Posts Tagged ‘Prince’

Big Day Out festival organiser Ken West has revealed the event missed out on booking Prince, Blink 182 and Eminem for this year’s bash.

No Doubt’s front-girl and pop super star Gwen Stefani joined Prince on stage at his LA Forum appearance last Saturday night. The two rocked the arena with a great rendition of “So Far, So Pleased” from his 1999 album Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic. The Forum gig was part of a 21 day run in Los Angeles and part of the Welcome 2 America tour.

The Purple One Returns, Rated PG

“From the heart of Minnesota, here comes the purple Yoda” is a line from “Laydown,” a bonus track that is 77th, after silent tracks 10-76, on Prince’s latest release, 20Ten, and it exemplifies the overall feel of this sanitized funk/pop/rock/soul album. Included as a covermount in the Daily Mirror and the Daily Record in the U.K. and Ireland on July 10, and as an add-on in Rolling Stone’s German issue on July 22, this marks the 33th release for the Artist in the U.K. It’s a decent pastiche of pop-rock tunes with spiritual lyrics, but certainly lacks the panache Prince is known for.

It is always hard to believe that the Internet is less than 20 years in the popular domain. Throughout its short life it has been continually adopting a new and unpredictable guise and no one really needs to be told how it has revolutionized the music industry. Judging by the incalculability of this paradigm-shifting phenomenon, it would take an ignorant, and perhaps arrogant, point of view to predict where it will be going next.

But who better than Prince to rain on our parade and go so far as to declare it “dead”? The infamously aloof artist claimed that “the Internet’s completely over” and sees no point in handing over his precious compositions to the likes of iTunes, or any music-download site for that matter.  The artist formerly known as a symbol analogized the downfall of the world-wide-web with MTV: “At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you.”

Don’t expect to find Prince’s new album “20Ten” on iTunes or on any other legal music outlet that is. Prince has told the Daily Mirror that his future will not include the Internet or possibly computers of any kind and went on to declare the Internet “completely over” – guess you’ll have to find ways to party like it’s 1999 without your Internet music soon?