Jez, who is way too busy moving house to be posting at the moment, was asking me about Prince the other day. Although when I say ‘ask’ what I probably mean is the subject of Prince or Minneapolis or the colour purple was accidentally mentioned in passing, sparking off one of my pre-prepared monologues about how untouchable the 1999-Lovesexy Golden age is and how sign o’ the times is quite possibly the most ambitious, peerless record ever produced or something.See, it really doesn’t take much to unleash my 15 year old inner fanboy.
I think there is something about the music you listen to at those formative ,11-16 years, before you get too cool with music, before you understand all the cultural shit that comes with it, before you have time to think it through properly.
I remember listing to this one track 10 times in a row on my new portable cd player. Just for the the incredible change that comes in about 2 and a half minutes in, the bit when he starts singing about angels and ‘they know we need each other’, suddenly all these incredible harmonies appear from nowhere and it just keeps building and building.And he is singing this wonderful love song that somehow manages to weave all these comments about how he’s a ‘man of exquisite taste’ and lay it out that he’s the absolute man in between this torrent of compliments and ridiculous declarations of undying love.
It’s balance that almost no-one else can quite seem to pull-off, without coming off as an utter cheeseball or arrogant self obsessed ego maniac.
Anyway Jez was saying (probably in an attempt to divert me away from another 20 min lecture) he had never really got into Mr Nelson Rogers, so I should post some bits. So here’s the first;