Come to Daddy

Having just turned four, my son is getting more and more selective in his music choices. Whereas some might argue his father influences his judgement, I now have little control over which track he will take to his heart and demand to listen to constantly.

For the curious, here is my four-year-old’s all-time top five songs (in no particular order) :

• She’s Got Spies – Super Furry Animals
• Vitamin C – Can
• Another Girl, Another Planet – The Only Ones
• We Are The Robots – Kraftwerk
• Prince Charming – Adam Ant

Does the little critter have taste or what?

“If a man is considered guilty for what goes on in his mind, then give me the electric chair for all my future crimes…”

So I had to wait up till 2 in the morning to watch Prince do his ten-minute show on the Superbowl, all the while dreading a major deception. Well, guess what? it was only a minor deception! Prince’s show was understandably “safe” (this is family entertainment after all, and the breast-flashing incident two years back has obviously got the promoters on their guard.) And while he didn’t defy expectations by performing any obscure masterpieces–imagine “Erotic City” on the Superbowl!–he did limit himself to one album (Purple Rain) and chose one of its non-singles (“Baby, I’m a Star”, one of its best tracks), trading its briliant funk jam for a verse of the Ike and Tina classic “Proud Mary”. He did a medley of Hendrix and some other stuff I didn’t recognise (an article I read spoke of the foo Fighters, but then i wouldn’t know about that…) He didn’t strip but took off his pretty terrible headscarf to reveal a bad hairdo. All in all, it didn’t suck.

 So, to keep riding on this Prince wave, if you are a one-time fan who lost interest along the way, or just getting to discover the pleasures of the Purple One, check out this guide to Prince’s musical legacy.

 Here is my mini-guide to Prince for beginners :

You don’t even know who the frack he is : Get The Very Best of Prince

You liked what you heard? get Purple Rain and Sign o’ The Times

Still interested? get 1999, Parade and The Hits/The B-Sides (you’ll be getting two discs that overlap with The Very Best of…but you’l also get a disc of stuff you can’t find elsewhere and the triple disc can be found for the price of a single disc on the web)

Want more? Batman is solid Prince, and rapidly going out of print… get it while it lasts!

Still hooked? Oh you sucker! Just get everything else, then! (Not to be missed : the collector’s edition DVD of Purple Rain, and the concert movie Sign o’ The Times.)

A loop is a loop is a loop …

“You can be the side effect, I’d rather be the dope…”

I have never watched a Superbowl in my life, but this year I am going to make the effort just to watch Prince’s mid-game performance.

Here is an interesting article on PopMatters about Prince’s recent resurgence and, most interestingly, how his latest compilation Ultimate Prince was totally botched up. I have long wondered why there was no decent Prince compilation with a bit more depth on the market : you can either get skimpy “hits only” comps such as The Hits 1 & 2 and The Very Best of Prince, or  B-Sides and rarities overkill with the 4-disc Crystal Ball (which is out of print anyway) . Why can’t anyone do a decent two- or three-disc anthology with the best hits, key B-sides and essential album tracks? The way the compilers originally conceived Ultimate seemed like a good idea, with extended mixes of several hits complemented by classic B-side “Erotic City”, but meddling from the label and the man himself turned it into a travesty. It seems like the best way to do a prince comp is just to piece it together yourself; the blueprint for Ultimate as explained in the article looks like a good template to start you off. Don’t forget to throw in the brilliant “Ripopgodazippa”!