Prince - I Wish U Heaven

US Gutted      22/04/16

Prince - I Wish U Heaven


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We all have to go sometime, but this year the grim reaper seems to an extremely busy guy, or gal.

Prince being his latest and most unwelcome victim and so suddenly, maybe if it is a gal, Prince can have one last flirt.

It's hard to process some things, but the passing of someone so influential and brilliant gives pause for thought. We know that Prince was a prolific and talented songwriter, performer and pop icon, but I think the sheer volume of his work is the thing that impressed me most.

He was also a bit bonkers. All that business with Warner Bros and changing his name to a symbol had many people puzzled and largely unsympathetic. But actually he showed the way for a number of artists to take control of their own work - admittedly from the luxury of having the $$ to dowhatchalike.

It's more that for me, his work was massively inspirational. He really blew the music production scene right open doing his own thing. From the unusual and super groovy work of Parade (When Doves Cry + Girls and Boys) with the super talented Wendy And Lisa, to Sign O' The Times, an opus of the age. This album has been cited by many as one of the greatest albums of the 80s. For me, it was an epiphany.

When it came out, some portions of the music press were outraged at the lack of production, the demo-like quality of it. Prince pretty much did the whole thing himself: wrote, produced and played many of the parts, highlighting just what an insanely talented individual he was. It was a double CD - a massive outpouring of work. It was like he'd been working with a drum machine and an 8 track to produce a ton of songs and just got them out there , though as it happens, it was one have been one his more expensive records to make, with hours and hours of studio time put into it.

The thing is, to us mortals, it appeared to be something that you could do with with basic equipment - although again,  it wasn't actually - the Linn LM-1 and Fairlight playing big parts.

So for us budding bedroom producers , (in my case, a four track, Atari and a drum machine), it meant that somehow, it was okay to keep doing what we were doing and that if you were creative enough, your work could be heard. It was a shift of focus to the strength of the idea. The point was, that with a drum machine and some good ideas, it was something we could all aspire to.

Obviously it's a generational thing,not everyone will have the same memories of Prince. I missed the early Bowie years, so his passing, while still a major influence,  didn't have the same resonance. All those party tracks we danced to, the great memories of the soundtrack of my youth - Prince was right up there. I only wish I'd got to see him perform live.

When I was touring Europe doing a few pop promo gigs, we were in Paris for a week or so. We had a driver called Guy, (pronounced Gee), he like to party - he was pretty eccentric. One night he told us that he had also been  driving for Prince in Paris a few months previously. He said that Prince used to give him tapes to listen to in the car in the morning of mad, orchestral music he'd been working on during the night - didn't sleep much. He said it blew him away. Apparently Prince had a  mobile studio in a truck outside his hotel that he would spend the night working on various musical projects, he just couldn't stop creating. I don't know if it was true, but  I like to think so. I sure hope they have a studio where Prince is going...

 



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