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Old 04-25-2016, 01:06 PM   #1695
Replaced_Texan
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Re: Music belongs on this board floer you great git!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski View Post
So it seems the wailing on FB for Prince doubles that Bowie got. Is it because the collective pain after Bowie? Like okay this is too much. Or we knew Bowie was ill but Prince's death came from nowhere?

Or was he more important? To me Bowie was a God since about 73 or so. I loved Prince (although Under The Cherry Moon might be the worst movie ever), but Bowie was a step above. Yes? No?
I don't know how to define "step above". I think the reaction you see on facebook for either artist depends on the population of your facebook feed including when they came into music and what they were drawn to afterwards. I think that Bowie's death probably set the stage for how to react to Prince's.* I looked at my itunes and saw that I had an equal number of Bowie and Prince albums, and I think for me personally both were HUGE. And I discovered both of them at a time where I had no fucking clue about anything (around pre-teen years). Let's Dance and Purple Rain came out roughly at the same time, and I was drawn to both. (Neither, of course, stood a chance to compare to Duran Duran** for me at the time, and watching them live on Saturday night, I have no regrets whatsoever about that.)

I think of the two, Prince was more straight up gifted. I have never seen anyone who saw Prince say that he wasn't the most talented balls out performer they had ever seen. I think Bowie managed his transitions better and he was a game changer many more times over than Prince. My husband and I used to say that there wasn't anyone on the planet cooler than David Bowie, and I think that we weren't the only ones in that assessment.

I never saw either live. I don't know which one I feel worse about, but I will say that when we saw this article (later denied by the Prince camp), we started talking about making a journey to see it. While I really wanted to hear Blackstar given its advance press, I don't recall making any particular plans to see Lazarus on stage.

While I guess some people knew Bowie was sick, I had no idea, and I was blindsided by his death, and it hit me hard for a few days. The sheer breadth of his work was almost impossible to absorb and remember. I actually cried when I heard. And, when a video of Bowie admonishing MTV for not showing black artists surfaced and Mark Goodman's response was that some of them were too scary, I immediately knew Prince is who everyone was talking about.

I was sitting in a conference on Thursday when my facebook feed started blowing up about Prince, and it took me a few hours to get to a place to process it. Graham and I played Prince tracks to one another for hours that night.*** I've had my car radio set to the temporary Prince station on my satellite radio since Friday.

At some point in the last few days, Graham used this clip (though it could have been any) from 18 months ago at Saturday Night Live to demonstrate a few things about Prince. First was his ability to seamlessly cross genres in the same song. Second was his unwavering commitment to bringing female musicians to the spotlight. Prince's legacy with his treatment of women is complicated, but over time it's pretty clear that he's done a ton for women in an industry that's been indifferent at best and hostile and violent at worst. And finally, it highlights his insane talent and stage presence.

I'm really sad both of them are gone. I think Bowie probably said everything he needed and wanted to say, and he left us in a perfect way. (I love Blackstar pretty deeply.) I think Prince had a shit ton more ahead of him (and a shit ton in that vault that I'm sure everyone is trying to get their hands on), and that makes his death a little harder to take.


*My sister last night, "I'm already annoyed with Madonna's death."

**Duran Duran threw part of "Space Oddity" into "Planet Earth" on Saturday night as a tribute to Bowie. They dedicated "Save a Prayer" to Prince and said that he kicked them in the ass. I got the impression that Bowie was an idol while Prince was a contemporary that elevated everyone's game. Nile Rodgers didn't really say much about Prince, but he did play "Let's Dance," which he produced.

***BTW, have fun comparing "DMSR" to "Uptown Funk". Neither of us had listened to all of 1999 since "Uptown Funk" had come out.
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Last edited by Replaced_Texan; 04-25-2016 at 01:15 PM..
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