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Music Lane It's all about the music, dude! Sit down, relax and listen to some tunes. |
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Music Lane It's all about the music, dude! Sit down, relax and listen to some tunes. |
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In Reply to: Prince Lives! posted by GEO on April 25, 2016 at 10:42:16:
That is slammin' stuff! These bands must have been a ball to play with...heavy funk like this takes me back to a lot of the music I played in my Chicago years--many fond memories there...something I never expected to find in a wedding band.
At the same time, some of the things that always bothered me about Prince are in full bloom here. I'm not a fan of his concept of SOUND. Ironically, I love the sound concept on display on D'Angelo's latest album, and Prince is an obvious heavy influence on D'Angelo. I've mentioned the 80's keyboards that really cloy quickly for my ears. The electronic drum sounds of the 1980's generally were a put-off to me as a percussionist for many years, though Prince generally fares better there than most. Here--for me, the effect he's using on his guitar doesn't match the busy-ness of what he's playing at the beginning and end of this performance. I find the lost intelligibility annoying. Maybe this is what he really wanted--maybe this is his way of integrating something modish into his music for commercial reasons, I don't know. Whatever the case, that's a nitpick complaint here because I otherwise like the soundworld of this song just fine. He's a better guitarist than I ever realized before. You can sure hear the influence of Neil Schon--and not just the Journey Neil, the Santana years seem very well-absorbed as well. Prince's range of stylistic prowess was always impressive.
The other thing is a tendency in his writing that I've never been able to articulate until now. He tends to use rote melodic repetition with no variation whatsoever with what usually feels to me like just a bit too much. I also find this in the music of James Brown, another obvious major influence on the late Mr. Nelson. In situations where the changes and melodic flow COULD lend themselves to rote singing of the same melodic snippet 8 times in a row (in this track, it's the guitar riff that "takes me here"), I like to strategically change the snippet a little bit so that it grows rather than just lying there. However, in a band working in such exciting environs, I can appreciate the value of avoiding the the complexity and real problems this approach can present for live performance. I experienced those problems with my own bands, and we weren't even playing dance parties. So again, I'm nitpicking. For me to call Prince an incompetent hack because I don't like the way he unfolds segments of melody sometimes would be just wrong. He displays thorough mastery of way too many elements of his music to be accused of hackery. (Please keep in mind that some of these bits are for the benefit of "that guy over there".)
I only own Purple Rain and a 12" single from the same era. I'll be picking up more of Prince's music as the opportunities present themselves. That first album especially interests me--I'm truly awestruck at what he pulls off there. How long exactly did it take him to make that record?
dh
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- Wow! - D Harvey 09:25:05 04/30/16 (0)
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