhh" to be part of, along with a more than welcomed unplugged session, where his humour was finally back, proof that his inner conflict between making money and having fun was still alive and kicking.

Same goes for the Super Bowl: some (blinded-by-capitalism) fans look at these numbers, these rotten corpse smelling events as if they were proof of Prince being capable of attracting the masses, but they were only revered because of this awful stench of nostalgia that has now invaded every creative endeavour, the same pathetic, repetitive, stuck-in-a-circle childish feeling that is currently filling the Gallaghers pockets.

Thank God he stayed in a fragile equilibrium during his whole career, and never fully went the U2 way, their Las Vegas Sphere shows representing the apex of this empty, devoid from all purposes, ridiculous Barnum exhibitions to which all the so-called stars submit, because their doubloons and their mirrors have since long eaten their faith.
Tiny little men who could lip sync their whole show and no one in the audience would care, lost as they all are, staring at bigger-than-gigantic screens uninterruptedly vomiting torrents of pixels with no purpose.

I can't stand the Prince of 21 Nights, all this useless bullshit where there's nothing new but a record aimed at a press release in Billboard Magazine, the sampler medley massacre, where he becomes the total opposite of the creator he's always been. I can't stand the Prince who owns a property in Turks and Caicos, a reclusive six-stars mansion with more rooms and square feet than you can imagine, surrounded by the very billionnaires who turn Planet Earth into hell, at one thousand light years from the original spirit of Uptown.


I'm glad that by the end he was finally contemplating the emptiness of it all, I'm glad for his (too) late realisation that he was losing himself in the process. The return of the Afro is further proof that he wanted to remember who he was in the first place. But I also understand how having being on top of the world may cause a life-long trauma which you can never truly shake off, and that it brings an incapacity to distinguish between a Yes Man and a friend.

The ghost of Greta Garbo kept him imprisoned in both Xanadus, the physical one, an empty building that could have become a school, and the spiritual one, now drowned in a fog of "Opium", as one bag lying on a shelf of The Vault cruelly confirmed.


I'm glad that in the end, it's the son of an addiction specialist that found him, because it says to us all that at least he tried to get out of his own prison.

Now believing that this immense loss can be turned into a Broadway show is just a symptom of how sick some of us have been made by the system, obedient little slaves obsessed by goals that lead to nowhere, yearning for a glory that would not speak of music, but of return on investment.

I, I, I, the one and only bonatoc, spit in the face of the ones that have the power to spread the forceful joy Prince was able to summon, but use it to do nothing but commerce, and pity the ones who encourage such deeds. Or, more bluntly, borrowing an apt SKipper's metaphor: for those who know the number and don't call, Fuck all y'all.


What we witnessed during Prince's presence, his joys and struggles, it all belongs to us fans, because we are the ones who stayed during good times and bad times, who will always believe he was a Vector, and his Sacrifice on the altar of celebrity was unneeded.
Because there would never have been poverty, we still would have filled his plate, celebrating and chanting like friends the incredible life pulse he had been gifted with, which still makes our hearts beat, our asses wiggle and our faces make faces.

You can't sum up his life and ours in two hours, nine episodes, or a T-shirt.
He was here, and so were we.

[Edited 7/15/25 18:53pm]

Prince was a lot of things but from a pure music journey........well written.

I've always thought that he was an acquired taste underground type of Artist who hit it big by planned accident.

Gooddoctor23 said:

BonnieC said:

BonnieC said:

What y'all blind optimists seem to miss is the flowerless Elephant in the room:
Prince isn't bankable, he never was.


Alan Leeds said it best: Purple Rain was an alignment of the stars, something that shouldn't have happened but happened nonetheless.

Prince sold a lot of records and tour tickets in the 1984 U.S., sure.
But we should keep in mind that the horny american youth went to see the movie two, three times, so a good portion of the entries is related to the fact that it was instantly perceived as a cult movie, a forbidden one even: Prince's hand grabbing Appolonia's crouch must have make the temperature climb a few degrees in every cinema, to the point where everyone panted a sigh of relief when the scene finally dissolved into the Minneapolis dawn.

The movie and the tour introduced a genuinely shocking persona to an audience that was knee-deep immersed in the puritanism of the Reagan years.
Finally! Some sweat, some chest hair, some genuine screaming, at a time where the summum of a societal transgression was to just... dance (cf. "Footloose", or the God-awful "Dirty Dancing").

The American Youth was simply bored to death with a long string of saccharine acts, faux-metal, squeaky clean virgin manchild Michael Jackson, the inoffensive, phony rebel posture of MTV, the commodification of it all.

In 1984 Prince shook America like Elvis the Pelvis did, he fell from the heavens, a seemingly out-of-nowhere phenomenon, reintroducing sex and danger in an era that was sleepwalking socially and culturally (Elvis, while a fantastic singer, was a universal success only because he was a white washed-down version of all the heroes that opened the door for him: Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and many more. Prince, on the other hand, was unapologetically black, and stole all the whiteys sound back, like a vengeful pirate).


And this one-of-a-kind epiphany, my friends, is simply irrepetible, it's a once in a decade (or more) event, something that is very, very hard to communicate or describe to all the folks that came after, less alone have them engaged in the same excitement that the world experienced at the time.

After "Darling Nikki", there was no other way for pop but to transition from erotica into pornography, the apex being all of America laughing like imbeciles to "Wet Ass Pussy", not having a care for their own kids and what this level of crass does to their brains or hearts.

Do you really expect the 2025 desensitized kids to be sensible to Prince's concepts of sensuality in the Pornhub era? "If I Was Your Girlfriend" to resonate at all with a generation stuck in between toxic masculinity, women rights receding into the Middle Ages, and the vulgarity of the Kardashians?


In 1984, the vast majority of the public came at the Purple Rain concerts because of all the shocking value, also for the incredible showmanship, but they were your average John Doe, who got bored any time Prince cut the music to have a conversation with God, about the difference between Love and Sex, or about his ass being nicer than your boyfriend's.
And therein lies precisely the schism between the main public, and the people who fell in love with Prince and continued to support him through the years, no matter what.
The most provocative thing about it was precisely to elevate orgasm to sanctity.

By "Around The World In A Day", Prince was already back to his natural underground status, except he had gained hardcore fans in the millions, which is unheard of. This explains why "Parade" sold relatively well, given the very demanding artistic statement it is. And the same goes for SOTT and Lovesexy.

Sure, Prince had the flair for "Kiss", got very lucky with being assigned with the "Batman" OST, obviously sold, albeit briefly, his artistic integrity for D&P, which, now time has passed, is very, very difficult to listen to without thinking that this is pure "Prince in it for the money", and it's among the albums that are very, very poorly ageing, despite all the self-induced enthusiasm caused by an SDE (yet, as always, Skipper redeems himself with just one "Live 4 Love", an opus that requires pushing the volume to 11 until your speakers go red and plant his axe into your spine).

But the sellout couldn't last, in fact, he shot himself in the foot on purpose, because being a star after Reagan and Thatcher meant nothing but to literally sell yourself, to be a product, sponsored by Pepsi, to take a 3 years hiatus between each release.
The MBA's were taking over, pissing in the face of heroes such as Ahmet Ertegün, ruining every nascent talent with cynicism. Only a few passed through, like grass growing on concrete.

To us fans, it was clear from the B-sides that Prince had nothing to do with such vessels-turned-empty like Michael Jackson, Madonna or Springsteen, who were glad to bathe in millions and renounce their beliefs.
Comparing Prince to them has always been a marketing schtick, a way for the Thieves in the Temple to grab a few dollars more.


Oh, he tried to persuade himself for a short while that he also was after it : the absurdly impossible WB contract clauses, the MJ impresario, the sleek videos, but deep underneath, the real Prince was screaming for integrity, ready to sink his own ship.

In the end, he chose the path of George Clinton and Sly (although poor Sly really went down in the gutters): he chose music. But of course you can't go through the experience of crowds shouting at you louder than the Beatlemania, the awards, the Oscar, without being left deeply traumatized by the "star" system.
But "Baby I'm a Star" is about your inner adolescent fire forever burning, not status.

That's why all that came after the eighties is controversial: on one hand, Prince wanted to be a musician first and foremost, but there was always this pathological need of keeping this now rusted crown on his big ol' head, and it caused a lot of arrogance, a lot of inane muzak, the folly of a guy persuaded he's the biggest shit in town : and he still was to us fans, willing to separate wheat from chaff, but the rest of the world couldn't care less, and still doesn't to this day.

It's time to acknowledge that the Musicology Tour introduced the "Hits" playlist gimmick I personally despise, a sort of innocuous jukebox, which by sheer miracle he allowed "Shhh" to be part of, along with a more than welcomed unplugged session, where his humour was finally back, proof that his inner conflict between making money and having fun was still alive and kicking.

Same goes for the Super Bowl: some (blinded-by-capitalism) fans look at these numbers, these rotten corpse smelling events as if they were proof of Prince being capable of attracting the masses, but they were only revered because of this awful stench of nostalgia that has now invaded every creative endeavour, the same pathetic, repetitive, stuck-in-a-circle childish feeling that is currently filling the Gallaghers pockets.

Thank God he stayed in a fragile equilibrium during his whole career, and never fully went the U2 way, their Las Vegas Sphere shows representing the apex of this empty, devoid from all purposes, ridiculous Barnum exhibitions to which all the so-called stars submit, because their doubloons and their mirrors have since long eaten their faith.
Tiny little men who could lip sync their whole show and no one in the audience would care, lost as they all are, staring at bigger-than-gigantic screens uninterruptedly vomiting torrents of pixels with no purpose.

I can't stand the Prince of 21 Nights, all this useless bullshit where there's nothing new but a record aimed at a press release in Billboard Magazine, the sampler medley massacre, where he becomes the total opposite of the creator he's always been. I can't stand the Prince who owns a property in Turks and Caicos, a reclusive six-stars mansion with more rooms and square feet than you can imagine, surrounded by the very billionnaires who turn Planet Earth into hell, at one thousand light years from the original spirit of Uptown.


I'm glad that by the end he was finally contemplating the emptiness of it all, I'm glad for his (too) late realisation that he was losing himself in the process. The return of the Afro is further proof that he wanted to remember who he was in the first place. But I also understand how having being on top of the world may cause a life-long trauma which you can never truly shake off, and that it brings an incapacity to distinguish between a Yes Man and a friend.

The ghost of Greta Garbo kept him imprisoned in both Xanadus, the physical one, an empty building that could have become a school, and the spiritual one, now drowned in a fog of "Opium", as one bag lying on a shelf of The Vault cruelly confirmed.


I'm glad that in the end, it's the son of an addiction specialist that found him, because it says to us all that at least he tried to get out of his own prison.

Now believing that this immense loss can be turned into a Broadway show is just a symptom of how sick some of us have been made by the system, obedient little slaves obsessed by goals that lead to nowhere, yearning for a glory that would not speak of music, but of return on investment.

I, I, I, the one and only bonatoc, spit in the face of the ones that have the power to spread the forceful joy Prince was able to summon, but use it to do nothing but commerce, and pity the ones who encourage such deeds. Or, more bluntly, borrowing an apt SKipper's metaphor: for those who know the number and don't call, Fuck all y'all.


What we witnessed during Prince's presence, his joys and struggles, it all belongs to us fans, because we are the ones who stayed during good times and bad times, who will always believe he was a Vector, and his Sacrifice on the altar of celebrity was unneeded.
Because there would never have been poverty, we still would have filled his plate, celebrating and chanting like friends the incredible life pulse he had been gifted with, which still makes our hearts beat, our asses wiggle and our faces make faces.

You can't sum up his life and ours in two hours, nine episodes, or a T-shirt.
He was here, and so were we.

.
Well written – but good writing doesn't make it true.
In fact, I respectfully and wholeheartedly disagree. Both with you and Mr Leeds.

.

The statement that his success was "something that shouldn't have happened but happened nonetheless" could be made about practically any big artist in history. Let's be honest with ourselves: it's NEVER the true artistic value that makes anything or anyone a success. It's never just because the general public is so enlightened and wise that they all recognise true geniuses – someone becoming successful always has been depending on the "alignment of the stars", and often it didn't happen to folks who would've deserved it.
.
Did the majority of people who bought Louis Armstrong records based on 'Hello Dolly' and 'What a Wonderful World' give a toss about his real music? Of course not. It wasn't his music that made him a star, but these popular songs and his grinning. It happens to almost every artist that their biggest success suddenly becomes their cross they'll have to carry for the rest of their lives.
.
So I'm not sure what you (or Leeds) are really trying to say. The different stages of his career that you describe with your cruel judgements (even though I understand they come from your genuine love of the guy) are perfectly human, natural stages of an artist way. What's wrong with nostalgia? Isn't it our nostalgia, after all, that makes us place P's '80s output on a higher shelf than everything else to begin with? It's the music we've grown up on, first made love to, absorbed to the tiniest notes into our DNA. It's only natural that we fiercly hold onto that part of our lives – even though, in my mind I'm adamant that Prince has grown artistically over the years and although he (naturally) became less radical as his 20-something self was, his later output is indeed on at least the same artistic level, if not higher.
.
He IS, as any great artists are, bankable. Absolutely so. Of course it requires skills to market art and they are many traps that are far too easy to step on along the way. But Prince shouldn't be judged by the commercial milestones in his career. That's not who he was. That's just what happened to him out there on a hostile marketplace. He always was and remains a true artist who had something to say. And the true fans will always be interested in his message, in his words, in the peculiar ways he wove his notes into the fabric of silence.
.

[Edited 7/16/25 19:19pm]