I finally got to see Prince in concert last December, and I was amazed by the fact that, at age 52, the man still blows 98% of performers away with his stage presence alone. Add in his superior musicianship and…well, let’s just say that there’s Prince, and there’s almost everyone else. Mr. Nelson is playing a 21-date residency in Los Angeles (one of the very few times I wish I lived in California) and to help promote it, he stopped […]
Posts tagged "Prince"
Jheri Curl Fridays: Jesse Johnson’s Revue
The other night, me and several of my writin’ and bloggin’ brethren (and sistren) were discussing whether @knownasprince on Twitter was really Prince Rogers Nelson. My buddy Pete responded that if the real Prince was really offering up those “Chicken Soup for the Soul”-esque Tweets, then I was really Time drummer Jellybean Johnson. I promptly whined to Pete about being cast off as the second least important member of the original Time lineup. Hell, why couldn’t I have been Jimmy or […]
Get Well Shouts: Kool Herc & Bobby Z.
A speedy recovery shout-out has to go to the one and only Kool Herc. The godfather of hip-hop recently was hospitalized and had kidney stone surgery. Herc’s story has gotten quite a bit of coverage for several reasons. As with rock and soul legends in the past, it highlights the fact that musicians don’t have health insurance. Medical bills are quite expensive (take it from me), and someone who is uninsured and faces serious ailments is going to accumulate quite […]
250 Words or Less: Corinne Bailey Rae’s “Love EP”
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Brit soul songstress Corinne Bailey Rae has delivered The Love EP, a stopgap collection of five covers that’s pleasant but not essential. My dislike for covers collections is well-documented, so the fact that I enjoy this as much as I do is something of an anomaly. However, three of the five songs are solid, and a fourth would be solid if not for it’s interminable length. A few weeks ago, I featured Corinne’s version […]
Hear Here!: “I Wanna Be Your Lover” by Corinne Bailey Rae
One of the great mysteries of the past 12 months in music is why Corinne Bailey Rae’s second album, The Sea, didn’t do very well. Maybe she was hurt by the long layoff between albums, maybe she was hurt by not having a major pop radio hit. Either way, the British singer/songwriter’s second album was a marked improvement over her first-an album on which the hype and the actual quality were sort of uneven. Anyway, give The Sea a listen. […]
Blerd’s Notes: A Guide to the Music of Prince: The Side Projects
Besides being an overall bad-ass, another thing Prince is well-known for is his stable of side projects.The desire to be known as a developer of talent in addition to being known as a talent himself ran strong in the little guy, and Prince started spitting out proteges almost as soon as he became a hit artist. Some of the artists went on to create great music (if not have lengthy careers), while other artists came and went in the blink […]
Prince Turns New Jersey Purple
Prince played an amazing show at New Jersey’s Izod Center on December 15th, with a 2-hour set containing some of his most memorable material.
Hump Day Flashback Has a Sad Christmas
This week’s Hump Day Flashback looks at a couple of sad holiday tunes from Breathe and Prince.
Blerd’s Notes: A Guide to the Music of Prince (Part 6)
The 6th installment of the Popblerd Guide to Prince looks at his most recent five studio albums, a time period when Prince made some of his most inspired music in years, and dropped the plot again.
Blerd’s Notes: A Guide to the Music of Prince (Part V)
Prince spent most of the late nineties and early oughts making uninspired music and bouncing from label to label. Part 5 of Prince’s “Blerd’s Notes” takes a look at some of the more disappointing entries in his catalog.
A Moment With: Scott Poulson-Bryant
The music-writing bug hit me pretty early in life, but it didn’t strike me as a viable option (for various reasons) until I was in my mid-teens. Starting with the creation of The Source, young urban culture finally got a voice in the print media mainstream, It was closely followed by Quincy Jones’ magazine venture, Vibe. From the first issue of the magazine I saw (with a striking photo of Treach from Naughty by Nature on the cover), I was […]
Blerd’s Notes: A Guide to the Music of Prince (Part IV)
Originally published November 17th, 2010. I’ve updated to include new photos, correct a few grammatical errors, and some text has been revised slightly. The last Prince album we covered in “Blerd’s Notes”‘ Part 3 was 1992’s Love Symbol album with the New Power Generation. Following that album, Prince’s label, Warner Brothers, gifted him with a lucrative (and ludicrous) contract that offered him a VP stake in the company. Shortly thereafter, Prince bailed-at least mentally. He changed his name to the […]
