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Purple prose from Prince: `People are starting to realize I'm a musician'

By Greg Kot
Tribune music critic
Published June 20, 2004

ST. PAUL -- Scented candles and a computer screen provide the only illumination in a dressing room framed by purple drapes backstage at the Xcel Energy Center. In three hours, Prince and his New Power Generation will launch their Twin Cities homecoming with the first of three shows that are either sold out or just on the verge. Prince's voice is deep, subdued, almost lulling. But pretty soon, even in this dimly lit conversation with a visiting journalist, the showman in him cannot be contained.

He leans forward, a gold NPG medallion swinging from his neck, and taps his watchless left wrist vigorously. "Fifteen minutes! These journalists start talking come-backs, and Grammy Awards and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and I say, `Yeah, thanks,' and they're outta here in 15 minutes," he says with a cackle.

The visitor is put on notice. He is also being played. Once Prince gets rolling, it's very doubtful he gives anyone just 15 minutes of his time. He has too much to say, too much spin to apply, too much enthusiasm for the future. Prince once had a reputation as being difficult and distant. But at 46, he exudes a wide-eyed vigor about the job at hand: a major tour that brings him to Chicago for five concerts at the All-state Arena beginning next Friday, following a string of commercial and critical coups. These include his nationally televised performance opening the Grammy Awards last February, his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March, and the release a few weeks later of a new album, "Musicology," already his fastest-selling release in a decade with 872,000 sales, according to Soundscan.

"Anybody can come out with some dirty little tune and have a hit -- they're easy to write," says Prince, a man who should know. He's written a few "dirty" little tunes in his time, explicit songs that once put him on Tipper Gore's most-desperately-in-need-of-censorship list in the '80s.

The dirt has been swept under the rug of Prince's past these days, and he's more likely to quote biblical scripture than he is to perform his lascivious "Darling Nikki" in concert. The dirt is gone, but not the grit. "People are starting to realize," he says, "that I'm a musician."

It's an odd statement coming from a singer who redefined notions of funk, rock, soul, psychedelia and pop in the '80s by combining them all into a seemingly effortless string of classic albums, in which he played most of the instruments himself. But with Prince there's always plenty of baggage to get in the way of his accomplishments: His longtime distrust, if not outright hostility, toward the media; his public petulance toward his longtime record label, Warner Brothers, symbolized by his etching the word "slave" into the side of his face; his decision to change his name to an unpronounceable symbol during the '90s; his less-than-smooth ride as a record company mogul, plagued by complaints from even diehard fans that his music was becoming too esoteric, and that he couldn't even fill orders promptly for his self-released albums. Lately, he's in the news again because he's been handing out his new compact disc to ticket-buyers at his concerts, in effect mounting an end-run around the traditional music industry-retail store pipeline.

All this has obscured the central reality in Prince's career: That he remains among the finest live performers of his generation, and that he has helmed a string of stellar bands over the last 25 years, the latest of which may be his most formidable. "Musicology" isn't a first-tier Prince album -- too often it sounds like Prince covering his best moves -- but his current tour reiterates that he remains a musical hurricane, an artist who just keeps getting better as he matures.

At the first Twin Cities concert, Prince led his nine-piece band through a breathlessly paced 50-minute display of orchestrated fury and finesse, dropping in bits of Beyonce and OutKast between horn-drenched crescendos. He then settled in for a 30-minute solo acoustic set, where he demonstrated the durability of the melodies underlying "Little Red Corvette" and "Raspberry Beret" while paying homage to Ray Charles and launching into a hilarious blues ditty touching on telemarketing, privacy rights, music criticism and Minnesota accents. The 2 1/2-hour concert closed with a series of extended dance jams, from "Kiss" to Eddie Floyd's "Knock on Wood," the band sharing the confetti-strewn stage with more than a dozen shimmying fans.

"This is my music school," says saxophonist Mike Phillips, 28, pausing to chat after a sound check. Phillips has played with Stevie Wonder, but says Prince has made him reconsider how he plays his instrument.

"I get private lessons from the guy that have made me a better musician, and he doesn't even play the saxophone. When I first joined the band I played a solo, and he came up to me later and said, `Think of it as if you're courting a woman. You're not gonna run up to her and start babbling. You're gonna take your time.' And he was right. I was trying to pack in every idea I had to wow the crowd, and he taught me how to talk to the crowd."

The son of a working musician, Prince has a deep appreciation for the work ethic and aesthetic of big bands, from Duke Ellington's to Sly Stone's.

The roots of the "Musicology" tour, and his higher profile in 2004, can be found in the theater tours he did in previous years, when he began assembling his current lineup of musicians and honing their interplay on everything from jazz instrumentals to old soul covers.

"He has a deep knowledge of what he wants, sees and hears," says saxophonist Maceo Parker, who found early fame with James Brown's stellar band in the '60s.

"I feel like he's already seen it and heard it, and we're there to execute it."

Just as Parker takes a hands-on approach to his wardrobe -- as he's being interviewed in his dressing room, he irons the suits he will wear that night at the XCel Center show and the after-party -- he marvels at how Prince micromanages his entire operation. "He knows about the musicians' stuff, the stage stuff, the business stuff," Parker says. "With everyone else I've been with, they pass it on to someone else, but with Prince, it surprised me how involved he is with every aspect of his operation."

Prince wouldn't have it any other way. The idea of taking orders from anyone else fills him with revulsion: "I learned from Jimi Hendrix. They all wanted him to do the tricks, and at the end of his career he just wanted to play. I lived longer than he did, and I can see how those pressures can really play with your head. It's all about, `What is utopia to you?' If you lend your consciousness to someone else, you're a robot."

Spackling his interview with references to the greats of past eras, from Hendrix to Miles Davis, Prince draws inspiration not just from their example, but from their working environment.

"What I'm doing now -- giving the albums directly to the fans, changing the show every night to reflect that it's about music and not a circus with lots of pyrotechnics -- has the spirit of the '60s in it," he says. "I often wonder if I'd be better placed there."

The words "old school" come up a lot in conversation with Prince. On "Musicology," he asks rhetorically, "Don't you miss the feeling that music gave you back in the day?" Later in the album, he poses another challenge: "Take your pick -- turntable or a band?" Once he dabbled in hip-hop, and even attempted to rap a little himself. The experiments fell flat as Prince tried to fit in with the shifting pop-culture scenery in the early '90s. Now he seems resigned to the idea that the mainstream industry has given up on him. And he in turn, has given up on it -- except when it serves his broader goals. "This is my new single," he declared in introducing "Call My Name" in St. Paul. "But radio will never play it."

After parting with Warners in the mid-'90s, he licensed his 1999 album, "Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic," to Arista, and now he's partnering with Columbia Records on "Musicology." In both instances, Prince retained control of the master recordings -- the crux of his disagreement with Warner.

Prince has been denigrated for his do-it-my-way attitude, even if it means looking silly at times, but a lot of his moves are starting to look downright prescient. As the major labels struggle to maintain their market share and to harness the Internet, Prince has been bolstering his artistic and financial independence and nurturing his fans' loyalty with his Web-centric NPG label. "I can be part of the problem or part of the future," he says. "And I know it won't be like this in the future."

Prince has become a student of the industry even as he distances himself from it. After striking his deal with Clive Davis and Arista to release "Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic," Davis was dumped as label president, which instantly consigned "Rave" to the dustbin of forgotten Prince albums.

But Davis engineered a comeback that put him back on top of the business last year as chairman of the RCA Music Group. Prince sounds almost as if he admires Davis for how cleverly he played his cards. "Admire him? No," Prince declares. "The only people I tend to admire are musicians. But I do understand him"

Prince smiles impishly. "I have a different outlook than most people because I am a man of leisure. I have the time for spiritual matters because I'm not behind the 8 Ball every day on the 9-to-5. When I started playing music, people weren't selling 5 million records. That was not the standard, that was not the focus. Now, it must be freaky to ask some 25-year-old about what his album is about, because at 25, he really hasn't put in the time."

The implication, of course, is that Prince has, that he sees being a musician as a lifelong occupation that has little to do with the roller coaster of popularity. "I don't have any hard feelings about dealing with the mainstream machine, because I understand how it works and why it does what it does," he says.

"This may sound a little arrogant, but I've never felt more powerful than right now. I look forward to the future because I know it can only be more."

- - -

Prince CD a freebie for concertgoers

"Musicology" is on its way to becoming Prince's biggest-selling album in more than a decade. But, as is typical of the artist's career, where Prince goes, controversy follows.

The 1.5 million fans who are expected to buy tickets for Prince's tour this year each will get a copy of "Musicology" as they enter the venue where the artist is playing that night. These CDs in turn are being counted as album sales on the Billboard pop chart, virtually ensuring that Prince's album will be a yearlong fixture in top 200 even though it's getting little support at commercial radio. Meanwhile, the tour is expected to earn revenue of nearly $100 million, which would make it one of the most successful of all time.

But record-label executives are grumbling that the CD-concert sale is an example of unfair double-dipping, and puts other artists who don't use a similar strategy at a disadvantage. In response to these concerns, Billboard has announced that in the future it won't count such ticket purchases as an album sale unless consumers are given the option of not buying the CD. But the ruling won't apply to "Musicology."

"The idea to bundle the CDs with the tickets was all Prince's doing," says Paul Gongaware, co-CEO of concert promoter Concerts West. Prince sees the strategy as a way of breaking the chokehold that the music charts and radio and video-channel playlists have on music distribution. "The music industry is a matrix that is counter to what is natural and right," he says. "I've wanted to do this for a long time, but I had to be free of record contracts to do it. To me, this is just another form of peer-to-peer [music file sharing]. It's a way of operating that has nothing to do with the charts, radio or MTV."

The innovation is already being adopted by other bands, including the Cure and Gomez. "A revolution? Call it what you want, but something has changed," Prince says. "It's a new way of looking at things."

-- Greg Kot


Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune

awesome!

the chicago newspapers are starting to preview the shows...

Anxiety said:

damn, it's gonna be CRAZY there over the next 5 days!

endorphin74 said:

if it ain't crazy to start off with, TOFKA and i are gonna MAKE it crazy!!!

"This is my new single," he declared in introducing "Call My Name" in St. Paul. "But radio will never play it."

I wonder why Prince said that??

Another great interview that shows that P knows exactly what he's doing. He's found a way 2 circle the Industry like a Vulture just waiting for their old foul way of bizness 2 DIE!!!! More power 2 the artist that follows P's ways.....much success 2 the CURE&GOMEZ! Schoolz in sucka' and the NPG has just taken CONTROL!!!!!

DigitalGardin said:

because sadly, it's probably true.

how much have YOU heard it on radio?

i hope he's wrong...

They won't ask any hard questions.

It makes me proud to think that I have stuck with Prince all these years. Alot of people are into to him now becuase he's hip again. Although, I will admit, I liked it much better when people thought he had went away and has not put out anything in years. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for him and all his recent success. He truely is the most under rated artist out there. But for those of us who know what time it is, we realize that no one can lay it down like him!
It's just that everybody and there brother are npgmc members now. But it's all good. Prince is deserving and I wish him continued success. I also dig the fact that he does things his way and sets trends like no other. Giving the cd away with each ticket is brilliant! I mean c'mon, $75 for front row seats and with a cd! Brilliant!

klick2me said:

Briiiiiliant and funky as heck!!!

7

DigitalGardin said:

Well, I never heard "Musicology" played on any Twin Cities radio stations. Has anyone?

Anxiety said:

Call my name gets a lot of air play in DC. I knew it would. Just the title alone, I knew the blakc people around here would get into it.

wyld1 said:

It's more than black people that get into this song. Is one of my favorites, the first time I heard it. Classic Prince. Emmmmm

This line is what stays with me. Quite a thought...

CHI-TOWN!!! LET'S GO CRAZY.....LET'S GET NUTS!!! BRING THE FAMILY, HA HA HA HA

All I know is that Houston stations have been playing "Call My Name" a lot.
It's cool to see/hear every time.

NCC2012 said:

-----
It is is sad because Musicology is not a ground breaking CD but, it is really good and this evil and spiteful industry just will not play it. I think Prince was smart to sell it with the ticket. He must have realize that no matter what he does he will never get radio play and it was best to just get the music out to the people. What a shame !!!

NCC2012 said:

And you won't hear it on any Twin Cities radio stations unless it makes the Billboard Top 10 singles. Clear Channel Entertainment owns most of the radio stations in the Twin Cities. That is also why after Prince said 'Radio will never play it' he also said 'Clear Channel has cleared the channel of the funk!'

So true! Twin Cities needs a new radio station. Radio here sucks!!!

callmyname said:

laurarichardson said:

You hit the nail on the head. The record industry is jealous, spiteful, and just plain bitter and here's why: They know that Prince has the recording industry RIGHT WHERE HE WANTS THEM, and they're sore because they're not the ones who get the lion's share of the profits or even get to determine the path this record takes. The only power they have left is to not play the music, and who's really not playing the music is a big conglomerate, who purchased radio stations left and right in just this kind of shenanigans.

IN SHORT, THE RECORD INDUSTRY IS A BIG FAT RACKET, with one design in mind, to make money at the expense of the artist, who, without the artist, the record company wouldn't exist.

The sad thing is that they could really cash in on the success of the CD and make millions from it themselves, but they are like donkeys who drown in a flood - too stupid and stubborn to come in out of the rain, even if it's to their benefit. They'd rather kill the recording industry before admitting that they don't hold all the cards anymore.

It's just sad, that's all. I hope some label execs are reading this - DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT YOU WILL NOT BE IN TOTAL CONTROL OF WHAT WE LISTEN TO FROM THIS DAY FORWARD? We will win and you will lose, but not because we win, because you're too vengeful to do anything different.

Awesome article!
I think ´Call my name´ as a hit would be perfectly possible if Sony promoted it well. The song is very catchy.

poetbear68 said:

I feel your anger! But they know that sooner or later they will b putout 2 pasture if they don't change! Real music is gonna make a comeback!

violett said:

oh yeah!!!!

Wow, so many of you have said all the things I was thinking. Prince has just shown us why he is the man. I hope that Call My Name will be played everywhere but I won't be shocked if I don't hear it cause I haven't heard it at all where I'm at. A damn shame .

this is worth saying, because Prince has been viewed as more of a personality than anything else... people who aren't fans honestly do forget that he is first and foremost a musician... and not merely an "artist."

Heiress said:

- Well, in the last years he focused much more on the music than on dancing, gimmicks and scandals. He is just getting the results.

ELBOOGY said:

bury'em all, P.... FACE DOWN !!!!

GustavoRibas said:

True. But people who aren't fans remember him from the Purple Rain era, and before, most generally...