Overnight Prince fans

Little CuChulainn

Daniogroove wrote: »

Is it just me or has ****loads of people declared themselves Prince fans all of sudden? Most of them only ever heard of Purple Rain and then all posting RIP posts and lovehearts over facebook etc.

It really grinds my gears.
That is all.

Who the **** cares? Does it diminish your sense of accomplishment in being his fan in some way? He made good music and was entertaining. It's not just his fanatics that recognise the loss he represents to the industry.

riffmongous

NIMAN wrote: »

You weren't really, he hasn't had a hit or had his new msuic played on the radio for many years.

Any time a Prince song would be on the radio in th elast decade, I'd put money on it being from the 80s.

Hm, I dont know though, I listen to a lot of 80s music, nowadays on youtube and before that 'Friday Night 80s' on the radio and I had almost no exposure to Prince

Wibbs

ChunkyLover54 wrote: »

I'd say 35, the most notable exception I think of being Leonard Cohen.

Who has been singing pretty much the same tune for forty years, only the lyrics change. While his lyrics have developed, he hasn't had an innovative musical thought since Elvis was thin. And let's face it melodically he was always a one trick pony. While I like oul Leonard he is probably the worst example one could muster for an artist innovating throughout their lives.

dasdog

Lemmy died last year for the pedants. He did do a good cover of Hawkwind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6OuyJKnIyU

MacauDragon

Little CuChulainn wrote: »

Who the **** cares? Does it diminish your sense of accomplishment in being his fan in some way? He made good music and was entertaining. It's not just his fanatics that recognise the loss he represents to the industry.

Its the blatant bandwagonhoppery, its so false. They did it for bowie too in huge numbers.
Das ist die Overnightbowiehipsterism.

Its the same falschenvirtuesignalling as the 16 year old in the YouTube comments of a classic rock song letting the world know about his awesome and exceptional taste in music.

BrayRep

Thought that interlude he did at the superbowl was really good. Can't believe no one took a slip on the wet floor.

NIMAN

FB is full of knobs, why are we surprised?

ChunkyLover54

Wibbs wrote: »

Who has been singing pretty much the same tune for forty years, only the lyrics change. While his lyrics have developed, he hasn't had an innovative musical thought since Elvis was thin. And let's face it melodically he was always a one trick pony. While I like oul Leonard he is probably the worst example one could muster for an artist innovating throughout their lives.

I wasn't referring so much to his "innovation" (and I see now reading your previous post thats what you may have be referring to) as to his ability to write great songs - which he was doing right into his 70s.

mzungu

Wibbs wrote: »

Who has been singing pretty much the same tune for forty years, only the lyrics change. While his lyrics have developed, he hasn't had an innovative musical thought since Elvis was thin. And let's face it melodically he was always a one trick pony. While I like oul Leonard he is probably the worst example one could muster for an artist innovating throughout their lives.

The only one that comes to mind is Neil Young. That being said the last album that was truly good IMO was Harvest Moon. He would have been mid to late forties at the Harvest Moon stage. Although he did make some absolute howlers in the 80's (as did everybody) so it was by no means consistent high quality output.

In general though, the vast majority of acts eventually become glorified cabaret when the big hits of their heyday dry up. The best one can hope for is that you can at least throw together one or two hits on below par albums moving into the golden oldie years. Using the Stones as an example, pretty much everything post Mick Taylor is woeful (Ron Wood if he could) but anytime 'Miss You', 'Start Me Up' & 'It's Only Rock 'n Roll' come on the ol stereo then ill be a singing along with a gusto.

I guess nobody was shocked that most radio stations were playing mostly pre-1994 Prince.

Sam Kade

Faith+1 wrote: »

Similar to when Glen Frey died "Oh he was so talented, the Eagles were the greatest" Fcuk right off! You know 2 maybe 3 Eagles songs and all of a sudden you're a fan!? Bandwagon assh*le.

I'm an Eagles fan btw.

Don Henley has more talent in his little finger than at lot of today's artists.

Tigger

Sheep Lover wrote: »

I loved his rendition of Along the Watchtower and obviously Voodoo Child

I rember Prince did a watchtower cover but i didn't know he did a voodoo child cover

super_furry

Can't understand how people could be so petty to be even remotely annoyed by this.

thunderdog

Fun Prince fact:

If you say the word "Prints", it sounds exactly the same as Prince






(Like this comment if you went to the bother of speaking Prints and Prince out loud......my work here is done)

Elmer Blooker

Daniogroove wrote: »

Is it just me or has ****loads of people declared themselves Prince fans all of sudden? Most of them only ever heard of Purple Rain and then all posting RIP posts and lovehearts over facebook etc.

It really grinds my gears.
That is all.

I'm a huge fan of Prince and I also support Leicester City.

FreshTendrils

Wibbs wrote: »

Prince/The artist formerly known as a squiggle? Overrated in latter years. The type that other musicians like. Fantastic guitar player. Good songwriter when he was young, but songwriting is a young man's(and women's) game. The fire goes out fast. 30 years of age is about the turning point. Before that innovation and novelty, after that repetition of past glories, getting better at said repetition and descent into cabaret act "legend"(old style cabaret acts knew this and bought in young people's songs. Sucked the young dry like vampires. QV Madonna.).

The other recent loss Dave Bowie. A true giant of popular music, again past 30 it was bring in producers to hip him up and play the character that was David Bowie(™). The rolling stones are pickled somewhere around 1973. All they doing now is playing the Legend.

So I'm not the only one who has noticed this.
In some cases you could almost set your watch to it.Lennon was 30 when he recorded Imagine.He wrote a few good ones after that but quality was sparse.
Noel Gallagher too.

maudgonner

thunderdog wrote: »

Fun Prince fact:

If you say the word "Prints", it sounds exactly the same as Prince

OT, but that led to one of the best inappropriate jokes in a kids cartoon ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXc119xbDic

Arghus

Wibbs wrote: »

Who has been singing pretty much the same tune for forty years, only the lyrics change. While his lyrics have developed, he hasn't had an innovative musical thought since Elvis was thin. And let's face it melodically he was always a one trick pony. While I like oul Leonard he is probably the worst example one could muster for an artist innovating throughout their lives.

The worst example? Ah here! You're being silly now; you have to give Laughing Len a bit more credit than that. I'm no big time fan of his, but I'd find it hard to argue with the notion that some of his best material came from the middle to late period of his career - albums like I'm Your Man or The Future, both recorded when he was well into middle age. And while he has a particular schtick - man with voice sings mournful stuff - he's been plenty diverse even within those confines - compare his early sparse folk songs like Suzanne, to something synthy off an album like Ten New Songs. A lot of the subject matter he's dealt with, and even something as fundamental as the sound of his voice have both benifited from that extra bit of wisdom and mileage you can hear in the music; some of his classics simply couldn't have been written by a younger man! Don't forget that his last two albums were highly successful, critically and commercially, and I wouldn't put that down solely to his status and longevity; I don't think his cultural relevance is kaput. I partially agree with your idea of songwriting being a young person's game, but if were going to look at anyone for signs of zero artistic growth: then Leonard ain't our man.

Bowie is a strange one: I agree that his heyday was definitely the tail-end of the seventies, but Blackstar is a pretty damn amazing album...

On the issue of bandwagoner Prince fans: I have no problem with this. I love Prince and have for a good few years. More than once I have tried to push his music on someone, to be told something along the lines of - "No way: Prince is a fag!". So, if his death pushes all his great tunes back into the world of what's popular, and people start proclaiming their newfound love: great. I love the man's music and I want everyone else to as well.

FizzleSticks

This post has been deleted.

andekwarhola

To be fair, it probably is hard for younger people to appreciate the artistic and commercial omnipresence of Prince in (and IMO his best work from) the late 70s to the late 80s and for people used to just using Spotify and YouTube, it's not as easy as usual to just get all the stuff to check out.

For me though, he's one of the most significant artists of the last 40 years. Younger people probably don't grasp how radical he was - a American black guy in the 70/80s playing every genre under the sun with such a multiracial and mixed gender band and who had artistic control all the way through his career. A multi-instrumentalist who even without playing and producing nearly all the music on his albums and writing and singing the songs would still easily be one of the best guitarists of the last few decades.

We've always had - and always will have - good innovation in music 'in the margins' but there's only a handful of artists since the 60s that have managed to combine huge stardom, massive commercial success, and artistic control with downright weirdness and musical miscegenation. And Prince is right up there.

It happens. People become fans at the death of an artist a lot.

The whole thing about being an artist is you need to have people hear about you. Whether it is through media - or live shows - or personal demos - unless you make a ripple no one can detect that ripple.

And yes dying is such a ripple. There will be people who will only detect the ripple you make when you die.

So I would not be so much angry that people only "Jump on the wagon" when someone dies - as much as I would think "there are people who will only hear about him when he dies - so lets see how big a ripple they make"

So rather than get angry annoyed or disappointed at the band wagon jumpers - think of it instead as "The media mentioned them - people listened - and they liked what they heard".

I know that's how I would post humorously like to think about new fans anyway

Ask yourself - was there anyone or anything you only ever heard of because it died or stopped - and then did you go on to love them or it?

I know myself I would not be a Hank Williams fan if I had not read a single sentence from someone who I _am_ a fan of about his death. And then I went and checked him out - and discovered just how good he was.

Never be embarrassed _how_ you discover the art you love - just know _why_ you love it.

MacauDragon

That's fine.

But had you at that point of discovering hank Williams suddenly gone around saying how you were a giant hank Williams fan before he was mainstream for some contrived, attention seeking, me too reason, it would be closer to what op was posting about.

Indeed. There is always that type of person. The best example I can think of is how the number of people who claim attendance to a certain Rory Gallagher gig in Cork - by _Far_ exceeds the number of people that the venue possibly could have held.

Chain Smoker

Wibbs wrote: »

:pac::D People tend to be herd creatures, with short enough memories and a fair percentage of said herd tend to be dimmer than a one watt lightbulb(QV Facebook; "he's with the angles now"). I'm in a smaller different herd here. In other news; water is wet.

Prince/The artist formerly known as a squiggle? Overrated in latter years. The type that other musicians like. Fantastic guitar player. Good songwriter when he was young, but songwriting is a young man's(and women's) game. The fire goes out fast. 30 years of age is about the turning point. Before that innovation and novelty, after that repetition of past glories, getting better at said repetition and descent into cabaret act "legend"(old style cabaret acts knew this and bought in young people's songs. Sucked the young dry like vampires. QV Madonna.).

The other recent loss Dave Bowie. A true giant of popular music, again past 30 it was bring in producers to hip him up and play the character that was David Bowie(™). The rolling stones are pickled somewhere around 1973. All they doing now is playing the Legend.

And off a rambling I go. As per. Can't stay asleep and sure t'is the sun up now begorrah. The luminescent bastard.

Ah, it's not a flat age thing. It's usually more success and/or other obligations (the key one being kids).

In Bowie's case, he openly said that the surprising success of Let's Dance (an album he didn't expect to be very significant in comparison to some of his other releases) made him feel completely disconnected from his audience and warped his approach to writing music from then on.
Bowie definitely suffered from no one expecting the idea of him being old too. Some of those albums like Heathen are actually pretty great.

Prince was something of a savant who basically fell apart creatively from his success giving him too much freedom to release whatever the **** he wanted ( a refusal to work within the industry after getting screwed in the 80s obviously didn't help). The amount of great stuff he was producing in the 80s was absolutely nuts. There've been patches since to show just what he could pull off if he had a semblance of quality control.

cocaliquid

Not a fan never will be. I cringe when i hear hes music

topmanamillion

Not a fan at all. Had 2fm on this evening and one of their DJs had an hour long special of his songs/songs he wrote.
Have to say I like Maniac Monday (he wrote it) but don't get people wetting themselves over purple rain.
It's a poor song.
In conclusion I may well like Prince as a song writer but I think he sounds like a cat being scalded.

Wibbs

Arghus wrote: »

The worst example? Ah here! You're being silly now; you have to give Laughing Len a bit more credit than that.

Ah I suppose. And his barely(though distinctively) sung poetry stuff has more legs to it. He's more a lyricist that a musician. The latter is very much secondary and is essentially down to the producer involved in the recording. Still he's held together far better than Dylan who burnt out years ago. No doubt I'll get stick for that. Dylan fans(who I have personally found are almost exclusively male) can get rabid in their defence of their hero. Those artists who pull the "ok I'm gonna be profound here" stuff really gets them wet in the aisles. We see this with someone like Lennon. Macca was twice the musician, music writer and often lyricist and but for brief flashes Lennon was a spent force as the Beatles were disbanding, but Macca wasn't angry enough and didn't have the decency to be a bullet catcher for a mental defective. Dying young helps. Even as a band. The aforementioned mop tops are lauded and rightly, but a little of it is down to the fact the band "died young". They didn't get embarrassing like the Stones.

Don't get me wrong the very fact the Stones are still going is an act, a talent in of itself. That film they made with Scorsese a few years back had a pensioner Jagger that was truly a wonder of the age. He simply didn't act of move or sing like the old man he is. They should have made that their swan song. Now? Now I'm reminded of a Samuel Johnson quote and to paraphrase the great man the Stones are like a dog walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.

Chain Smoker wrote: »

Ah, it's not a flat age thing. It's usually more success and/or other obligations (the key one being kids).

As explanations I would say IMH they're more excuses than explanations, but the plain and demonstrable fact is the majority of great songwriting is done by folks under 30-35. Yes there are the odd songs even albums that are good after that age, but as a rule…

And I don't see why this is such an issue. as an average the young are simply better at some things. The physical stuff below the neck an obvious one, but for some reason above the neck stuff is considered off limits.

Chain Smoker

Wibbs wrote: »

As explanations I would say IMH they're more excuses than explanations, but the plain and demonstrable fact is the majority of great songwriting is done by folks under 30-35. Yes there are the odd songs even albums that are good after that age, but as a rule…

And I don't see why this is such an issue. as an average the young are simply better at some things. The physical stuff below the neck an obvious one, but for some reason above the neck stuff is considered off limits.

It's pretty much impossible to really test whether they're excuses or explanations, because beyond that age it's fairly likely they'll either (a) have a family, (b) lack the community to develop anything creative, because all their friends have moved on from that, (c) gotten to the point where it is a career and there's a level of pressure to produce that is wholly different to what used to be there, or (d) years of failure have left them jaded

It is a young man's game but it's far more down to twentysomethings having a lot more freedom to **** about and try **** out. The older you get, the more pigeon-holed you are, the less likely you're gonna make anything interesting or especially different than what you've done before.



Also, to be clear, we mightn't be disagreeing here at all. I do think there's a limited amount of time where a musician is likely to be creatively on point. The fact it's pretty much always in their 20s is down to society rather than that being a sweet point though.

Also, also, I am not a 29 year old musician

Esel

Wibbs wrote:

...bullet catcher for a mental defective. Dying young helps...

Dafuq? Maybe I read your post wrong, and if so, ajopalies.

Were you actually talking about Lennon?

I ain't carrying no torch for no-one, btw.

Everlong1

I’m a hardcore U2 fan and have been since their first album. I’m only a couple of years younger than the band themselves. I see every Irish gig they play and travel abroad to see them when I can afford it. Their music has always been a huge part of my life and will continue to be. An unfortunate side effect of this has been that I’ve had to learn how to cope with di*kheads trying to wind me up by mouthing off to me about how much they hate Bono.

I’ve sometimes idly wondered what would happen if Bono died before his time.

Chain Smoker

Everlong1 wrote: »

I’m a hardcore U2 fan and have been since their first album. I’m only a couple of years younger than the band themselves. I see every Irish gig they play and travel abroad to see them when I can afford it. Their music has always been a huge part of my life and will continue to be. An unfortunate side effect of this has been that I’ve had to learn how to cope with di*kheads trying to wind me up by mouthing off to me about how much they hate Bono.

I’ve sometimes idly wondered what would happen if Bono died before his time.

How do you respond when people say they haven't produced anything of note in near 25 years?