RIP Prince

[Salluz]

Chilling on the computer, messaging the Mrs. while she's BSing at her job, and suddenly she tells me, "Prince died". 

DAFUQ!?

A number of articles detail what's known so far:

USA Today
Bustle
Heavy
Mirror UK

A picture: 

 

[AngelCityOutlaw]

Slow down, 2016.

[djpretzel]

Huge loss; just a singular, once-in-a-lifetime type of talent & musical mind.

[Red Shadow]

the cadaver formerly known as the artist formerly known as prince

he gone

[Meteo Xavier]

And to think, not two weeks ago Prince was just an eccentric, nearly forgotten, internetphobic religious nut who hadn't a good album since before Final Fantasy VI was released - now he's ironically experiencing the biggest career resurrection of his life... as it ended.

That's what drives me nuts about the way people mourn artists and celebrities. Where was all this support for him for the last 15 years? Yeah, everyone's playing Purple Rain, When Doves Cry and Red Corvette today, but who's playing any of his more recent albums? The one he gave away with a newspaper? Emancipation? Elixir? Granted, I don't think you can just pull those up on Youtube or anything, but he did a lot more beyond the 80s and early 90s that everyone is centered on today.

I have to wonder if it's really the artist you're mourning or the era he came from. I kinda wish I could find a cover of Prince singing "Don't Know What You Get 'Til It's Gone" to punctuate my post with, but this pitiful acknowledgement that I have nothing is all I can muster.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

1 hour ago, Meteo Xavier said:

And to think, not two weeks ago Prince was just an eccentric, nearly forgotten, internetphobic religious nut who hadn't a good album since before Final Fantasy VI was released - now he's ironically experiencing the biggest career resurrection of his life... as it ended.

That's what drives me nuts about the way people mourn artists and celebrities. Where was all this support for him for the last 15 years? Yeah, everyone's playing Purple Rain, When Doves Cry and Red Corvette today, but who's playing any of his more recent albums? The one he gave away with a newspaper? Emancipation? Elixir? Granted, I don't think you can just pull those up on Youtube or anything, but he did a lot more beyond the 80s and early 90s that everyone is centered on today.

I have to wonder if it's really the artist you're mourning or the era he came from. I kinda wish I could find a cover of Prince singing "Don't Know What You Get 'Til It's Gone" to punctuate my post with, but this pitiful acknowledgement that I have nothing is all I can muster.

At the risk of this thread descending into madness, I tend to agree.

Lots of people I know who are just "devastated" by his passing gave absolutely no indication ever of being a fan at all of his music and were born after the height of his popularity. I seriously wonder if a majority of these people even know the lyrics to any of his songs.

It's like when Lemmy died. For me, yeah it sucked to see that an icon of music I grew up listening to pass away, but it's not like I knew him personally and I'll be the first to admit that it was mostly nostalgia and realization of the passage of time that fueled my sadness - as heartless as that may sound as text.

[The Damned]

Bandwagon mourning.

It happens. I recall a time in high school when some kid I kind of knew killed himself. All the popular kids attended his service and some of the girls were crying and lamenting his death, and I was just like, "what? most of you didn't even know he existed, and now you're crying for him? Did any of you even know anything about him?" Turns out, no, they didn't. They didn't know he liked Robotech, they didn't know his middle name, they didn't know if he had any siblings (no, he was an only child), etc... but damn if they didn't get upset at being called out on it. I got a lecture from the principle about the whole thing.

The rest of the year was fun; lots of dirty looks from the same mourners and high-fives from the other kids that felt the same way. That's when I learned the power of calling out other people's bullshit.

Sorry for going off-topic, but yes, people that were not fans or hadn't listened to his work in years are going to pop up and give their fucking two cents worth of publicity mourning, and there's not much anyone can do about it.

Though "Party like it's 1999" is still pretty cool.

[djpretzel]

It seems to me that leveling the charge of bandwagon mourning is just as bandwagon as bandwagon mourning itself; when it comes to something like this, I think it's MUCH better to give people the benefit of the doubt... if you're wrong about someone else's grief or sense of loss, you're the douche of the decade, whereas if they're expressing disproportionate, uninformed, or insincere sadness, they're just being transiently emotional...

Unless you're psychic, maybe just either empathize or be quietly skeptical?

[AngelCityOutlaw]

58 minutes ago, djpretzel said:

you're the douche of the decade

It's pretty much go big or go home at this point.

1 hour ago, The Damned said:

Though "Party like it's 1999" is still pretty cool.

I like "Thieves In The Temple", I think it's called though it doesn't seem to be one of his popular tunes.

[The Damned]

2 hours ago, djpretzel said:

It seems to me that leveling the charge of bandwagon mourning is just as bandwagon as bandwagon mourning itself; when it comes to something like this, I think it's MUCH better to give people the benefit of the doubt... if you're wrong about someone else's grief or sense of loss, you're the douche of the decade, whereas if they're expressing disproportionate, uninformed, or insincere sadness, they're just being transiently emotional...

Unless you're psychic, maybe just either empathize or be quietly skeptical?

Oh, I'm not calling out bandwagon mourning here. If that's how you read it, don't get me wrong, here. I just said it happens. I never said I was going to, either. I just had a personal anecdote.

The vast majority of people on this site have never even met in real life, myself included. Who are any of us to claim "you're not a real fan!"?

[Brandon Strader]

I'm so confused, I don't know whether to bandwagon mourn or bandwagon bandwagon, but Red Shadow's post almost made me spit my coffee

[zircon]

I have to wonder if it's really the artist you're mourning or the era he came from. I kinda wish I could find a cover of Prince singing "Don't Know What You Get 'Til It's Gone" to punctuate my post with, but this pitiful acknowledgement that I have nothing is all I can muster.

When someone dies, it's good to honor them by remembering their best qualities and their finest moments. For some musicians (actors, celebrities, whatever) that might mean things they did earlier in their career. That's not wrong, that's just being respectful. Plus even if you don't think he was relevant since the height of his popularity in mainstream culture doesn't invalidate everything he's done since then. As far as 'big artists from the 70s and 80s' go he had a very prolific career writing albums and touring all the way up until his death...

[timaeus222]

56 minutes ago, Brandon Strader said:

I'm so confused, I don't know whether to bandwagon mourn or bandwagon bandwagon, but Red Shadow's post almost made me spit my coffee

I dunno, I read that as like,

"Mistah Kurtz.

He dead."

But maybe it's just me. That would be an exceedingly obscure reference. http://www.shmoop.com/hollow-men/poem-text.html

[The Damned]

16 hours ago, Red Shadow said:

the cadaver formerly known as the artist formerly known as prince

he gone

I guess you could say his music is now... royalty free.

/burns in hell for that

[ArmadonRK]

For me, it was a year and a half ago, when he showed up on SNL. I saw his performance and said, "Oh my god. How did we forget about this guy?"

We did, after all, as a culture. In our societal memory, Prince had been largely forgotten. And for the last two years, on and off, I've been telling people, "Hey, remember Prince? He's worth remembering."

Maybe it's because of his streak of being an "asshole" or an "eccentric", his zealous protection of his work from showing up online where it's accessible and memorable. That his work couldn't be streamed anywhere, couldn't be found on YouTube, it prevented access to his music by those who didn't hear of him when they were young, it prevented a memetic resurgence of his popularity in a culture of viral phenomena.

And it amazed me that we had largely let go of this artist no less talented, no less influential than the mainstays of our musical heritage. Dylan, MJ, the Beatles, Hendrix, and so many others. Maybe it was his personality, his ardor in keeping his work from the world.

But we shouldn't have let that stop us.

I remember immediately after that SNL performance going out to buy Plectrumelectrum. I remember listening to what little of his music I knew already, and listening to so much of his work for the first time.

So I understand all this "bandwagon mourning". We forgot about him. I don't think that should stop us from remembering him now. Hopefully this time we won't let him go so easily.

I remember one Internet comment about Prince after that SNL performance, and it's become my favorite way to proselytize ever since. "Prince is your favorite musician's favorite musician."

Rest in peace. And be remembered.

[Brandon Strader]

I think if his music was available on Youtube I might have heard it, and I think that did/will do more damage to his legacy than anything, despite his intentions being in the right place. Actually being able to hear the music and remember the artist is important but much less feasible when you can't actually listen to their music. That's why I have so many remixes on here for free so you guys can finally listen to them when I'm dead, cause I know y'all ain't doing it now!

[SystemsReady]

Honestly, yeah, I think part of, if not THE, reason why he faded from the limelight to the extent that he did was due to his efforts to keep his music off of online services. Practically impossible to get new fans without it. And well...intense eccentricity without good music to back it up (because remember, they can't go out and listen to it!) tends to just turn people off from a person.

I've been living in Minneapolis since July and I honestly had NO IDEA that he lived here. His passing is huge...every billboard on the routes I take weekly have tributes to him, the giant screen at the Mall of America was showing a tribute to him while blasting his music, and downtown was pretty much shut down on Thursday night as there was a massive block party around the First Avenue venue (which I didn't realize until last night that I pass it every time I leave downtown from seeing an artist at the Skyway). The 35-W bridge is lit purple for the rest of the week too.