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#genius move to change the genre of this song in particular…. Her Mind …………..

tillidontneedfantasy · 4 years

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A Track-by-Track Breakdown of Taylor Swift’s 8th Studio Album: ‘folklore’

Taylor Swift’s 8th studio album, folklore, starts off with the lie, “I’m on some new shit.” Perhaps to someone who hasn’t been paying attention this would seem to be true. But to those listening, folklore is the essence of her skill and success throughout her entire career stripped down for all to see, but more refined, enhanced, and impressive than ever.

Even prior to her pop-world domination with 1989 (2014), Taylor’s storytelling ability has always been her most compelling strength as a writer. In 2010, she released her third album, Speak Now, penned fully solo to prove to the cynics that she does, in fact, write her own music. And it’s damn good. Widely considered her best song, “All Too Well” from Red (2012) is a five and a half minute epic about love had and lost, all in walks through autumn trees, almost running red lights, dancing round the kitchen, and a scarf reminiscent of innocence, unreturned.

Yet her pop prowess over the last six years perhaps leads to her storytelling being overlooked to those more focused on the music. There is a particular genius in writing a successful pop song, let alone three successful pop albums, that still has hard-hitting lyrics underneath the synth. Take the excellent “Cruel Summer” from Lover (2019) for example. The song is just under 3 minutes, and the production is so enthralling and infectious that it can take such a hold on you, you might miss the tale being told along with it about a fraught summer relationship that was actually just the beginning of her own love story.

But without the pop production, her stories on folklore demand attention. Swept up by a strong wave of creativity and inspiration, Swift secretly wrote and produced this album in around three months with Aaron Dessner of The National, one of Swift’s favorite bands, and long-time collaborator and friend Jack Antonoff. A surprise album is a new endeavor for Swift, as she generally spends months meticulously planning an album rollout. It is refreshing, and as a dedicated, long-time fan of Taylor, it is thrilling. Due to the album cover where she is standing in the woods, and the genre of the album itself, there have been think pieces regarding the “man in the woods” trope and what it means that Taylor seems to be embodying it. As a result of over-exposure, people are unable to stop focusing on her image and the way she presents herself. It’s understandable, as she is a very smart and deliberate businesswoman, and clearly cares about how she is perceived. But with this album, it is clear that none of that was at play. We are in the middle of a pandemic. Her mother has been battling cancer for years. Isolate a creative person in a dangerous world and they will dream up an escape. She understands more than ever how precious each moment is, and does not want to waste another one. The woods being the landscape for the photo-shoot is most likely attributed to the fact that it is the safest place to have one under these circumstances. She’s not pretending she removed herself from society and became enlightened, she didn’t dabble into a more alternative sound to prove anything; she is just sharing stories she wants to tell that she is proud of, and nothing more.

Of course the music of the album is important, but the lyrics are the heart of it all, and I wanted to focus on them. Upon its release, Taylor explained in a foreword that the album was a mixture of personal and fictional accounts. The beauty of stories is that once they are shared, they never live one single life; each person who consumes a story interprets it uniquely, and the story becomes a multiverse, with different meanings and outcomes than what initially drove the pen to the paper. As explained by Swift in a YouTube comment prior to the album’s release, three songs on the album are all one story, which she has dubbed “the teenage love triangle.” The three points of the triangle are “cardigan,” “august,” and “betty.” But if someone had not seen her say that, they might not have figured it out. Maybe they’d interpret each song as their own story, and connect it to their own. Taylor knows this. It is why she loves storytelling and is why she is so good at it. The album itself is a mirror ball, shimmering with every version of the stories being told, reflecting a bit of each person who listens. These are my interpretations, but they can mean whatever you make of them.

1. the 1 The melody of this song helps set the scene; picture yourself skipping rocks on a lake, reminiscing on the one that got away. “the 1” is about learning to assimilate into a life without them, resentfully accepting that they might be moving on, too. She ruminates on what went wrong and what could have been. In a very Swift fashion, she puts the blame on herself when she sings, “in my defense, I have none / for digging up the grave another time.” Perhaps this song is fictional, perhaps it’s a revisit of a past feeling or relationship, but its relatability makes it feel real and present. She searches for explanations, restraining herself from asking, “if one thing had been different, would everything be different today?” But it’s good she didn’t ask, because she’d never find the answer, anyway. Best lyric: “We never painted by the numbers, baby, but we were making it count / You know the greatest loves of all time are over now.”

2. cardigan (teenage love triangle, part 1: betty’s perspective) “When you are young they assume you know nothing,” Swift sings in her smooth low-register on this Lana del Rey-esque single. “But I knew everything when I was young,” she asserts. They say wisdom comes with age, but there is wisdom lost, too, of what it felt like to be young; but she has held onto it. In this track, the narrator (Betty) is looking back on her relationship with someone she once loved (James, as name-dropped in “betty” later on in the album). Her insight on his character was always spot on; she knew he’d try to kiss it better, change the ending, miss her once the thrill expired and come back, begging for her forgiveness in her front porch light. As soon as she was feeling forgotten, he made her feel wanted, his favorite. The ending in question is unclear, whether she granted him her forgiveness or not. But what is clear is Taylor’s understanding of the pull of young love, the intensity, the immortalization of all the smallest of details, the longing to be someone’s favorite. It’s why we look back on it so often, read stories and watch films about it, even as we grow old. It’s the cardigan we put back on when we want to be Peter Pan and remember what it was like to fly with Wendy. Best lyric: “You drew stars around my scars / but now I’m bleeding.”

3. the last great american dynasty The story of Rebekah Harkness and her destruction of the last great American dynasty, Standard Oil, is documented in this track, as each verse covers a different part of Rebekah’s life, going from a middle class divorcee to one of the wealthiest women in America by marrying into an empire. Swift paints Rebekah as an outcast, the Rhode Island town blaming her for her husband’s heart giving out. Rebekah used her inherited fortune on her ballet company, throwing lavish parties with her friends who went by the “Bitch Pack,” playing cards with Dali (Yes, as in Salvador Dali. It’s not clear if they actually played cards together, but her ashes were placed in an urn designed by him), and feuding with her neighbors. Then, fifty years later, Taylor Swift bought that very house and ruined the neighborhood all over again, bringing with her the triumphant return of champagne pool parties and women with madness, their men and bad habits. It’s a note on how women will be blamed for tarnishing what is sacred to men rather than celebrated, specifically when its related to wealth and power. They will call them mad, shameless, loud. But just like Rebekah, Taylor learned to pay them no mind, and just have a marvelous time. It is also interesting to note that Rebekah went by Betty. Perhaps Taylor felt inspired by and connected to her and gave her a whole backstory, and thus the birth of “the teenage love triangle,” or maybe it’s just a coincidence; but that’s the fun of it all. Either way, this track is a standout showcase of how Swift has truly mastered her craft as a songwriter. Best lyric: “Holiday House sat quietly on that beach / free of women with madness, their men and bad habits / and then it was bought by me.”

4. exile ft. Bon Iver You know that feeling when your parents are fighting and it’s upsetting you but you can’t help but listen? That’s kind of what listening to this song feels like. Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon co-wrote the track, and he lends his gorgeous vocals to play a man who has been exiled by his ex who has moved on with someone else while he desperately tries to understand where it all went wrong. The bridge is particularly poignant, both proclaiming, “you didn’t even hear me out,” while talking over each other. He thinks he was expected to read her mind, but she is adamant that she gave him plenty of warning signs. Miscommunication is one of the most common downfalls of a relationship, and the emotion in Swift’s and Vernon’s voices really draws you into the argument with them, transporting you back into your own exile from people you once called home. Best lyric: “I couldn’t turn things around / (You never turned things around) / ‘cause you never gave a warning sign / (I gave so many signs.)”

5. my tears ricochet Taylor describes this song in the foreword as “an embittered tormentor showing up to the funeral of his fallen object of obsession.” If you know enough, you can put the pieces together that the tormentor is Scott Borchetta, the head of Big Machine Records, and the funeral is of their professional and personal relationship. Taylor was the first artist ever signed to Big Machine. Borchetta and Swift had to trust each other in their partnership for it to be a success, and oh, how it was. But prior to Lover’s release, Taylor announced that she would be signing to Republic Records as her contract with Big Machine had ended and Republic offered her the opportunity to own all of her masters moving forward and negotiate on Spotify shares for all their artists. It all could have ended amicably there, but then Scott Borchetta sold all of Big Machine, along with Taylor’s masters from every album prior, to Scooter Braun. Braun manages some of the biggest stars out there, and had previously managed Kanye West. Taylor publicly spoke out about this purchase, stating that she was not made aware of this before the announcement, and how much of a betrayal it was considering she had cried to Scott before about Scooter’s mistreatment of her. Taylor has continued to be vocal about this, and so she sings, “I didn’t have it in myself to go with grace.” There is a lot to unpack in this song, but the main takeaway is that this betrayal hurts him just as much if not more than it hurts her, because his career was built on her achievements. He buried her while decorated in her success, becoming what he swore he wouldn’t, erasing the good times for greed, all just to be haunted with regret for pushing her out and stealing her lullabies. The pain is palpable, and it is notable that this is song is placed at track 5, the spot generally reserved for the most vulnerable on the album; it shows that there are different types of heartbreak that can shatter you just as much as those from romance. Best lyric: “If I’m dead to you, why are you at the wake? / Cursing my name, wishing I stayed.”

6. mirrorball On Lover’s “The Archer,” Taylor expresses her anxiety over people seeing through her act, her own grief at seeing through it herself, wondering if her lover does and whether he would stay with her regardless. “mirrorball” is about the act, one of the more obviously confessional songs on the album. She talks about how a mirror ball can illuminate all the different versions of a person, while also reflecting the light to fit in with the scene. Taylor’s critical self-awareness is heart wrenching, and it’s clear that the anxiety that surrounds the public perception of her is still prevalent. She describes herself as a member of a circus, still on the tightrope and the trapeze even after everyone else has packed up and left, doing anything she can to keep the public’s attention. It hurts to hear the desperation in her voice, but there’s hope in the song, too. She is speaking to someone (we can assume her long-term boyfriend, Joe Alwyn) and thanking them for not being like “the regulars, the masquerade revelers drunk as they watch my shattered edges glisten.” In 2016, the height of Taylor’s fame and subsequently her farthest fall from grace, all the people who pretended to be her friends and attended all her parties celebrated her (temporary) demise, continuing to dance over her broken pieces on the floor. But he stayed by her side as she put herself back together. And so now, when no one is around, she’ll shine just for him, standing even taller than she does for the circus. Best lyric: “I’m still a believer, but I don’t know why / I’ve never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try / I’m still on that trapeze, I’m still trying everything / to keep you looking at me.”

7. seven Her voice gentle and haunting, Taylor recalls the freedom and innocence of her childhood in Pennsylvania. She asks to be remembered for how she was, swinging over the creek, before she learned civility when she would scream anytime she wanted, then letting out a very pretty one. She sings to her old friend soothingly about taking them away from their haunted house that their father is always shouting in, where they feel the need to hide in a closet, perhaps literally, or figuratively, or both. They can move into Taylor’s house instead, or maybe just to India, just be sure to pack their dolls and a sweater and then they’ll hit the road. She can no longer recall her friend’s face, but the love she had for them still lives in her heart, and she wants it to live forever through story. Just in the way that folklore itself blends reality and fiction, but the truth within it passes on, so will the purity of that love and friendship. Best lyric: “Please picture me in the weeds / before I learned civility / I used to scream ferociously / any time I wanted.”

8. august (teenage love triangle, part 2: the other girl’s perspective) If you had to assign the feeling of longing to a song, it’d be “august.” It’s when you’re teetering at the edge with someone, unsure of where you stand with them, clinging to anything they give you and doing anything just to raise your chances, “living for the hope of it all.” August, the last month of summer, its heat causing it to slip away the fastest in a haze before reality hits. This track is a display of how sometimes losing something you never had causes an even deeper ache than losing something that was yours, and Jack Antonoff’s signature production intensifies the emotion even more. It’s the story of shattered hope, and the longing for the days where it could still fuel you. Best lyric: “To live for the hope of it all / cancel plans just in case you’d call.”

9. this is me trying “this is me trying” is like a drive through a tunnel at night, hearing your loudest anxieties and insecurities echo all around you, caving in. The track is another apt insight into Swift’s struggles with her self-image, with the pressure she puts on herself, so much so that she sometimes pushes herself too close to the edge, her fears luring her out of the tunnel and down, down, down into her own cage, stunting her own growth and keeping those who care out of reach. She tells us how she was “so ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere.” Every action has an equal, opposite reaction, meaning that she was pushing herself so hard, she rolled back to where she started, and now has to reset. This could be referring to the period between the end of the 1989 era and the release of reputation (2017), or a different time in her life, or just a general sentiment. It doesn’t really matter, though, because no one’s growth is a neat, straight line; growth is jagged. Just like any of us, Taylor will always have to face new obstacles, new pitfalls, new reasons to get back up. She sounds most vulnerable as she cries, “at least I’m trying,” and you feel comforted knowing someone so beautiful and successful has to push herself to try, too, and yet that motivates you more to try yourself. Best lyric: “They told me all of my cages were mental / so I got wasted, like all my potential.”

10. illicit affairs A quiet, slow-build testament of the passion, the tragedy, the secrecy, the inimitability of a romance that shouldn’t exist, “illicit affairs” demonstrates how you can ruin yourself for someone from just one moment of possibility or truth, quite like the narrator of “august” does for the hope of it all. An illicit affair can be many different things: infidelity, forbidden love, a love that can never be fully realized, a relationship that is inherently wrong but electrifying all the same. It’s a reminder of what so many of us would do just to see new colors, to learn a new language, even if the one moment of enlightenment destroys us forever. We might lose the iridescent glow but we don’t forget it; we carry it with us, but must be careful to remember its blinding effect, to remember how fatal the fall is from the dwindling, mercurial high. Best lyric: “Tell your friends you’re out for a run / you’ll be flushed when you return.”

11. invisible string Clearly the most outright autobiographical track, “invisible string” is the plucky pick-me-up needed. The song is like sunshine, as Swift endearingly links all the little connections between her and her boyfriend, Joe Alwyn, since before they even met. She compares the green grass at the Nashville park she’d sit at in hopes of a meet-cute to the teal of his yogurt shop uniform shirt, and gives a nod to her smash hit “Bad Blood” from 1989 with the delightful line “bad was the blood of the song in the cab on your first trip to LA.” She reasons these coincidences as a fateful, invisible, golden string tying them together since the beginning, always destined to meet at the knot in the middle. She thanks time for healing her, (a callback to “Fifteen” from Fearless [2008]), fighting through hell to make it to heaven, transforming her from an axe grinder to a gift giver for her ex’s baby (the ex in question, Joe Jonas, and his wife Sophie Turner, happened to have their first daughter two days before this album’s release). As she has on her previous two albums, she uses the color gold to illustrate how prized their love is to one another. It’s sweet to know in all the gloom that the string has not been severed, and the trees are still golden somewhere. Best lyric: “Cold was the steel of my axe to grind for the boys who broke my heart / now I send their babies presents.”

12. mad woman Throughout her entire career, Taylor Swift has defiantly defended female rage, all the way back from throwing a chair off a platform on her Fearless Tour during the impassioned “Forever & Always,” to her patient, vengeful reliance on karma in reputation’s lead single, “Look What You Made Me Do,” to her most recent tackling of the matter on Lover’s last and final single, “The Man,” where she explores society’s acceptance and encouragement of angry men yet disdain for angry women. “The Man” is catchy and upbeat, and a fun thought experiment into how Swift’s career would be perceived if she was a man, something that is even more interesting to think about now as she releases an album in a genre heavily dominated and lauded by males. But on “mad woman,” she further explores the creation and perception of female rage, though masked under a smooth, haunting piano melody, her vocals subdued, taunting. In the album foreword, she describes the inspiration behind this song as “a misfit widow getting gleeful revenge on the town that cast her out.” This could be the continuation of Rebekah “Betty” Harkness’s story at her Holiday House in Watch Hill, RI, and how she further alienated herself from the rest of the neighborhood as they cast stones at her for the collapse of the last great American dynasty. (Or perhaps Daenerys Targaryen’s descent as the Mad Queen played a part in the song’s inspiration, as Swift has spoken of her love for Game of Thrones and her character specifically.) Taylor herself could also represent the widow, her music and masters as her love lost, and the men behind the crime as the “town that cast her out.” In the first verse she sings, “What do you sing on your drive home? / Do you see my face in the neighbor’s lawn? / Does she smile, or does she mouth ‘fuck you forever’?” It’s the first f-bomb of Taylor’s career (though a much more playful one will come two tracks later in “betty”) and it speaks volume. Taylor has received a lot of condemnation for expressing her anger at their transaction, for calling out their greed for what it is. Some view Swift’s stance on the ordeal as petty and trivial; they see the men as orchestrating a good business deal, and Swift as the girl throwing a tantrum. Ask any woman, and they can tell you about a time a man told them they were crazy for being justifiably angry; it only makes us angrier. “No one likes a mad woman,” Taylor states, “You made her like that.” Swift underscores that here, how they will poke and poke the bear but then blame it for attacking, as if they had never provoked it at all, and how dare it defend itself. Just as they blamed Rebekah for her husband’s heart giving out, they somehow manage to blame Swift for not being allowed to purchase the rights to her own work. And yes, she’s mad, but the song is measured and controlled; she’s used to her anger now, and knows just how to wield it. Best lyric: “Women like hunting witches, too / doing your dirtiest work for you / It’s obvious that wanting me dead has really brought you two together.”

13. epiphany This is another track Swift provided some background on, stating it was inspired by her “grandfather, Dean, landing at Guadalcanal in 1942” during WWII. The first verse paints this image, while the second verse depicts a different kind of war, happening right now, fought by doctors and nurses. She speaks of holding hands through plastic, and the escape folklore has granted you suddenly lifts. Watching someone’s daughter, or mother, or anyone suffer at the hands of the COVID-19 pandemic, just as watching a soldier bleed out, helpless, is too much to speak about. As she points out, they don’t teach you about that vicarious trauma in med school. We are living in a tireless world with barely any time time to rest our eyes, but too much going on while we’re awake to make sense of any of it. “epiphany” is a cinematic prayer, pleading for some quiet in order to find an answer in all the noise. We’re still waiting for that glimpse of relief. Best lyric: “Only twenty minutes to sleep / but you dream of some epiphany / Just one single glimpse of relief / to make some sense of what you’ve seen.”

14. betty (teenage love triangle, part 3: james’s perspective) It makes sense that a song reminiscent of Fearless would exemplify some of the best story-telling on folklore. The final puzzle piece of the teen love triangle, “betty” is a song sung by Swift from the perspective of the character of her own creation, James, attempting to win back his true love, Betty, who he slighted in some way. He proclaims that the worst thing he ever did is what he did to her, without explicitly stating it. Though the infamous deed is unclear, here’s the information we collect from this song: James saw Betty dancing with another boy at a school dance, one day when he was walking home another girl (from “august”) picked him up and he ended up spending his summer with her yet still loved Betty, and though he ended things with his fling and wanted to reconcile with Betty, he had returned to school to see she switched her homeroom (James assumes, after saying he won’t make assumptions. Classic men). So in order to make it up to her, he shows up at her party with the risk of being told to go fuck himself (the second and charming “fuck” on the album! Which is repeated!). Upon his arrival, there is a glorious key change (ala “Love Story”) and all the pieces fall into place for the listener; we realize Betty is the girl singing in “cardigan” as he lists the things he misses about her since the thrill expired, like the way she looks standing in her cardigan, and kissing in his car. He’s 17 and doesn’t know anything, but she knew everything when she was young, and she knew he’d come back. The way I see their story conclude is that she led him to the garden and trusted him, but as they grew older they grew apart, but the love she had for him never faded completely. Listening to this song is like being back in high school, whether you were the person who did someone wrong or the person so willing to forgive in the name of young love, or Inez, the school gossip, you’re right there with them. The other great thing about this song is that it is sung to a girl, and though it is set up so we understand it is most likely from a boy’s perspective, it doesn’t have to be. It’s really great that girls in the LGBTQ community can have a song in Taylor’s voice to fully connect to without changing the pronouns or names (even James, which is unisex and is one of the names of the daughters of Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, Taylor’s close friends, mentioned in this song). That is the beauty of folklore: the infinite ways a story can be told, perceived, retold from a different perspective, and told again. Maybe you’ll hear it from Inez. Best lyric: “But if I just showed up at your party / would you have me? Would you want me? / Would you tell me to go fuck myself, or lead me to the garden?”

15. peace One of the most beautifully solemn songs of her career, “peace” echoes the same fears explored in “Dancing With Our Hands Tied” from reputation; will the person she loves be able to weather the ever-present storm that comes with the life of a superstar, but also dwells within herself? Will holding him as the water rushes in be enough? Will giving him her wild, a child, her sunshine, her best, be a fair consolation? Presumably another confessional track and about Alwyn, Swift puts him up on a pedestal, praising his integrity and his dare to dream. She proclaims that she would die for him in secret, just as she told him she’d be on her tallest tip toes, spinning in her highest heels, shining just for him in “mirrorball.” She highlights some of the greatest gifts of love, such as comfortable silence and chosen family. She knows what they have is special, but she also knows the value of peace, the ultimate nirvana, and does not want to deprive him of that. It is so deeply relatable- to me, at least- to feel like you can give someone so much of yourself but know it still may never be enough, and to fear either losing them or robbing them of something better. But looking at what they have together, maybe peace is overrated. Or maybe, she’s looking for peace in the wrong places. The calm is in the eye of the storm, and sometimes, there’s nothing more freeing than throwing away the umbrella and soaking in the rain. Best lyric: “I never had the courage of my convictions / as long as danger is near / and it’s just around the corner, darling / ‘cause it lives in me / no, I could never give you peace.”

16. hoax The truest enigma of the album, the closer, “hoax” is a devastatingly dark ballad about the uncertainty, or perhaps incredulity, of someone’s love for you, a love that is your lifeline. The lyrics are ambiguous, which gives way to a plethora of interpretations. Perhaps she is speaking about a hypothetical situation that has yet to happen (and hopefully doesn’t) in which someone she loves and trusts betrays her. Maybe she is talking about a relationship, real (hopefully not) or fictional, in which despite the torment it brings her she holds onto it for dear life. I’m most inclined to believe that the song represents her difficulty in accepting that someone is willing to love her through such dark periods, that their love must actually be a hoax, but she chooses to believe in it anyway and uses it as the motivation to rebuild her kingdom, to rise from the ashes on her barren land. And even through the downs that come at some point in every relationship, she can still see the beauty in it all. Yes, their love is golden, but waves of blue will crash down around any partnership, because life does not exist without them. So even when things are as blue as can be, she’s at least grateful it’s with him. Best lyric: “Don’t want no other shade of blue but you / no other sadness in the world would do.”

Although we still have yet to hear the deluxe track, “the lakes,” as a fan of Taylor for almost 12 years, it feels so obvious that this is her strongest work yet. The storytelling I fell in love with on Fearless as a teenager (which, much like folklore, was highly inspired by imaginary situations and real emotions) is even sharper now as we have both grown into adults. The music on this album might not be everyone’s speed, and that’s okay. But it allowed Taylor to dip back into what made Fearless such a success: using pieces of her own truth and the whims of her imagination to develop a multi-faceted narrative that becomes universal. During her Tiny Desk concert, before performing “Death By A Thousand Cuts” from Lover, Swift explained the anxiety she felt around the possibility of stunted creativity when people would ask her what she would write about once she was happy. Taylor has released an abundance of beautiful, fun, complex love songs since the start of her relationship almost four years ago now. But “Death By A Thousand Cuts,” which is a fan favorite, helped her prove to herself that she can still write a killer breakup song while being in a happy, fulfilling relationship; the song was the last track written for Lover and was inspired by the film Something Great on Netflix. And so it makes perfect sense that Taylor used folklore to continue exploring this new avenue for songwriting. All of her discography and all of her life experiences have culminated to the folklore moment: as all the best artists do, she will never stop finding inspiration in hidden corners of this dark, mystical, wondrous universe, and falling in love with new ways to share those wonders. And that love will be passed on.

DISCLAIMER - REVIEWER’S BIAS: I love Taylor Swift more than any person in my life, yes including my parents, they are aware and have accepted this fact long ago ❤️

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blackkudos · 4 years

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Prince

Prince Rogers Nelson (June 7, 1958 – April 21, 2016) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, dancer, actor, and filmmaker. A guitar virtuoso and multi-instrumentalist known for his eclectic genre-crossing work, flamboyant and androgynous persona, energetic live shows and wide-ranging singing voice, in particular his far reaching falsetto and high-pitched screams, he is regarded as one of the greatest, versatile and most successful musicians in the history of popular music. His innovative music integrated a wide variety of styles, including funk, R&B, rock, new wave, soul, psychedelia, and pop. Prince pioneered the late 1970s Minneapolis sound, a funk rock subgenre drawing from synth-pop and new wave.

Born and raised in Minneapolis, Prince developed an interest in music as a young child and wrote his first song, "Funk Machine", at the age of seven. He signed a recording contract with Warner Bros. Records at the age of 19, and released his debut album For You in 1978. Following up with his next four albums—Prince (1979), Dirty Mind (1980), Controversy (1981), and 1999 (1982)—Prince gained critical success, prominently showcasing his explicit lyrics as well as his blending of funk, dance, and rock music. In 1984, he began referring to his backup band as The Revolution and released his sixth album Purple Rain, which was also the soundtrack to his hugely successful film acting debut of the same name. It quickly became his most commercially successful record, spending 24 consecutive weeks atop the Billboard 200. The film itself was critically and commercially successful and also won the Academy Award for Best Original Song Score, the last film to receive the award.

Following the disbandment of The Revolution, Prince released the critically acclaimed double album Sign o' the Times (1987). He released three more solo albums—Lovesexy (1988), the Batman soundtrack (1989), and the Graffiti Bridge soundtrack (1990)—before debuting his New Power Generation backing band in 1991. In the midst of a contractual dispute with Warner Bros. in 1993, Prince changed his stage name to the unpronounceable symbol , known to fans as the "Love Symbol", and began releasing new albums at a faster rate in order to quickly meet his contract quota and release himself from further obligations to the record label. He released five records between 1994 and 1996 before he signed with Arista Records in 1998. He began referring to himself as "Prince" again in 2000 and subsequently released 16 albums, including Musicology (2004), his most successful album of that decade. His final album, Hit n Run Phase Two, was first released on the Tidal streaming service in 2015.

In April 2016, at the age of 57, Prince died of an accidental fentanyl overdose at his Paisley Park home and recording studio in Chanhassen, Minnesota. He sold over 100 million records worldwide, ranking him among the best-selling music artists of all time. He won seven Grammy Awards, seven Brit Awards, six American Music Awards, four MTV Video Music Awards, an Academy Award, and a Golden Globe Award. He was also honored with special awards including the Grammy President's Merit Award, American Music Awards for Achievement and of Merit, and the Billboard Icon Award. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2006, and the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in 2016. In 2016, he was posthumously honored with a Doctor of Humane Letters by the University of Minnesota. Rolling Stone placed him among its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

Early life

Prince Rogers Nelson was born on June 7, 1958, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of jazz singer Mattie Della (née Shaw) and pianist and songwriter John Lewis Nelson. All four of his grandparents hailed from Louisiana. Prince was given his father's stage name, Prince Rogers, which his father used while performing with his mother in a jazz group called the Prince Rogers Trio. In 1991, Prince's father told A Current Affair that he named his son Prince because he wanted Prince "to do everything I wanted to do". Prince was not fond of his name and wanted people to instead call him Skipper, a name which stuck throughout his childhood. Prince has said he was "born epileptic" and had seizures when he was young. He stated, "My mother told me one day I walked in to her and said, 'Mom, I'm not going to be sick anymore,' and she said, 'Why?' and I said, 'Because an angel told me so.'"

Prince's younger sister, Tyka, was born on May 18, 1960. Both siblings developed a keen interest in music, which was encouraged by their father. Prince wrote his first song, "Funk Machine", on his father's piano when he was seven. Prince's parents divorced when he was 10. His mother remarried to Hayward Baker, with whom she had a son named Omarr; Prince had a fraught relationship with his half brother Baker to the extent that it caused him to repeatedly switch homes, sometimes living with his father and sometimes with his mother and stepfather. Baker took Prince to see James Brown in concert, and Prince credited Baker with improving the family's finances. After a brief period of living with his father, who bought him his first guitar, Prince moved into the basement of the Anderson family, his neighbors, after his father kicked him out. He befriended the Andersons' son, Andre, who later collaborated with Prince and became known as André Cymone.

Prince attended Minneapolis' Bryant Junior High and then Central High School, where he played football, basketball, and baseball. He was a student at the Minnesota Dance Theatre through the Urban Arts Program of Minneapolis Public Schools. He played on Central's junior varsity basketball team, and continued to play basketball recreationally as an adult. Prince met songwriter and producer Jimmy Jam in 1973 and impressed Jimmy with his musical talent, early mastery of a wide range of instruments and work ethic.

Career

1975–1984: Beginnings and breakthrough – For You

In 1975, Pepe Willie, the husband of Prince's cousin Shauntel, formed the band 94 East with Marcy Ingvoldstad and Kristie Lazenberry, hiring André Cymone and Prince to record tracks. Willie wrote the songs, and Prince contributed guitar tracks, and Prince and Willie co-wrote the 94 East song, "Just Another Sucker". The band recorded tracks which later became the album Minneapolis Genius – The Historic 1977 Recordings. In 1976, Prince created a demo tape with producer Chris Moon, in Moon's Minneapolis studio. Unable to secure a recording contract, Moon brought the tape to Owen Husney, a Minneapolis businessman, who signed Prince, age 19, to a management contract, and helped him create a demo at Sound 80 Studios in Minneapolis (with producer/engineer David Z). The demo recording, along with a press kit produced at Husney's ad agency, resulted in interest from several record companies including Warner Bros. Records, A&M Records, and Columbia Records.

With the help of Husney, Prince signed a recording contract with Warner Bros. The record company agreed to give Prince creative control for three albums and retain his publishing rights. Husney and Prince then left Minneapolis and moved to Sausalito, California, where Prince's first album, For You, was recorded at Record Plant Studios. The album was mixed in Los Angeles and released on April 7, 1978. According to the For You album notes, Prince wrote, produced, arranged, composed, and played all 27 instruments on the recording, except for the song "Soft and Wet", whose lyrics were co-written by Moon. The cost of recording the album was twice Prince's initial advance. Prince used the Prince's Music Co. to publish his songs. "Soft and Wet" reached No. 12 on the Hot Soul Singles chart and No. 92 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song "Just as Long as We're Together" reached No. 91 on the Hot Soul Singles chart.

In 1979, Prince created a band with André Cymone on bass, Dez Dickerson on guitar, Gayle Chapman and Doctor Fink on keyboards, and Bobby Z. on drums. Their first show was at the Capri Theater on January 5, 1979. Warner Bros. executives attended the show but decided that Prince and the band needed more time to develop his music. In October 1979, Prince released the album Prince, which was No. 4 on the Billboard Top R&B/Black Albums charts and No. 22 on the Billboard 200, and went platinum. It contained two R&B hits: "Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?" and "I Wanna Be Your Lover", which sold over a million copies, and reached No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 for two weeks on the Hot Soul Singles chart. Prince performed both these songs on January 26, 1980, on American Bandstand. On this album, Prince used Ecnirp Music – BMI.

In 1980, Prince released the album Dirty Mind, which contained sexually explicit material, including the title song, "Head", and the song "Sister", and was described by Stephen Thomas Erlewine as a "stunning, audacious amalgam of funk, new wave, R&B, and pop, fueled by grinningly salacious sex and the desire to shock." Recorded in Prince's own studio, this album was certified gold, and the single "Uptown" reached No. 5 on the Billboard Dance chart and No. 5 on the Hot Soul Singles chart. Prince was also the opening act for Rick James' 1980 Fire It Up tour.

In February 1981, Prince made his first appearance on Saturday Night Live, performing "Partyup". In October 1981, Prince released the album, Controversy. He played several dates in support of it, as the first of three opening acts for the Rolling Stones, on their US tour. In Los Angeles, Prince was forced off the stage after just three songs by audience members throwing trash at him. He began 1982 with a small tour of college towns where he was the headlining act. The songs on Controversy were published by Controversy Music – ASCAP, a practice he continued until the Emancipation album in 1996. By 2002, MTV News noted that "[n]ow all of his titles, liner notes, and Web postings are written in his own shorthand spelling, as seen on 1999's Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic, which featured 'Hot Wit U.'"

In 1981, Prince formed a side project band called the Time. The band released four albums between 1981 and 1990, with Prince writing and performing most of the instrumentation and backing vocals (sometimes credited under the pseudonyms "Jamie Starr" or "The Starr Company"), with lead vocals by Morris Day. In late 1982, Prince released a double album, 1999, which sold over three million copies. The title track was a protest against nuclear proliferation and became Prince's first top 10 hit in countries outside the US. Prince's "Little Red Corvette" was one of the first two videos by black artists (along with Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean") played in heavy rotation on MTV, which had been perceived as against "black music" until CBS President Walter Yetnikoff threatened to pull all CBS videos. Prince and Jackson had a competitive rivalry, not just on musical success, but also athletically too. The song "Delirious" also placed in the top ten on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. "International Lover" earned Prince his first Grammy Award nomination at the 26th Annual Grammy Awards.

1984–1987: The Revolution – Purple Rain, Around the World in a Day and Parade

During this period Prince referred to his band as the Revolution. The band's name was also printed, in reverse, on the cover of 1999 inside the letter "I" of the word "Prince". The band consisted of Lisa Coleman and Doctor Fink on keyboards, Bobby Z. on drums, Brown Mark on bass, and Dez Dickerson on guitar. Jill Jones, a backing singer, was also part of the lineup for the 1999 album and tour. Following the 1999 Tour, Dickerson left the group for religious reasons. In the book Possessed: The Rise and Fall of Prince (2003), author Alex Hahn says that Dickerson was reluctant to sign a three-year contract and wanted to pursue other musical ventures. Dickerson was replaced by Coleman's friend Wendy Melvoin. At first the band was used sparsely in the studio, but this gradually changed during 1983.

According to his former manager Bob Cavallo, in the early 1980s Prince required his management to obtain a deal for him to star in a major motion picture, despite the fact that his exposure at that point was limited to several pop and R&B hits, music videos and occasional TV performances. This resulted in the hit film Purple Rain (1984), which starred Prince and was loosely autobiographical, and the eponymous studio album, which was also the soundtrack to the film. The Purple Rain album sold more than 13 million copies in the US and spent 24 consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. The film won Prince an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score and grossed over $68 million in the US ($167 million in 2019 dollars). Songs from the film were hits on pop charts around the world; "When Doves Cry" and "Let's Go Crazy" reached No. 1, and the title track reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. At one point in 1984, Prince simultaneously had the No. 1 album, single, and film in the US; it was the first time a singer had achieved this feat. The Purple Rain album is ranked 72nd in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; it is also included on the list of Time magazine's All-Time 100 Albums. The album also produced two of Prince's first three Grammy Awards earned at the 27th Annual Grammy Awards—Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media.

In 1984, pop artist Andy Warhol created the painting Orange Prince (1984). Andy Warhol was fascinated by Prince, and ultimately created a total of twelve unique paintings of him in different colorways, all of which were kept in Warhol's personal collection. Four of these paintings are now in the collection of The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. In November 1984, Vanity Fair published Warhol's portrait to accompany the article Purple Fame by Tristan Fox, and claimed that Warhol's silkscreen image of Prince with its pop colors captured the recording artist "at the height of his powers". The Vanity Fair article was one of the first global media pieces written as a critical appreciation of the musician, which coincided with the start of the 98-date Purple Rain Tour.

After Tipper Gore heard her 11-year-old daughter Karenna listening to Prince's song "Darling Nikki" (which gained wide notoriety for its sexual lyrics and a reference to masturbation), she founded the Parents Music Resource Center. The center advocated the mandatory use of a warning label ("Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics") on the covers of records that have been judged to contain language or lyrical content unsuitable for minors. The recording industry later voluntarily complied with this request.

In 1985, Prince announced that he would discontinue live performances and music videos after the release of his next album. His subsequent recording, Around the World in a Day (1985), held the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 for three weeks. From that album, the single "Raspberry Beret" reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, and "Pop Life" reached No. 7.

In 1986, his album Parade reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and No. 2 on the R&B charts. The first single, "Kiss", with the video choreographed by Louis Falco, reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. (The song was originally written for a side project called Mazarati.) In the same year, the song "Manic Monday", written by Prince and recorded by the Bangles, reached No. 2 on the Hot 100 chart. The album Parade served as the soundtrack for Prince's second film, Under the Cherry Moon (1986). Prince directed and starred in the movie, which also featured Kristin Scott Thomas. Although the Parade album went platinum and sold two million copies, the film Under the Cherry Moon received a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture (tied with Howard the Duck), and Prince received Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Director, Worst Actor, and Worst Original Song (for the song "Love or Money").

In 1986, Prince began a series of live performances called the Hit n Run – Parade Tour. After the tour Prince disbanded the Revolution and fired Wendy & Lisa. Brown Mark quit the band; keyboardist Doctor Fink remained. Prince recruited new band members Miko Weaver on guitar, Atlanta Bliss on trumpet, and Eric Leeds on saxophone.

1987–1991: Solo again – Sign o' the Times, Lovesexy, Batman and Grafitti Bridge

Prior to the disbanding of the Revolution, Prince was working on two separate projects, the Revolution album Dream Factory and a solo effort, Camille. Unlike the three previous band albums, Dream Factory included input from the band members and featured songs with lead vocals by Wendy & Lisa. The Camille project saw Prince create a new androgynous persona primarily singing in a sped-up, female-sounding voice. With the dismissal of the Revolution, Prince consolidated material from both shelved albums, along with some new songs, into a three-LP album to be titled Crystal Ball. Warner Bros. forced Prince to trim the triple album to a double album, and Sign o' the Times was released on March 31, 1987.

The album peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. The first single, "Sign o' the Times", charted at No. 3 on the Hot 100. The follow-up single, "If I Was Your Girlfriend", charted at No. 67 on the Hot 100 but went to No. 12 on R&B chart. The third single, a duet with Sheena Easton, "U Got the Look", charted at No. 2 on the Hot 100 and No. 11 on the R&B chart, and the final single, "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man", finished at No. 10 on Hot 100 and No. 14 on the R&B chart.

It was named the top album of the year by the Pazz & Jop critics' poll and sold 3.2 million copies. In Europe, it performed well, and Prince promoted the album overseas with a lengthy tour. Putting together a new backing band from the remnants of the Revolution, Prince added bassist Levi Seacer Jr., keyboardist Boni Boyer, and dancer/choreographer Cat Glover to go with new drummer Sheila E and holdovers Miko Weaver, Doctor Fink, Eric Leeds, Atlanta Bliss, and the Bodyguards (Jerome, Wally Safford, and Greg Brooks) for the Sign o' the Times Tour.

The Sign o' the Times tour was a success overseas, and Warner Bros. and Prince's managers wanted to bring it to the US to promote sales of the album; Prince balked at a full US tour, as he was ready to produce a new album. As a compromise, the last two nights of the tour were filmed for release in movie theaters. The film quality was deemed subpar, and reshoots were performed at Prince's Paisley Park studios. The film Sign o' the Times was released on November 20, 1987. The film got better reviews than Under the Cherry Moon, but its box-office receipts were minimal, and it quickly left theaters.

The next album intended for release was The Black Album. More instrumental and funk- and R&B-themed than recent releases, The Black Album also saw Prince experiment with hip hop on the songs "Bob George" and "Dead on It". Prince was set to release the album with a monochromatic black cover with only the catalog number printed, but after 500,000 copies had been pressed, Prince had a spiritual epiphany that the album was evil and had it recalled. It was later released by Warner Bros. as a limited edition album in 1994.

Prince went back in the studio for eight weeks and recorded Lovesexy. Released on May 10, 1988, Lovesexy serves as a spiritual opposite to the dark The Black Album. Every song is a solo effort by Prince, except "Eye No", which was recorded with his backing band at the time. Lovesexy reached No. 11 on the Billboard 200 and No. 5 on the R&B albums chart. The lead single, "Alphabet St.", peaked at No. 8 on the Hot 100 and No. 3 on the R&B chart; it sold 750,000 copies.

Prince again took his post-Revolution backing band (minus the Bodyguards) on a three-leg, 84-show Lovesexy World Tour; although the shows were well-received by huge crowds, they failed to make a net profit due to the expensive sets and props.

In 1989, Prince appeared on Madonna's studio album Like a Prayer, co-writing and singing the duet "Love Song" and playing electric guitar (uncredited) on the songs "Like a Prayer", "Keep It Together", and "Act of Contrition". He also began work on several musical projects, including Rave Unto the Joy Fantastic and early drafts of his Graffiti Bridge film, but both were put on hold when he was asked by Batman (1989) director Tim Burton to record several songs for the upcoming live-action adaptation. Prince went into the studio and produced an entire nine-track album that Warner Bros. released on June 20, 1989. Batman peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 4.3 million copies. The single "Batdance" topped the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B charts.

The single "The Arms of Orion", with Sheena Easton, charted at No. 36, and "Partyman" (also featuring the vocals of Prince's then-girlfriend, nicknamed Anna Fantastic) charted at No. 18 on the Hot 100 and at No. 5 on the R&B chart, while the love ballad "Scandalous!" went to No. 5 on the R&B chart. Prince had to sign away all publishing rights to the songs on the album to Warner Bros. as part of the deal to do the soundtrack.

In 1990, Prince went back on tour with a revamped band for his back-to-basics Nude Tour. With the departures of Boni Boyer, Sheila E., the horns, and Cat, Prince brought in keyboardist Rosie Gaines, drummer Michael Bland, and dancing trio the Game Boyz (Tony M., Kirky J., and Damon Dickson). The European and Japanese tour was a financial success with a short, greatest hits setlist. As the year progressed, Prince finished production on his fourth film, Graffiti Bridge (1990), and the 1990 album of the same name. Initially, Warner Bros. was reluctant to fund the film, but with Prince's assurances it would be a sequel to Purple Rain as well as the involvement of the original members of the Time, the studio greenlit the project. Released on August 20, 1990, the album reached No. 6 on the Billboard 200 and R&B albums chart. The single "Thieves in the Temple" reached No. 6 on the Hot 100 and No. 1 on the R&B chart; "Round and Round" placed at No. 12 on the US charts and No. 2 on the R&B charts. The song featured the teenage Tevin Campbell (who also had a role in the film) on lead vocals. The film, released on November 20, 1990, was a box-office flop, grossing $4.2 million. After the release of the film and album, the last remaining members of the Revolution, Miko Weaver, and Doctor Fink, left Prince's band.

1991–1996: The New Power Generation and name change – from Diamonds and Pearls to Chaos and Disorder

1991, that started with a performance in Rock in Rio II, marked the debut of Prince's new band, the New Power Generation. With guitarist Miko Weaver and long-time keyboardist Doctor Fink gone, Prince added bass player Sonny T., Tommy Barbarella on keyboards, and a brass section known as the Hornheads to go along with Levi Seacer (taking over on guitar), Rosie Gaines, Michael Bland, and the Game Boyz. With significant input from his band members, Diamonds and Pearls was released on October 1, 1991. Reaching No. 3 on the Billboard 200 album chart, Diamonds and Pearls saw four hit singles released in the United States. "Gett Off" peaked at No. 21 on the Hot 100 and No. 6 on the R&B charts, followed by "Cream", which gave Prince his fifth US No. 1 single. The title track "Diamonds and Pearls" became the album's third single, reaching No. 3 on the Hot 100 and the top spot on the R&B charts. "Money Don't Matter 2 Night" peaked at No. 23 and No. 14 on the Hot 100 and R&B charts respectively.

In 1992, Prince and the New Power Generation released his twelfth album, bearing only an unpronounceable symbol on the cover (later copyrighted as "Love Symbol #2") as its title. The album peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard 200. The symbol was explained as being a combination of the symbols for male (♂) and female (♀). The label wanted "7" to be the first single, but Prince fought to place "My Name Is Prince" in that slot, as he "felt that the song's more hip-hoppery would appeal to the same audience" that had purchased the previous album. Prince got his way, but "My Name Is Prince" reached No. 36 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 23 on the R&B chart. The follow-up single "Sexy MF" charted at No. 66 on the Hot 100 and No. 76 on the R&B chart. The label's preferred lead single choice "7" reached No. 7. The album, which would later be referred to as Love Symbol, went on to sell 2.8 million copies worldwide.

After two failed attempts in 1990 and 1991, Warner Bros. released a greatest hits compilation with the three-disc The Hits/The B-Sides in 1993. The first two discs were also sold separately as The Hits 1 and The Hits 2. The collection features the majority of Prince's hit singles (with the exception of "Batdance" and other songs that appeared on the Batman soundtrack), and several previously hard-to-find recordings, including B-sides spanning the majority of Prince's career, as well as some previously unreleased tracks such as the Revolution-recorded "Power Fantastic" and a live recording of "Nothing Compares 2 U" with Rosie Gaines. Two new songs, "Pink Cashmere" and "Peach", were chosen as promotional singles to accompany the compilation album.

In 1993, in rebellion against Warner Bros., which refused to release Prince's enormous backlog of music at a steady pace, Prince officially adopted the aforementioned "Love Symbol" as his stage name. In order to use the symbol in print media, Warner Bros. had to organize a mass mailing of floppy disks with a custom font. At this time, Prince was referred to as the "Artist Formerly Known as Prince" or the "Artist".

In 1994, Prince began to release albums in quick succession as a means of releasing himself from his contractual obligations to Warner Bros. He also began appearing with the word "slave" written on his face. The label, he believed, was intent on limiting his artistic freedom by insisting that he release albums more sporadically. He also blamed Warner Bros. for the poor commercial performance of Love Symbol, claiming they had marketed it insufficiently. It was out of these developments that the aborted The Black Album was officially released, seven years after its initial recording. The "new" release was already in wide circulation as a bootleg. Warner Bros. then succumbed to Prince's wishes to release an album of new material, to be entitled Come.

Bruno Bergonzi co-wrote with Michele Vicino the song "Takin’ Me to Paradise", published on 1983. The session vocalist was Raynard. J. The song appeared on a number of compilations, which was internationally distributed. An Italian court ruled on 2003 that Prince's 1994 hit, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, was a plagiarism from the song by the two Italian writers. Bergonzi and Vicino won on appeal in 2007. The third and final sentence, by the Court of Cassation of Rome is dated May 2015. Italian collecting society SIAE recognizes Bergonzi and Vicino as the authors of The Most Most Beautiful Girl in the World music.

Prince pushed to have his next album The Gold Experience released simultaneously with Love Symbol-era material. Warner Bros. allowed the single "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" to be released via a small, independent distributor, Bellmark Records, in February 1994. The release reached No. 3 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 in many other countries, but it did not prove to be a model for subsequent releases. Warner Bros. still resisted releasing The Gold Experience, fearing poor sales and citing "market saturation" as a defense. When released in September 1995, The Gold Experience reached the top 10 of the Billboard 200 initially. The album is now out of print.

Chaos and Disorder, released in 1996, was Prince's final album of new material for Warner Bros., as well as one of his least commercially successful releases.

1996–2000: Free at last – Emancipation, Crystal Ball and Rave

Free of any further contractual obligations to Warner Bros., Prince attempted a major comeback later that year with the release of Emancipation, a 36-song, 3-CD set (each disc was exactly 60 minutes long). The album was released via his own NPG Records with distribution through EMI. To publish his songs on Emancipation, Prince did not use Controversy Music – ASCAP, which he had used for all his records since 1981, but rather used Emancipated Music Inc. – ASCAP.

Certified Platinum by the RIAA, Emancipation is the first record featuring covers by Prince of songs of other artists: Joan Osborne's top ten hit song of 1995 "One of Us"; "Betcha by Golly Wow!" (written by Thom Bell and Linda Creed); "I Can't Make You Love Me" (written by James Allen Shamblin II and Michael Barry Reid); and "La-La (Means I Love You)" (written by Thom Bell and William Hart).

Prince released Crystal Ball, a five-CD collection of unreleased material, in 1998. The distribution of this album was disorderly, with some fans pre-ordering the album on his website up to a year before it was shipped; these pre-orders were delivered months after the record had gone on sale in retail stores. The retail edition has only four discs, as it is missing the Kamasutra disc. There are also two different packaging editions for retail; one is a four-disc sized jewel case with a white cover and the Love Symbol in a colored circle while the other contains all four discs in a round translucent snap jewel case. The discs are the same, as is the CD jacket. The Newpower Soul album was released three months later. His collaborations on Chaka Khan's Come 2 My House and Larry Graham's GCS2000, both released on the NPG Records label around the same time as Newpower Soul, were promoted by live appearances on Vibe with Sinbad and the NBC Today show's Summer Concert Series.

In 1999, Prince once again signed with a major label, Arista Records, to release a new record, Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic. A few months earlier, Warner Bros. had also released The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale, a collection of unreleased material recorded by Prince throughout his career.

The pay-per-view concert, Rave Un2 the Year 2000, was broadcast on December 31, 1999, and consisted of footage from the December 17 and 18 concerts of his 1999 tour. The concert featured appearances by guest musicians including Lenny Kravitz, George Clinton, Jimmy Russell, and The Time. It was released to home video the following year.

2000–2007: Turnaround – Musicology and 3121

On May 16, 2000, Prince stopped using the Love Symbol moniker as his name, after his publishing contract with Warner/Chappell expired. In a press conference, he stated that after being freed from undesirable relationships associated with the name "Prince", he would revert to using his real name. Prince continued to use the symbol as a logo and on album artwork and to play a Love Symbol-shaped guitar. For several years following the release of Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic, Prince primarily released new music through his Internet subscription service, NPGOnlineLtd.com which later became the NPGMusicClub.com. Albums from this period are Rave In2 the Joy Fantastic (2001), The Rainbow Children (2001), One Nite Alone... (2002), Xpectation (2003), C-Note (2004), The Chocolate Invasion (2004) and The Slaughterhouse (2004).

In 2001, Warner Bros. released a second compilation album The Very Best of Prince containing most of his commercially successful singles from the eighties.

In 2002, Prince released his first live album, One Nite Alone... Live!, which features performances from the One Nite Alone...Tour. The 3-CD box set also includes a disc of "aftershow" music entitled It Ain't Over!. During this time, Prince sought to engage more effectively with his fan base via the NPG Music Club, pre-concert sound checks, and at yearly "celebrations" at Paisley Park, his music studios. Fans were invited into the studio for tours, interviews, discussions and music-listening sessions. Some of these fan discussions were filmed for an unreleased documentary, directed by Kevin Smith.

On February 8, 2004, Prince appeared at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards with Beyoncé. In a performance that opened the show, they performed a medley of "Purple Rain", "Let's Go Crazy", "Baby I'm a Star", and Beyoncé's "Crazy in Love". The following month, Prince was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The award was presented to him by Alicia Keys along with Big Boi and André 3000 of OutKast. As well as performing a trio of his own hits during the ceremony, Prince also participated in a tribute to fellow inductee George Harrison in a rendering of Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", playing a two-minute guitar solo that ended the song. He also performed the song "Red House" as "Purple House" on the album Power of Soul: A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix.

In April 2004, Prince released Musicology through a one-album agreement with Columbia Records. The album rose as high as the top five on some international charts (including the US, UK, Germany, and Australia). The US chart success was assisted by the CDs being included as part of the concert ticket purchase, thereby qualifying each CD (as chart rules then stood) to count toward US chart placement. Three months later, Spin named him the greatest frontman of all time.That same year, Rolling Stone magazine named Prince as the highest-earning musician in the world, with an annual income of $56.5 million, largely due to his Musicology Tour, which Pollstar named as the top concert draw among musicians in the US. He played 96 concerts; the average ticket price for a show was US$61 (equivalent to $83 in 2019). Musicology went on to receive two Grammy wins, for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for "Call My Name" and Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance for the title track. Musicology was also nominated for Best R&B Song and Best R&B Album, and "Cinnamon Girl" was nominated for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. Rolling Stone ranked Prince No. 27 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

In April 2005, Prince played guitar (along with En Vogue singing backing vocals) on Stevie Wonder's single "So What the Fuss", Wonder's first since 1999.

In late 2005, Prince signed with Universal Music to release his album, 3121, on March 21, 2006. The first single was "Te Amo Corazón", the video for which was directed by actress Salma Hayek and filmed in Marrakech, Morocco, featuring Argentine actress and singer Mía Maestro. The video for the second single, "Black Sweat", was nominated at the MTV VMAs for Best Cinematography. The immediate success of 3121 gave Prince his first No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200 with the album.

To promote the new album, Prince was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live on February 4, 2006, 17 years after his last SNL appearance on the 15th anniversary special, and nearly 25 years since his first appearance on a regular episode in 1981.

At the 2006 Webby Awards on June 12, Prince received a Webby Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his "visionary use of the Internet to distribute music and connect with audiences", exemplified by his decision to release his album Crystal Ball (1998) exclusively online.

In July 2006, weeks after winning a Webby Award, Prince shut down his NPG Music Club website, after more than five years of operation. On the day of the music club's shutdown, a lawsuit was filed against Prince by the British company HM Publishing (owners of the Nature Publishing Group, also NPG). Despite these events occurring on the same day, Prince's attorney stated that the site did not close due to the trademark dispute.

Prince appeared at multiple award ceremonies in 2006: on February 15, he performed at the 2006 Brit Awards, along with Wendy & Lisa and Sheila E., and on June 27, Prince appeared at the 2006 BET Awards, where he was awarded Best Male R&B Artist. Prince performed a medley of Chaka Khan songs for Khan's BET Lifetime Achievement Award.

In November 2006, Prince was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame; he appeared to collect his award but did not perform. Also in November 2006, Prince opened a nightclub called 3121, in Las Vegas at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino. He performed weekly on Friday and Saturday nights until April 2007, when his contract with the Rio ended. On August 22, 2006, Prince released Ultimate Prince. The double-disc set contains one CD of previous hits, and another of extended versions and mixes of material that had largely only previously been available on vinyl record B-sides. That same year, Prince wrote and performed a song for the hit animated film Happy Feet (2006). The song, "The Song of the Heart", appears on the film's soundtrack, which also features a cover of Prince's earlier hit "Kiss", sung by Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. In January 2007, "The Song of the Heart" won a Golden Globe for Best Original Song.

2007–2010: Super Bowl XLI – Planet Earth and Lotusflower

On February 2, 2007, Prince played at the Super Bowl XLI press conference, and the Super Bowl XLI Halftime Show in Miami, Florida, on February 4, 2007, on a large stage shaped like his symbol. The event was carried to 140 million television viewers, his biggest ever audience. In 2015, Billboard.com ranked the performance as the greatest Super Bowl performance ever.

Prince played 21 concerts in London during mid-2007. The Earth Tour included 21 nights at the 20,000 capacity O2 Arena, with Maceo Parker in his band. Tickets for the O2 Arena were capped by Prince at £31.21 ($48.66). The residency at the O2 Arena was increased to 15 nights after all 140,000 tickets for the original seven sold out in 20 minutes. It was then further extended to 21 nights.

Prince performed with Sheila E. at the 2007 ALMA Awards. On June 28, 2007, the Mail on Sunday stated that it had made a deal to give Prince's new album, Planet Earth, away for free with the paper, making it the first place in the world to get the album. This move sparked controversy among music distributors and also led the UK arm of Prince's distributor, Sony BMG, to withdraw from distributing the album in UK stores. The UK's largest high street music retailer, HMV, stocked the paper on release day due to the giveaway. On July 7, 2007, Prince returned to Minneapolis to perform three shows. He performed concerts at the Macy's Auditorium (to promote his new perfume "3121") on Nicollet Mall, the Target Center arena, and First Avenue. It was the first time he had played at First Avenue (the club appeared in the film Purple Rain) since 1987.

From 2008, Prince was managed by UK-based Kiran Sharma. On April 25, 2008, Prince performed on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, where he debuted a new song, "Turn Me Loose". Days after, he headlined the 2008 Coachella Festival. Prince was paid more than $5 million for his performance at Coachella, according to Reuters.Prince canceled a concert, planned at Dublin's Croke Park on June 16, 2008, at 10 days' notice. In October 2009 promoters MCD Productions went to court to sue him for €1.6 million to refund 55,126 tickets. Prince settled the case out of court in February 2010 for $2.95 million. During the trial, it was said that Prince had been offered $22 million for seven concerts as part of a proposed 2008 European tour. In October 2008, Prince released a live album entitled Indigo Nights, a collection of songs performed live at aftershows in the IndigO2.

On December 18, 2008, Prince premiered four songs from his new album on LA's Indie rock radio station Indie 103.1. The radio station's programmers Max Tolkoff and Mark Sovel had been invited to Prince's home to hear the new rock-oriented music. Prince gave them a CD with four songs to premiere on their radio station. The music debuted the next day on Jonesy's Jukebox, hosted by former Sex Pistol Steve Jones.

On January 3, 2009, the new website LotusFlow3r.com was launched, streaming and selling some of the recently aired material and concert tickets. On January 31, Prince released two more songs on LotusFlow3r.com: "Disco Jellyfish", and "Another Boy". "Chocolate Box", "Colonized Mind", and "All This Love" were later released on the website. Prince released a triple album set containing Lotusflower, MPLSoUND, and an album credited to Bria Valente, called Elixer, on March 24, 2009, followed by a physical release on March 29.

On July 18, 2009, Prince performed two shows at the Montreux Jazz Festival, backed by the New Power Generation including Rhonda Smith, Renato Neto and John Blackwell. On October 11, 2009, he gave two surprise concerts at the Grand Palais. On October 12, he gave another surprise performance at La Cigale. On October 24, Prince played a concert at Paisley Park.

2010–2012: 20Ten

In January 2010, Prince wrote a new song, "Purple and Gold", inspired by his visit to a Minnesota Vikings football game against the Dallas Cowboys. The following month, Prince let Minneapolis-area public radio station 89.3 The Current premiere his new song "Cause and Effect" as a gesture in support of independent radio.

In 2010, Prince was listed in Time's annual ranking of the "100 Most Influential People in the World".

Prince released a new single on Minneapolis radio station 89.3 The Current called "Hot Summer" on June 7, his 52nd birthday. Also in June, Prince appeared on the cover of the July 2010 issue of Ebony, and he received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 BET Awards.

Prince released his album 20Ten in July 2010 as a free covermount with publications in the UK, Belgium, Germany, and France. He refused album access to digital download services and closed LotusFlow3r.com.

On July 4, 2010, Prince began his 20Ten Tour, a concert tour in two legs with shows in Europe. The second leg began on October 15 and ended with a concert following the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on November 14. The second half of the tour had a new band, John Blackwell, Ida Kristine Nielsen, and Sheila E. Prince let Europe 1 debut the snippet of his new song "Rich Friends" from the new album 20Ten Deluxe on October 8, 2010. Prince started the Welcome 2 Tour on December 15, 2010.

Prince was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame on December 7, 2010.

On February 12, 2011, Prince presented Barbra Streisand with an award and donated $1.5 million to charities. On the same day, it was reported that he had not authorized the television show Glee to cover his hit "Kiss", in an episode that had already been filmed.

Prince headlined the Hop Farm Festival on July 3, 2011, marking his first UK show since 2007 and his first ever UK festival appearance.

Despite having previously rejected the Internet for music distribution, on November 24, 2011, Prince released a reworked version of the previously unreleased song "Extraloveable" through both iTunes and Spotify. Purple Music, a Switzerland-based record label, released a CD single "Dance 4 Me" on December 12, 2011, as part of a club remixes package including the Bria Valente CD single "2 Nite" released on February 23, 2012. The CD features club remixes by Jamie Lewis and David Alexander, produced by Prince.

2013–2016: 3rdEyeGirl – Return to Warner Bros. and final years

In January 2013, Prince released a lyric video for a new song called "Screwdriver". In April 2013, Prince announced a West Coast tour titled Live Out Loud Tour with 3rdeyegirl as his backing band. The final two dates of the first leg of the tour were in Minneapolis where former Revolution drummer Bobby Z. sat in as guest drummer on both shows. In May, Prince announced a deal with Kobalt Music to market and distribute his music.

On August 14, 2013, Prince released a new solo single for download through the 3rdeyegirl.com website. The single "Breakfast Can Wait" had cover art featuring comedian Dave Chappelle's impersonation of him, from a 2004, second season Chappelle's Show comedy sketch on Comedy Central.

In February 2014, Prince performed concerts with 3rdeyegirl in London titled the Hit and Run Tour. Beginning with intimate shows, the first was held at the London home of singer Lianne La Havas, followed by two performances of what Prince described as a "sound check" at the Electric Ballroom in Camden, and another at Shepherd's Bush Empire. On April 18, 2014, Prince released a new single entitled "The Breakdown". He re-signed with his former label, Warner Bros. Records after an 18-year split. Warner announced that Prince would release a remastered deluxe edition of his 1984 album Purple Rain in 2014 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the album. In return, Warner gave Prince ownership of the master recordings of his Warner recordings.

In February 2014 Prince began what was billed as his 'Hit N Run Part One' tour. This involved Prince's Twitter followers keeping an avid eye on second-by-second information as to the whereabouts of his shows. Many of these shows would only be announced on the day of the concert, and many of these concerts involved two performances: a matinee and an evening show. These shows began at Camden's Electric Ballroom, billed as 'Soundchecks', and spread throughout the UK capital to KoKo Club, in Camden, Shepherd's Bush Empire and various other small venues. After his London dates, he moved on to other European cities.

In May 2014 Prince began his 'Hit N Run Part Two' shows, which followed a more normal style of purchasing tickets online and being held in music arenas. In Spring 2014, he launched NPG Publishing, a music company to administer his own music and that of other artists without the restrictions of mainstream record companies.

In May 2015, following the death of Freddie Gray and the subsequent riots, Prince released a song entitled "Baltimore" in tribute to Gray and in support of the protesters in Baltimore. He also held a tribute concert for Gray at his Paisley Park estate called "Dance Rally 4 Peace" in which he encouraged fans to wear the color gray in honor of Freddie Gray. On May 10, he performed a special concert at the Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore called "Rally 4 Peace," that featured a special appearance by Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby, and one set performed by Prince alone at a keyboard.

Prince's penultimate album, Hit n Run Phase One, was first made available on September 7, 2015, on the music streaming service Tidal before being released on CD and for download on September 14. His final album, Hit n Run Phase Two, was meant as a continuation of this one, and was released on Tidal for streaming and download on December 12, 2015.

In February 2016, Prince embarked on the Piano & A Microphone Tour, a tour that saw his show stripped back to only Prince and a custom piano on stage. He performed a series of warm-up shows at Paisley Park in late January 2016 and the tour commenced in Melbourne, Australia, on February 16, 2016, to critical acclaim. The Australian and New Zealand legs of the tour were played in small capacity venues including the Sydney Opera House. Hit n Run Phase Two CDs were distributed to every attendee after each performance. The tour continued to the United States but was cut abruptly short by illness in April 2016.

Illness and death

Prince saw Michael T. Schulenberg, a Twin Cities specialist in family medicine, in Excelsior on April 7, 2016, and again on April 20. On April 7, he postponed two performances at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta from his Piano & A Microphone Tour; the venue released a statement saying he had influenza. He rescheduled and performed his final show on April 14, even though he still was not feeling well. While flying back to Minneapolis early the next morning, he became unresponsive, and his private jet made an emergency landing at Quad City International Airport in Moline, Illinois, where he was hospitalized and received Narcan, a medication used to block the effects of opioids, especially following an overdose. Once he became conscious, he left against medical advice. Representatives said he suffered from dehydration and had influenza for several weeks. Prince was seen bicycling the next day in his hometown of Chanhassen. He shopped that evening at the Electric Fetus in Minneapolis for Record Store Day and made a brief appearance at an impromptu dance party at his Paisley Park recording studio complex, stating that he was feeling fine. On April 19, he attended a performance by singer Lizz Wright at the Dakota Jazz Club.

On April 20, 2016, Prince's representatives called Howard Kornfeld, a California specialist in addiction medicine and pain management, seeking medical help for Prince. Kornfeld scheduled to meet with Prince on April 22, and he contacted a local physician who cleared his schedule for a physical examination on April 21. On April 21, at 9:43 am, the Carver County Sheriff's Office received a 9-1-1 call requesting that an ambulance be sent to Prince's home at Paisley Park. The caller initially told the dispatcher that an unidentified person at the home was unconscious, then moments later said he was dead, and finally identified the person as Prince. The caller was Kornfeld's son, who had flown in with buprenorphine that morning to devise a treatment plan for opioid addiction. Emergency responders found Prince unresponsive in an elevator and performed CPR, but a paramedic said he had been dead for at least six hours, and they were unable to revive him. They pronounced him dead at 10:07 am, 19 minutes after their arrival. There were no signs of suicide or foul play. A press release from the Midwest Medical Examiner's Office in Anoka County on June 2 stated that Prince had died of an accidental overdose of fentanyl, at the age of 57.

It is not known whether Prince obtained the fentanyl by a prescription or through an illicit channel. The question of how and from what source Prince obtained the drug that led to his death has been the subject of investigations by several law enforcement agencies. A sealed search warrant was issued for his estate, and another, unsealed, search warrant was issued for the local Walgreens pharmacy. On April 19, 2018, the Carver County Attorney announced that the multi-agency investigation related to the circumstances of Prince's death had ended with no criminal charges filed.

Following an autopsy, his remains were cremated. On April 26, 2016, Prince's sister and only full sibling Tyka Nelson filed court documents in Carver County, to open a probate case, stating that no will had been found. Prince's five half-siblings also have a claim to his estate, which totals millions of dollars and includes real estate, stocks, and cars. As of three weeks after his death, 700 people claimed to be half-siblings or descendants. Bremer Trust was given temporary control of his estate, had his vault drilled open, and was authorized to obtain a blood sample for DNA profiling from the coroner who had performed the autopsy.

Prince's ashes were placed into a custom, 3D printed urn shaped like the Paisley Park estate. The urn was placed on display in the atrium of the Paisley Park complex in October 2016.

Remembrances

Numerous musicians and cultural figures reacted to Prince's death. President Barack Obama mourned him, and the United States Senate passed a resolution praising his achievements "as a musician, composer, innovator, and cultural icon". Cities across the US held tributes and vigils, and lit buildings, bridges, and other venues in purple. In the first five hours after the media reported his death, "Prince" was the top trending term on Twitter, and Facebook had 61 million Prince-related interactions. MTV interrupted its programming to air a marathon of Prince music videos and Purple Rain. AMC Theatres and Carmike Cinemas screened Purple Rain in select theaters over the following week. Saturday Night Live aired an episode in his honor titled "Goodnight, Sweet Prince", featuring his performances from the show.

Nielsen Music reported an initial sales spike of 42,000 percent. Prince's catalog sold 4.41 million albums and songs from April 21 to 28, with five albums simultaneously in the top ten of the Billboard 200, a first in the chart's history. At the 59th Grammy Awards, Morris Day with the Time and Bruno Mars performed a tribute to him.

In June 2016 Vanity Fair/Condé Nast, released a special edition commemorative magazine, The Genius of Prince. The magazine was a celebration of Prince's life and achievements, with new photography and archive articles, including the original Vanity Fair article from Nov 1984, written in the wake of Prince's breakout success, with other content from Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Wired, and Pitchfork. The cover of The Genius of Prince featured a portrait by Andy Warhol, Orange Prince (1984). Casts of the musicals The Color Purple and Hamilton paid tribute to Prince during their curtain calls with "Purple Rain" and "Let's Go Crazy" respectively.

Posthumous projects

2016

On August 21, 2016, Prince was posthumously inducted into the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame.

The first album released following Prince's death was a greatest hits album, 4Ever, which was released on November 22, 2016. The album contains one previously unreleased song: "Moonbeam Levels", recorded in 1982 during the 1999 sessions.

2017

On April 19, 2017, an EP featuring six unreleased Prince recordings, titled Deliverance, was announced, with an expected release date for later that week. The next day, Prince's estate was granted a temporary restraining order against George Ian Boxill – an engineer who co-produced the tracks and was in possession of the master tapes – and halted the release of the EP.

On February 9, 2017, Prince's estate signed a distribution deal with Universal Music Group, which includes the post-1995 recordings on his NPG Records label and unreleased tracks from his vault. On June 27, Comerica (acting on behalf of the estate) requested that Carver County District Judge Kevin Eide cancel the estate's deal with Universal, as UMG's contract would interfere with a contract with Warner Music Group that Prince signed in 2014. After Universal's attorneys were granted access to the Warner contract, the attorneys also offered to cancel the deal. On July 13, the court voided Universal's deal with Prince's estate, though Universal will continue to administer Prince's songwriting credits and create merchandise.

On June 23, 2017, Purple Rain was re-released as the Deluxe and Deluxe Expanded editions. It is the first Prince album to be remastered and reissued. The Deluxe edition consists of two discs, the first being a remaster of the original album made in 2015 overseen by Prince himself and a bonus disc of previously unreleased songs, called From the Vault & Previously Unreleased. The Deluxe Expanded edition consists of two more discs, a disc with all the single edits, maxi-single edits and B-sides from the Purple Rain era, and a DVD with a concert from the Purple Rain Tour filmed in Syracuse, New York on March 30, 1985, previously released on home video in 1985. The album debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and at No. 1 on both the Billboard R&B Albums and Vinyl Albums charts.

2018

On April 19, 2018, the previously unreleased original recording of "Nothing Compares 2 U" from 1984 was released as a single by Warner Bros. Records in conjunction with Prince's estate. In addition, the Prince version was given its own music video, released in conjunction with the single; the video consists of edited rehearsal footage for the Purple Rain tour, shot in the summer of 1984. Troy Carter, adviser for Prince's estate, later announced in an interview with Variety that a full-length album is planned for release on September 28, 2018.

In May 2018, it was announced that a second album of new material is set for release in 2019 on Tidal. This album is rumored to be Prince's planned follow-up to Hit n Run Phase Two, as part of his original deal with the streaming service. It has also been announced for a worldwide physical CD release a month after.

In June 2018, the Prince estate signed a distribution deal with Sony Music Entertainment, which includes the rights to all of Prince's studio albums, plus unreleased music, remixes, live recordings, music videos and B-sides from before 1995. The deal will immediately include Prince's albums from 1995 to 2010. Beginning in 2021, Prince's Warner Bros. albums from 1978–1996 will become distributed by Sony/Legacy Recordings in the United States, with Warner Music Group still controlling the international rights.

On July 11, 2018, Heritage Auctions announced the auction of Prince's personal possessions to be conducted in Dallas, Texas, on July 21, 2018. Total of 27 items was announced to be put in the auction, including Prince's bible, stage worn clothing, and some personal documents.

On August 17, 2018, NPG Records released all 23 post-Warner Bros. albums by Prince digitally on streaming platforms like Tidal, Spotify and Apple Music, together with a new compilation album named Anthology: 1995–2010, containing 37 tracks.

On September 21, 2018, the album Piano and a Microphone 1983 was released on CD, vinyl, and digital formats. It is the first album released by the Prince estate with material from his archive, the Vault.

2019

The Prince Estate announced, in December 2018, that the Sony/Legacy reissues would begin in February 2019. The first three releases were Musicology, 3121 and Planet Earth on limited edition purple vinyl and standard CD formats.

In February 2019, the Prince Estate announced reissues of the albums Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic and Rave In2 the Joy Fantastic on purple vinyl as well as Ultimate Rave, a 2CD/1DVD set which includes Prince In Concert: Rave Un2 the Year 2000.

On Record Store Day, April 13, 2019, the cassette The Versace Experience - Prelude 2 Gold, that was originally issued in 1995 and given as a gift to attendees to the Versace collection at that year's Paris Fashion Week, was reissued in a limited edition.

On June 7, 2019, Warner released a new Prince album Originals exclusively through TIDAL. The album contains Prince's original versions of 15 songs he offered to other artists in the past. A wide release on CD and vinyl followed on June 20, 2019.

On September 13, 2019 The Versace Experience - Prelude 2 Gold was reissued on purple vinyl and CD as well as on digital formats. together with reissues of Chaos and Disorder and Emancipation.

On October 18, 2019, a single with his acoustic demo of I Feel for You was released digitally, alongside a limited edition 7" purple vinyl in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Prince album release.

On November 27, 2019, the 1999 album was reissued in a Remastered, Deluxe and Super Deluxe edition, the latter including 35 previously unreleased songs and two live concerts.

Artistry and legacy

Music and image

The Los Angeles Times called Prince "our first post-everything pop star, defying easy categories of race, genre and commercial appeal." Jon Pareles of The New York Times described him as "a master architect of funk, rock, R&B and pop", and highlighted his ability to defy labels. Los Angeles Times writer Randall Roberts called Prince "among the most versatile and restlessly experimental pop artists of our time," writing that his "early work connected disco and synthetic funk [while his] fruitful mid-period merged rock, soul, R&B and synth-pop." Simon Reynolds called him a "pop polymath, flitting between funkadelia, acid rock, deep soul, schmaltz—often within the same song". AllMusic wrote that, "With each album he released, Prince showed remarkable stylistic growth and musical diversity, constantly experimenting with different sounds, textures, and genres [...] no other contemporary artist blended so many diverse styles into a cohesive whole." Rolling Stone ranked Prince at No. 27 on its list of 100 Greatest Artists, "the most influential artists of the rock & roll era". According to Acclaimed Music, he is the 10th most celebrated artist in popular music history.

As a performer, he was known for his flamboyant style and showmanship. He came to be regarded as a sex symbol for his androgynous, amorphous sexuality, play with signifiers of gender, and defiance of racial stereotypes. His "audacious, idiosyncratic" fashion sense made use of "ubiquitous purple, alluring makeup and frilled garments." His androgynous look has been compared to that of Little Richard and David Bowie. In 2016, Reynolds described it as "Prince's '80s evasion of conventional gender definitions speaks to us now in this trans-aware moment. But it also harks backwards in time to the origins of rock 'n' roll in racial mixture and sexual blurring".

Prince also wore high-heeled shoes and boots both on- and off-stage. Prince had needed double hip replacement surgery since 2005 and the condition was reportedly caused by repeated onstage dancing in high-heeled boots. Prince had been using canes as part of his outfit from the early 1990s onwards; towards the end of his life he regularly walked with a cane in public engagements, which led to speculation that it resulted from his not having undergone the surgery.

Prince was known for the strong female presence in his bands and his support for women in the music industry throughout his career. Slate said he worked with an "astounding range of female stars" and "promised a world where men and women looked and acted like each other."

In August 2017, Pantone Inc. introduced a new shade of purple in their color system in honor of Prince. The shade is called Love Symbol #2 and is defined as Pantone color number 19-3528, web palette #4F3D63 or RGB 79,61,99.

Influences and musicianship

Prince's music synthesized a wide variety of influences, and drew inspiration from a range of musicians, including James Brown, George Clinton, Joni Mitchell, Duke Ellington, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, Chuck Berry, David Bowie, Earth, Wind & Fire, Mick Jagger, Rick James, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Curtis Mayfield, Elvis Presley, Todd Rundgren, Carlos Santana, Sly Stone, Jackie Wilson, and Stevie Wonder. Prince has been compared with jazz great Miles Davis in regard to the artistic changes throughout his career. Davis said he regarded Prince as an otherworldly blend of James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Marvin Gaye, Sly Stone, Little Richard, Duke Ellington, and Charlie Chaplin. Prince and Miles Davis performed together for a Charity Event at Paisley Park. This performance was viewed as the pinnacle of their on-again, off-again partnership.

Journalist Nik Cohn described him as "rock's greatest ever natural talent". His singing abilities encompassed a wide range from falsetto to baritone and rapid, seemingly effortless shifts of register. Prince was also renowned as a multi-instrumentalist. He is considered a guitar virtuoso and a master of drums, percussion, bass, keyboards, and synthesizer. On his first five albums, he played nearly all the instruments, including 27 instruments on his debut album, among them various types of bass, keyboards and synthesizers. Prince was also quick to embrace technology in his music, making pioneering use of drum machines like the Linn LM-1 on his early '80s albums and employing a wide range of studio effects. The LA Times also noted his "harnessing [of] new-generation synthesizer sounds in service of the groove," laying the foundations for post-'70s funk music. Prince was also known for his prolific and virtuosic tendencies, which resulted in him recording large amounts of unreleased material.

Prince also wrote songs for other artists, and some songs of his were covered by musicians, such as the hit songs "Manic Monday” (performed by The Bangles), "I Feel For You", originally on Prince's self-titled second album from 1979, covered by Chaka Khan, and "Nothing Compares 2 U", written for Prince's side project the Family, and covered very successfully by Sinead O'Connor. Prince co-wrote "Love... Thy Will Be Done" with singer Martika, for her second album Martika's Kitchen, and also gifted Celine Dion a song for her second album, Celine Dion, titled "With This Tear"; a song Prince had written specifically for her. Prince also wrote "U" for Paula Abdul, appearing on her 1991 release Spellbound.

Equipment

As a guitar virtuoso, Prince was also known to have a very stylish and flamboyant custom guitar collection, which consisted of 121 guitars. One notable series is his Cloud Guitars, which were commissioned and released in colored versions of white, yellow, and purple. The white version is prominently shown in the Purple Rain film and the "Raspberry Beret" video. Other notable guitars are The Love Symbol guitars, which were designed in the separate colors of gold and purple. The guitar that was used for the majority of Prince's music career was the H.S. Anderson Madcat guitar – a Telecaster copy created by Hohner. Several versions of the guitar were used throughout his career – due to one being donated for charitable reasons, while one or more were stolen. Two other noteworthy guitars are the G1 Purple Special, and the black-and-gold Gus G3 Prince bass, which would become the last two guitars to ever be made for the artist.

Impact

Many artists have also drawn inspiration from Prince, including Alicia Keys, Usher, Janelle Monáe, The Weeknd, Lady Gaga, Lenny Kravitz, Andre 3000, Frank Ocean, and Ween.

Legal issues

Pseudonyms

In 1993, during negotiations regarding the release of The Gold Experience, a legal battle ensued between Warner Bros. and Prince over the artistic and financial control of his musical output. During the lawsuit, Prince appeared in public with the word "slave" written on his cheek. He explained that he had changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol to emancipate himself from his contract with Warner Bros., and that he had done it out of frustration because he felt his own name now belonged to the company.

Prince sometimes used pseudonyms to separate himself from the music he had written, produced, or recorded, and at one point stated that his ownership and achievement were strengthened by the act of giving away ideas. Pseudonyms he adopted, at various times, include: Jamie Starr and The Starr Company (for the songs he wrote for the Time and many other artists from 1981 to 1984), Joey Coco (for many unreleased Prince songs in the late 1980s, as well as songs written for Sheena Easton and Kenny Rogers), Alexander Nevermind (for writing the song "Sugar Walls" (1984) by Sheena Easton), and Christopher (used for his songwriting credit of "Manic Monday" (1986) for the Bangles).

On September 14, 2007, Prince announced that he was going to sue YouTube and eBay, because they hosted his copyrighted material, and he hired the international Internet policing company Web Sheriff. In October, Stephanie Lenz filed a lawsuit against Universal Music Publishing Group claiming that they were abusing copyright law after the music publisher had YouTube take down Lenz's home movie in which the Prince song "Let's Go Crazy" played faintly in the background. On November 5, several Prince fan sites formed "Prince Fans United" to fight back against legal requests which, they claim, Prince made to prevent all use of photographs, images, lyrics, album covers, and anything linked to his likeness. Prince's lawyers claimed that this constituted copyright infringement; the Prince Fans United said that the legal actions were "attempts to stifle all critical commentary about Prince". Prince's promoter AEG stated that the only offending items on the three fansites were live shots from Prince's 21 nights in London at the O2 Arena earlier in the year.

On November 8, Prince Fans United received a song named "PFUnk", providing a kind of "unofficial answer" to their movement. The song originally debuted on the PFU main site, was retitled "F.U.N.K.", but this is not one of the selected songs available on the iTunes Store. On November 14, the satirical website b3ta.com pulled their "image challenge of the week" devoted to Prince after legal threats from the star under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

At the 2008 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival ("Coachella Festival"), Prince performed a cover of Radiohead's "Creep", but immediately afterward he forced YouTube and other sites to remove footage that fans had taken of the performance, despite Radiohead's request to leave it on the website. Days later, YouTube reinstated the videos, as Radiohead said: "It's our song, let people hear it." In 2009, Prince put the video of the Coachella performance on his official website.

In 2010, he declared "the internet is completely over", elaborating five years later that "the internet was over for anyone who wants to get paid, tell me a musician who's got rich off digital sales".

In 2013, the Electronic Frontier Foundation granted to Prince the inaugural "Raspberry Beret Lifetime Aggrievement Award" for what they said was abuse of the DMCA takedown process.

In January 2014, Prince filed a lawsuit titled Prince v. Chodera against 22 online users for direct copyright infringement, unauthorized fixation, contributory copyright infringement, and bootlegging. Several of the users were fans who had shared links to bootlegged versions of Prince concerts through social media websites like Facebook. In the same month, he dismissed the entire action without prejudice.

Prince was one of a small handful of musicians to deny "Weird Al" Yankovic permission to parody his music. By Yankovic's account, he'd done so "about a half-dozen times" and has been the sole artist not to give any explanation for his rejection beyond a flat "no".

Personal life

Prince was romantically linked with many celebrities over the years, including Kim Basinger, Madonna, Vanity, Sheila E., Carmen Electra, Susanna Hoffs, and Sherilyn Fenn. In 1990, he saw a 16-year-old dancer Mayte García standing outside of his tour bus, and he said to Rosie Gaines, "There's my future wife." After graduating from high school, García began working as one of his backup singers and dancers. They were married on February 14, 1996; he was 37 and she was 22. They had a son named Amiir Nelson, who was born on October 16, 1996, and died a week later on October 23 after suffering from Pfeiffer syndrome. The distress of losing a child and a subsequent miscarriage took a toll on the marriage, and the couple divorced in 2000. In 2001, Prince married Manuela Testolini in a private ceremony. Manuela is from Toronto and the couple lived part time there. They separated in 2005 and divorced in May 2006.

Prince was an animal rights activist who followed a vegan diet for part of his life, but later described himself as vegetarian. The liner notes for his album Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic (1999) featured a message about the cruelty involved in wool production. He became a Jehovah's Witness in 2001, following a two-year debate with bassist Larry Graham who became his mentor and a close friend at this time. Prince said that he did not consider it a conversion, but a "realization", comparing it to "Morpheus and Neo in The Matrix". Prince attended meetings at a local Kingdom Hall and occasionally knocked on people's doors to discuss his faith.

Prince had needed double hip replacement surgery since 2005. A false rumor was spread by the tabloids that he would not undergo the operation because of his refusal to have blood transfusions. The Star Tribune reported that Graham "denied claims that Prince couldn't have hip surgery because his faith prohibited blood transfusions" and put the false rumor to rest as hip surgery does not require blood transfusions. According to Morris Day, Prince in fact had the hip surgery in 2008.

Prince did not speak publicly about his charitable endeavors; the extent of his activism, philanthropy, and charity was publicized after his death. In 2001, Prince donated $12,000 anonymously to the Louisville Free Public Library system to keep the historic Western Branch Library, the first full service library for African Americans in the country, from closure. Also in 2001, he anonymously paid off the medical bills of drummer Clyde Stubblefield, who was undergoing cancer treatment. In 2015, he conceived and launched YesWeCode, paying for many hackathons outright and performing musical acts at some of them. He also helped fund Green for All.

In late March 2016, Prince told an audience he was writing a memoir titled The Beautiful Ones, although its publication seemed unlikely with his death only a few weeks later. His co-writer, Dan Piepenbring, continued work on the memoir and The Beautiful Ones was published in October 2019.

Achievements

Prince sold over 100 million records worldwide, ranking him among the best-selling music artists of all time. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2006, and the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in 2016. In 2016, he was posthumously honored with a Doctor of Humane Letters by the University of Minnesota. He won seven Grammy Awards, seven Brit Awards, six American Music Awards, four MTV Video Music Awards, an Academy Award (for Best Original Song Score for the film Purple Rain), and a Golden Globe Award. Two of his albums, Purple Rain (1984) and Sign o' the Times (1987), received the Grammy Award for Album of the Year nominations. 1999 (1982), Purple Rain and Sign o' the Times have all been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. At the 28th Grammy Awards, Prince was awarded the President's Merit Award. Prince was also honored with the American Music Award for Achievement and American Music Award of Merit at the American Music Awards of 1990 and American Music Awards of 1995 respectively. At the 2013 Billboard Music Awards, he was honored with the Billboard Icon Award. In 2019, the 1984 film Purple Rain was added by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Discography

In his life, Prince released 39 studio albums:

Posthumous releases:

Piano and a Microphone 1983 (2018)

Originals (2019)

He also released two albums credited to Madhouse, three albums credited to the New Power Generation and one credited to the NPG Orchestra:

Madhouse:

8 (1987)

16 (1987)

The New Power Generation:

Goldnigga (1993)

Exodus (1995)

Newpower Soul (1998)

NPG Orchestra:

Kamasutra (1997)

#06/07 #04/21

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scum-belina · 5 years

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Aight, since you're on such a movie binge lately, and since I usually love your recommendations, what are your top 10 movies?

Upon being asked this nearly 48 hours ago, my brain, despite having watched probably 1000 movies of all different genres and from multiple countries was like "the only movies you can remember is shrek 1 2 and 3" but after digging through my memory I THINK I have managed to find some of my top favorites movies. My favorites are defined solely on how much they managed to impact me and inspire me so here we go in no particular order!

1. “The Best Offer” (2013) by Giuseppe Tornatore. This is the most recent film I’ve seen and is by far one of my all-time favorites. It is at least 96% of everything I’ve ever wanted in a movie and I’m still reeling from the borderline perfection of the whole thing. Unsurprisingly I got interested in it bc of the older man/ younger woman thing, but nothing about their relationship development was cliche or shallow, so much so that it pleasantly surprised me, and then threw me through 25000 emotional roller coasters that were also on fire. It’s a drama, romance, comedy, mystery, thriller, and tragedy without being an absolute mess and idk if I will ever get over it I love it so much.

2. “Melancholia” (2011) by Lars Von Trier. A film that portrays severe depression through an apocalyptic metaphor and actually manages to skillfully get away with it. I love this movie as much as I hate it for being so raw and painful yet beautiful at the same time. Everyone in this is great but Kirsten Dunst truly is a formidable actress. This is the only LVT film I’ve fully enjoyed also bc all of his others have too much of a pretentious assholeishness to them and he just tries too damn hard to be edgy and it wastes the entire storyline.

3. “The Phantom Of the Opera” (2004) by Joel Schumacher. A classic in every respect of the word. It’s got the twisted love tale that I’m an eternal sucker for PLUS they burst out into song abt such matters all the time??? LOVES IT. Everyone with even the slightest taste for the dramatic should watch it at least once.

4. “The Red Violin” (1998) By François Girard. I Don’t even know how to describe this film. I just remember it from my childhood bc my dad was fascinated by it and I was too. It has an entirely foreign, mostly Italian cast which makes it somehow feel like even more of an authentic story. It really helped shaped me to realize just how important music and musical instruments are to humanity and how they are another way to express our innermost thoughts and feelings.

5. Moulin Rouge! (2001) by Baz Lurhmann. I will NEVER forget the first time I saw this. I was around 7 or 8 and my parents had rented it from blockbuster, and all 3 of us watched it in awe. Baz Lurhmann is nothing but a genius the way he integrated multiple modern songs into this musical and they FIT. The moulin rouge version of “Roxanne” knocks the original by The Police out of the park, out of the world, and out into another dimension. And then the original songs like “come what may” are all 10/10. It’s theatrical, it’s romantic, it’s funny, it’s tragic. Those are the 4 things that almost always cause me to love a movie. Also Ewan McGregor is absurdly hot in it and HIS SINGING VOICE??? HHHHHOOOOOOO BBBBOOOOOYYYYYYYYY

6. “Phantom Thread” (2017) by Paul Thomas Anderson. I’m not gonna lie, I hopped onto this movie solely bc of the older man/younger woman romance theme that I am always a slut for, but much like The Best Offer it was SO MUCH more like??? This isn’t even about their age it’s about who THEY ARE and their differences yet their love for each other and how can they balance their lives, who THEY ARE without hating one another as much as they love one another??? BOY I LOVE THAT TORTURED LOVE. This movie was almost NOTHING of what I expected from it and I loved every surprise it gave me.

7. “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer” (2006) by Tom Tykwer. Idek WHAT to say about this film other than it’s so good!!! It’s so fucked up!!! I’M so fucked up!!! I love it so much!!! You know how me be!!! Love that nasty artsy badness!!! Go watch it and then message me asking me what the fuck is wrong with me!!!

8. “V for Vendetta” (2005) by James McTeigue. I know this movie has been overhyped at times, but it truly is incredible. Both the left and right seem to claim this movie as their own, but my libertarian ass just loves it for its anti-tyranny theme and ofc for the development of Evey and V’s relationship. It’s definitely worth at least one watch.

9. Pirates of the Caribbean (2003-2007 so only the original trilogy bc those are the only ones that really exist and matter ok) by Gore Verbinski. I was around 9-10 when I saw the first potc, and it changed me and inspired me for life. Immediately I found Elizabeth Swann so relatable not just bc we have the same first name, but because she had the same intense desire for freedom and adventure as I had/ still do tbh. She liked the “bad guys” and wanted to be one of them and ultimately became “King” of them without sacrificing her own femininity and OHHH I LOVE THAT. The original potc trilogy has the perfect blend of adventure, fantasy, horror, and romance for me (although I will always wish Elizabeth had ended up with Jack in the end I will DIE for this ship).Mind you, The Mummy (1999) Came EXTREMELY close to taking potc’s place, but the mummy never managed to make a good or even rewatchable trilogy like potc did so potc wins this.

10. This is Spinal Tap (1984) by Rob Reiner. The only complete comedy on this list, I cannot even begin to describe how genius this film is. I have watched it so many times since childhood and I STILL find new jokes in it that I had never noticed before. Anyone who has had even the slightest bit of an interest in music should find this hilarious. The Stonehenge mishap scene alone makes this one of the greatest comedies of all time.

These are some of the few that I’ve been able to come back to mind from memory rn but I’m sure I’ll think of other faves later. but all of these are some definite top faves of mine that impho (in my personal humble/horny opinion) everyone should watch at least once

#i have consumed 3 apples and an entire liter of wine tonight i am unhinged so if i misspell or repeat myself just understand that #in this moment i am eva green in penny dreadful

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ladylilithprime · 6 years

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do all the even numbersssssss

~evil stare~

2) What fandoms do you write for and do you have a particular favourite if you write for more than one?

Ugh.... Animorphs, Marvel, Sailor Moon, Tomorrow People, Firefly, Gundam Wing, Princess Tutu, DC Comics universe, Smallville, Danny Phantom, YURI!!! On Ice, Supernatural, Star Trek, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Daria, How To Train Your Dragon, Rise of the Guardians, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Power Rangers, Fullmetal Alchemist, Miraculous Ladybug, Phineas and Ferb, Gravitation, Yami no Matsuei, Weiss Kreuz, My Little Pony, FAKE, ElfQuest, Good Omens, Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, Transformers, Stargate SG1, Pirates of the Caribbean, Highlander, The Sentinel, Boondock Saints, MacGyver, and a whole wild world of crossovers..... Yeesh. Anyway, I don’t have a particular favorite, though I will go through periods of working exclusively in one fandom or another before switching.

4) What is your favourite genre to write for?

Fanfic genre? Probably Alternate Timeline/For Want Of A Nail fics, where a single change in the timeline causes events to play out differently. I also have a weakness for time-travel fics. ^_^

6) If you had to delete one of your stories and never speak of it again, which would it be and why?

I thought we agreed never to speak of it again?

8) Where do you take your inspiration from?

Everywhere. Literally everywhere. Frequently from just sitting around letting my brain wander.

10) In your fic A Wish Your Heart Makes, why did you decide to end it like that? Did you have an alternative ending in mind?

I’ll be completely honest: the moment I got the prompt, I knew how the story was going to end. If anything, I made it less angsty than originally intended.

12) Who is your favourite character to write for? Why?

Depends on the fandom. In Marvel, regardless of the universe, I love writing for Tony and his flashy misdirection and nicknames hiding a wealth of genius and depth and background that the surface never shows. I have similar reasons for enjoying writing Sam Winchester in Supernatural. However, in Fullmetal Alchemist I love writing for Jean Havoc, a theoretical background character who is still deeply important to the narrative and has all sorts of depths to explore despite his canon dissembling about how “I ain’t the brightest, but I get by”. Basically, I guess I just love characters that have way more going on in their heads than gets shown on screen.

14) How did you come up with the title for Twist The Sinews Of Thy Heart? - You can ask about multiple stories.

It’s actually a line from the poem “Tyger Tyger Burning Bright”. Appropriate choice for a fic that features a “crazy” angel rescuing technically extinct tiger cubs. eh?

16) How did you come up with the idea for Twist The Sinews Of Thy Heart?

My dear enabler @rodiniaorzetalthepenquin asked for “fluffy Sastiel with tiger” for her birthday, and by Chuck I delivered! XD

18) Do you have any abandoned WIP’s? What made you abandon them?

Technically, yes, but I don’t exactly consider them abandoned. I have WIPs whose bunnies decided to fuck off to Monaco and chill with porn stars go on an extended vacation, and so they got put on the back-burner while I pursued other avenues in other fandoms, but I don’t think I’m capable of abandoning a WIP. I either finish it or straight-up kill it.

20) Are there any stories that you wished you’d ended differently?

There are a couple of fics that I wish I could have drawn out the resolution longer, but my momentum failed me.

22) Do you have a story that you look back on and cringe when you reread it?

Yep! Next?

24) How do you feel about writing smutty scenes?

Eh... I can do it when I need to, but it’s not my preferred thing to write.

26) Which part of your Amethystium fic was the hardest to write?

Definitely part five. I had to write it with just enough ambiguity to keep it from being too obvious exactly what I’d done so I wouldn’t get murdered by my readers.

28) What is something you wished you’d known before you started posting fanfiction?

The internet is full of people who all have different motivations for going online to read fan-created content. Some people are going to be friendly, some are going to be weirdly elitist about fandom, and some of those people are going to be assholes who want to tear you down just because they think they can and believe the internet anonymity will protect them from consequences. Don’t let them drive you out of what you love before you’re ready to move on to something new.

30) In contrast to 29 is there a story which gets lots of love which you kinda eye roll at?

Not really? Maybe some of my really old Animorphs fics that I wrote when I was twelve upon which I look back and feel like I could have done so much better?

32) Are any of your characters based on real people?

Sure, sometimes. Mostly the blink-and-you-miss-them NPCs. Occasionally some of the bigger OCs are based off of real people, but I try not to tell people that, or of whom the character is a representation. ^_~

34) What’s the harshest criticism you’ve gotten?

Probably the person who kept harping over my “obvious” lack of understanding of genetics, when I’d actually done the research prior to writing the fic and had sources to back up my in-story numbers. The person kept after me until I just deleted the entire fic “pending rewrite” to get rid of the whole damn argument chain, and I’ve just never gotten around to reposting it. Not even sure I still have the original fic file, actually.... Anyway, that was both the harshest and most stupid criticism ever, and for twenty-two years of fic-writing, that’s pretty decent, I think. (I don’t count flames, because those are just haters being mean.

36) Can you give us a spoiler for one of your WIP’s?

...Sam has wings. ^_~

38) If you could collab with any other writer on here, who would it be? (Perhaps this question will inspire some collabs!) If you’re shy, don’t tag the blog, just name it.

Of the people with whom I would like to collaborate and with whom I have not already collaborated, probably @jupiterjames and @theriverscribe

40) Do people know you write fanfiction?

Some of them, if I trust them a whole hell of a lot or we’re mutually blackmailing each other because they write fanfic too. (Looking at you, @jupiterjames )

42) Song fic - What made you decide to use the song “Bailamos” for Harry Potter.

Honestly? The crackfic potential and the chance to write male/male dance choreography. ^^U

44) What is the last line you wrote?

Rarely was Castiel disappointed in the offerings, and even those disappointments were because he didn't care for the flavors, not because of any fault in the quality of the pastries or drinks offered.

46) I really loved your “Phoenix Ascending” fic. If you were ever to do a sequel, what do you think might happen in it?

Well, Michael would take over and stabilize Heaven, Gabriel would get rescued from Assmodickus without Ketch’s help, Lucifer would die sooner, and Jack and Mary would be rescued fairly close to canon with a few obvious differences. Probably. Maybe. If I was writing a sequel. ~shifty look~

48) What’s your favourite trope to write?

Irritatingly, I love writing Slow Burn. I also hate it. Because it’s slow. And long.

50) If you could write only angst, fluff or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why?

Fluff. Angst hurts to write, frankly, and as for smut.... Meh. I'm really not that good at writing it solo; it's a lot easier to do cooperatively when I have someone else's character reactions to react to, but even then the actual deed is not so important for me as the depths of emotions behind it, so... Fluff.

#fic writer questionaire #i have too many fandoms i write more #sweet feckin' jesus this took a while to fill out #dreamhunter-trash #Whispers on the Wind

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eng-hypnosismic · 6 years

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TL/ENG Numan’s Glossary of Hypmic Terms

Click here for the original post. The original is classified according to hiraganas but for eng purposes we organized it into four genres!

World Setting

Buster Bros!!!: Basketball Club Ikebukuro Divison’s MC representative team. A unit comprised of the Yamada brothers Ichiro, Jiro, and Saburo. Their image color is red.

Chuuoku (central sovereign district): A male-free administrative district where females runs the country. Bill H was proposed and passed here.

Fling Posse: Shibuya Division’s MC representative team. A unit comprised of Amemura Ramuda, Yumeno Gentaro, and Arisugawa Dice. Their image color is yellow.

Bill H: A bill that bans physical (conventional) wars. Production of all weapons are prohibited, existing weapons are ordered to be disposed. Because of this bill, men started fighting with their own “voices” and mics instead of guns.

H calendar: Calendar of Hypnosis Mic’s events.

Hypnosis Mic: When you use this mic to rap, you can disrupt the minds of your opponents. The mechanism behind is unknown, apparently there’re many kinds of prototypes…?

Ikebukuro Division: The district Yamada Ichiro resides, men are forced to move into divisions like this.

Mad Trigger Crew: Yokohama Division’s MC representative team. A unit comprised of Aohitsugi Samatoki, Iruma Juto, and Busujima Riou Mason. Their image color is blue.

Matenrou: Shinjuku Division’s MC representative team. A unit comprised of old people Jinguji Jakurai, Izanami Hifumi, and Kannonzaka Doppo. Their image color is grey.

Shibuya Division: The Division where Amemura Ramuda resides. The streets of the next generation where creative weirdos gather.

Shinjuku Division: The Division where Jinguji Jakurai resides. The adult district with a mysterious atmosphere.

The Dirty Dawg: Literally means “the dirty friends”. The legendary team formed by Ichiro, Samatoki, Jakurai and Ramuda. Seems to have different sorts of beef and salt between them…?

Yokohama Division: Division where Samatoki Aohitsugi resides. The bayside city where bad guys hang around.

Characters

Amemura Ramuda: Leader of Shibuya Division’s “Fling Posse.” His MC name is “easy R.” A 24-year-old fashion designer. Has a youthful appearance; sometimes does and says things oblivious to others/surroundings, but since he’s cute he gets away with it. Quite popular, but doesn't seem to have any stable relationships. Dislikes Jakurai.

Aohitsugi Samatoki: Leader of Yokohama Division’s “MAD TRIGGER CREW.” His MC name is “Mr.HC” (Mister Hardcore). A 25-year-old yakuza. Quick to pick a fight. His most prized possession is a protective amulet made by his beloved younger sister. Sees Ichiro as his nemesis.

Arisugawa Dice: A member of “Fling Posse.” His MC name is “Dead or Alive.” A 20-year-old gambler. A gambling addict who’s willing to bet everything on the table, whether it’s gold or himself. He’s usually broke, so he likes anyone who gives him food. Cursed.

Busujima Riou Mason: A member of “MAD TRIGGER CREW.” His MC name is “crazy M.” A 28-year-old ex-Naval officer. An oddball who still lives his life as if he were still a soldier, despite the dissolution of the navy. Cool-headed. Good at cooking but has a peculiar sense that normal people don’t understand.

Iruma Juto: A member of “MAD TRIGGER CREW.” His MC name is “45 Rabbit.” A 29-year-old police officer. Beats, bribes, and embezzles his way through work, earning him the title of a “dirty cop.” Whatever Samatoki and Riou are fighting about, Juto usually mediates.

Izanami Hifumi: A member of “Matenrou.” His MC name is “GIGOLO.” A 29-year-old host. Although he is an extreme gynophobe, when he puts on his suit, he transforms into a “super host.” Friends with Doppo since elementary school.

Jinguji Jakurai: Goddess. Leader of Shinjuku Division’s “Matenrou.” His MC name is “ill-DOC.” A 35-year-old doctor. He uses his raps to heal pain and injuries. Though his usual disposition is calm, his personality changes when he drinks alcohol.

Kannonzaka Doppo: A member of “Matenrou.” His MC name is “DOPPO.” 29 years old. A salaryman who feels nothing but despair and isolation from the world. Although he’s always fighting with his only friend, Hifumi, he’s grateful for his presence in his life.

Yamada Ichiro: Leader of Ikebukuro Division’s “Buster Bros!!!”. His MC name is “MC.B.B” (MC Big Brother). A 19-year-old Jack-of-all trades. Was a delinquent in the past, but now he has a strong sense of justice. The eldest of 3 brothers. His hobby is anime and light novels, and gets angry if anyone makes fun of his hobby. Like cat and dog with Aohitsugi Samatoki.

Yamada Jiro: A member of “Buster Bros!!!.” His MC name is “MC.M.B” (MC Middle Brother). A high school second-year. Nicknamed “the guard dog,” the second son of the Yamada household. Has great respect for his older brother, Ichiro. Although he’s a delinquent, he won’t bully the weak. Always bickering with his younger brother, Saburo.

Yamada Saburo: A member of “Buster Bros!!!.” His MC name is “MC.L.B” (MC Little Brother). A genius-type who can do just about anything, the youngest of 3 brothers. He reveres and idolizes Ichiro, and thinks Jiro is stupid. Though his words are sweet, his attitude is not. His hobbies are board games and card games.

Yumeno Gentaro: A member of “Fling Posse.” His MC name is “Phantom.” A 24-year-old novelist. Always dresses up like a houseboy. Apt at both telling and detecting lies. His hobby is people-watching, and imagining people’s life stories in his head.

Hip Hop Terms

Call and Response: During a concert/live perfomance, the performer and the audience have to interact with each other. (For example) When Ichiro goes “Say it, who’s the one”, the audience reply with “It’s Ichiro!!!”

East Coast: A term referring to the East Coast of United States, centered in New York. Both East and West Coast have different culture and ideas, talking about the “East-West contradiction” of the United States is indispensable in hip-hop.

Flow: The way of rapping. The voice range or strength etc.; a very important factor in expressing rap music.

Freestyle: Improvised rap according to the beat the DJ plays. Or a battle. Not just techniques but also the way of singing and attitude are also evaluated. Although in most cases it’s about dissing at each other, there are times when they praise and show honor/respect towards their opponents.

Gangsta Rap: A rap genre. It’s a violent and antisocial rap expressed by the West Coast rappers. Samatoki’s rapstyle corresponds to this one.

Hand Sign: A gesture with the fingers that expresses different intention/meanings. Some rappers have original hand signs between their group of friends.

Hip Hop: A culture born in New York during the year of 1970. It includes not only music but a whole culture, including; dance, fashion, art, etc. Let’s have more interest and contact with hip-hop!

Hook: The chorus of a song. Hook = something that catches your attention.

ill: As an english slang, it means “Amazing”, “cool”. It originally means “sick”, Jakurai’s MC name is “ill-doc” exactly from “ill”.

Lyric: The song lyrics. A word that’s also used outside Hip-hop.

MC: Abbreviation of Master of Ceremonies. It originally has the meaning of a “Master of Ceremonies” but in Hip-hop it’s a rapper.

New School: Hip-hop since 1990s. The one before it is called “Old School”.

Old School: A term referring to hip-hop during the late 1970s and early 80s. It’s an old school fashion, featuring caps, sneakers and oversized clothes, which is popular amongst many young people, like skaters, even in the present days.

Repping: A mispronounced “represent”, having the same meaning. “Represent Ikebukuro”, for instance.

Rhyme: Rhyming. It is a technique of making the ending of sentences sound similar. Basic technique of rap.

Wack: English slang. It has the meaning of looking down on your opponent, with a meaning of “primitive” or “uncool”. It appears in Yamada Ichiro’s song, “Ore ga Ichiro”.

West Coast: A term referring to the West Coast of United States, such as Los Angeles, and others. A lot of the “Gangster Rap” genre was made in this place, filled with antisocial messages.

What’s up?: Greeting similar to “Ya!”, “U good?” and “How ya doing?”. Rappers usually use it in their lyrics.

Music Terms

Anthem Song: A song in particular that represents a certain group. Hypnosis Microphone’s anthem is “Hypnosis Mic - Division Rap Battle -”. The mic relay of the 12 voice actors is addicting!

Beat: The accompaniment before the voices. Unlike a melody “track”, it is a drum tone with a certain rhythm remaining until the end.

Hardcore: Samatoki’s MC name, a word meaning “Tough”. “Haco” for short.

Sampling: A method of music production in which existing songs are rearranged and used again. Common in hip-hop. Yamada Saburo’s “New Star” was sampled from Bach’s “Air on G String”.

Track: The accompaniment, without a singing voice. Background music.

Song Titles [brace yourself it’s long]

[They didn't include FP's songs, so I added it.]

3$EVEN: [“Fling Posse” member, Arisugawa Dice’s song. Straightforwardly hiphop and hyped. Tons of gambling terms in there. Very Dice. Alaska Jam is a local band whose style is pretty pop and hipster.]

Bayside Smoking Blues: “Mad Trigger Crew” member, Iruma Juto’s solo song. Produced by Home Made Kazoku’s Kuro. Juto’s sorrows are voiced in this track with violent language, a song that perfectly portrays his character. [Tons of cop slangs].

Champagne Gold: “Matenrou” member, Izanami Hifumi’s solo song. A hyped party tune made by Fujimori Shingo from Oriental Radio [who’s a popular comedian]. During live shows, everyone please shout the champagne call [with him] during the interlude. [A champagne call is something like a chant, that hosts do when they open an expensive bottle of champagne and pour it over a tower of glasses. They’d gather around the customer and thank him/her for ordering the champagne, and do a call and response thing; it’s quite a scene.]

Drops: [“Fling Posse” member, Amemura Ramuda’s song. Drops is another word for candies. Cute song with a savage interlude - like a hard candy with a surprise center. The lyricist CHI-MEY is known for writing songs for, and appearing in, a Japanese educational TV program for children (something like Sesame Street). Also. it’s written by songwriters/producers who wrote for k-pop artists such as EXO and Taeyeon. It’s interesting cuz our team actually talked about how FP would be the only group who’d listen to K-pop, not to mention that K-pop/culture is quite popular amongst the Shibuya-kei youngsters/hipsters. Sorry for cursing the song with hewwo]

G-anthem of Y-CITY: “Mad Trigger Crew” leader, Aohitsugi Samatoki’s solo song. With Samatoki’s past and beliefs, sharp lyrics written by Cypress Ueno [who btw is from Yokohama/Kanagawa]. You can even sort of smell the sea in it.

Hypnosis Mic -Division Rap Battle-: Hypnosis Microphone’s anthem. [according to Hayami san, each person recorded 6 voice tracks so it’s 72 tracks you’re hearing.]

Labyrinth Wall: “Matenrou” leader, Jinguji Jakurai’s solo song. A rap with the style of poetry reading, where you read verses to the rhythm of the music. Lyrics that are read through a hypnosis mic, with such bass voice, could heal the hearts of those who hear it... [The lyricist GADORO san just won the grand prix of MCs - “King of Kings’ in Japan. Meanwhile, the song writer Masaru Yokoyama was famous for his works in Your Lies in April, Iron-blood Orphans etc. In 2015, His OST for Your Lies in April won the first place in the classical genre in Billboard Japan. Last year he went to Budapest to record music with a full orchestra for Fate/Apo. <--- with this combination you can see why Kimura Subaru (Ichiro’s VA) called Jakurai the “last boss”, not to mention Hayami Show san is pretty much the senpai of most seiyuus.]

New Star: “Buster Bros!!!” member, Yamada Saburo’s solo song. In the promising new star’s number, Saburo’s lazy tone goes well with this smart track that samples Bach’s “Air on the G string”.

Ore ga Ichiro: “Buster Bros!!!” leader, Yamada Ichiro’s solo song. A song with cool and manly lyrics that grab your attention! [Lyrics actually written by Kimura Subaru san himself]

Scenario Liar: [“Fling Posse” member, Yumeno Gentaro’s song. It’s like a story with ballad-like lyrics. A feel trip. Also by Alaska Jam.]

Sensenfukoku (battle cry): “Buster Bros!!!” member, Yamada Jiro’s solo song. A song bursting with energy, befitting of the one called “guard dog.”

Tigridia (Tiger Lily): “Matenrou” member, Kannonzaka Doppo’s solo song. It’s a Jazzy hip-hop song featuring a melody with piano and trumpet. It faces the world’s grief and gloominess. [It’s the only song that has live drums on its track I think, lyrics and song by local band Afro Parker which is know for the jazzy rap style.]

What’s My Name?: “Mad Trigger Crew” member, Busujima Riou Mason’s solo song. A bright and impressive song with trumpet melody. Please enjoy how the rhymes are so on point. And when he says “What’s My Name?”, you should reply in a loud voice: “Riou!”. [Lyricist Uzi san is a person with a super complex and interesting background. Instead of Riou, the song sounds super Uzi.] Thanks for reading this long-ass article! Please support the voice actors as well as the musicians!

#hypnosis mic #hypnosis microphone #hypmic #t:info

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margarittet · 7 years

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Why the SPN mixtape scene from 12x19 is screenwriting gold, and should be taught to the next generations of screenwriters everywhere - analysis

20 seconds. Two lines of dialogue, three gestures, a couple more camera angles. Episode 19, season 12 of a genre TV show “Supernatural”. A single strike of screenwriting and cinematic genius. The mixtape scene.

Robert Berens and Meredith Glynn, I bow before you.

This scene should be used as an example for future screenwriters how you can put maximum of meaning into minimal time and dialogue. Should be analyzed and taught at universities everywhere, how to achieve the most using the least. How to write for TV, where you only have less than an hour to built something spectacular.

WOW.

Let’s just peel off all the layers of these 20 seconds of footage and these 13 words. 13 WORDS.

(Cas knocks, Dean doesn’t say anything. Cas opens the door, apologizes for disturbing Dean in his room, and then takes a cassette tape out of his left inside coat pocket, and puts it on the desk, while tapping the label on it that says “Deans (sic!) top 13 Zepp traxx”.)

Cas: Um, I just wanted to return this.

Dean: It’s a gift. You keep those.

13 tracks. 13 words. The future. So number thirteen is important for the future. I mean, are you trying to tell us something here, writers?

(Dean takes the tape, oustreches his arm, and gives it back to Cas. We see Cas’ hand grabbing the tape, and taking it back.)

That tiny scene is ENORMOUS from the perspective of the narrative and the characterization. Let’s see what we can get out of it. (Prepare yourself: it’s gonna be long. Damn, how much meta can you write based on 20 seconds of television and two lines of dialogue?) (Hint: A lot.)

Thoughts in no particular order.

LotR reference

Let’s start with text, because text is kinda my thing. This is this:

I half expected Dean to roll his eyes at himself for acting like an elvish maiden - maybe he did internally. Anyway, we all remember how Aragorn and Arwen’s story ended, right? (In the movies at least.)

It’s great how Cas and Dean re never strictly cast as a female mirror or male mirror in any of the romantic pararells that the show does. Their gender roles and characteristics are extremely fluid, and it’s wonderful.

2) The label

Deans (sic!) top 13 Zepp traxx”

First thing: “Deans” - not “Top 13 Zepp traxx”, not “The best of Led Zepp”. DEAN’S top 13 Led Zepp tracks. This shit is personal. Your favourite music says a lot about you, it’s like showing somebody your favourite book, or your favourite fictional character. ONE favourite track says something about what you like, feel, think. 13 songs of your favourite band, especially if that band is Led Zeppelin? You may as well get naked, because you can’t uncover yourself much more than that. This stuff makes you open and vulnerable. They will know what you like, what you enjoy, what you feel, what kind of stories your favourite music tells. It’s a mirror of you. Led Zepp is not a band with three beats and five words in the lyrics. It’s long, it’s literary, and it’s epic. It tells a lot about the person, especially a person who loves music and stories as much as Dean does. By showing Cas that he loves these 13 songs of Led Zeppelin, he told Cas he loves cock rock, sexual innuendos, shameless romanticism, fantasy references, biblical imagery, American blues, stories about life, death, love, sex, angels, Satan, mythology, science-fiction and Lord of the Rings. If this band is not a metaphor for the many sides of the real Dean Winchester, I don’t know what is. Dean showed Cas his non-performing side.

This is not even good gift giving, Dean, darling - a nice gift would be giving Cas music HE would enjoy, not you. Give him Beyonce (“Halo” would be nice, lol), give him rap, give him some Britney Spears. No, you gave him Led Zepp, with a NOTE that these are your favourite songs.

You wanted to show yourself to him. This is fucking intimate.

The cassette is a symbol for Dean, for Dean's heart, like the necklace was a symbol of Arwen's heart. That is why no matter what Cas did in 12x19, Dean is still on his side. Why he fixed his truck, gave him the Impala keys without thinking, tried to talk to him instead of fighting him, why he was so hurt Cas left before. That's why he didn't even consider taking the cassette back. Because he has made his decision, he gave himself to Cas, and he will not hear of Cas giving it back (you can't give it back, really). Just look how quickly Cas grabs the tape back. He even uses it later to highlight "we", waving it between him and Dean. This moment is showing us Dean has given his true self to Cas, and he is not changing his mind. This happened already, and no one witnessed it but the two of them. Cas only tried to give it back, because he thought that after what he was about to do, Dean would want it back. Nope.

Nothing to see here. Moving on.

“Top 13”

Yeah, these are his favourite songs, but not all of them, just the best ones. Why thirteen? This is actually a weird number of songs for a cassette tape, especially for a band like Led Zeppelin. It’s too few for 90 min, and too many for 60 min (usual lengths of tapes). So I see three reasons:

Dean just chose songs that send exactly the message he wanted to send, so he didn’t need more songs.

It’s a reference to season 13 - which, I believe, will be romance heavy and amazing.

It’s a reference to “13 Reasons Why”, a show about a girl’s suicide and cassette tapes since this is the same episode where Kelly kills herself, dies, and is revived by the Nephilim, (and therefore it’s canon that the Nephilim can bring people from the dead. Cas, anyone?)

All of the above.

“Zepp”

Besides the fact that liking Led Zeppelin says tons about the real Dean Winchester, it has also different meanings:

Led Zeppelin is a shorthand for seduction, but also for a cosmic romantic connection.

We know two situations where Led Zepp is mentioned in terms of seducing somebody. Jo mentions that hunters want to get into her pants with “some pizza, a sixpack and side one of Zeppelin IV”. This means pretty much the same as “they think they can impress me with cool music while they only know four songs played frequently on the radio, fucking posers.” See, I know Dean is better than to put Stairway to Heaven or Rock n’ Roll on his mixtape, since these are the most popular, i.e. impersonal of Zeppelin songs (although he may be partial to “Battle of Evermore”, since he is a huge nerd). Aaaaaanyway, the other time we see Led Zepp as a seduction technique is when Nick the Siren talks to Dean about some more obscure Led Zepp records - he outdid Dean with his knowledge of Led Zepp trivia - and Dean is bought. This is exactly the opposite of knowing only side A of Zeppelin IV. This is a real deal, and Dean is so mesmerized.

And then we have the literal “match made in Heaven” of John and Mary - and we know she used Led Zeppelin to test John as a potential lover. He knew all the lyrics (again, real, deep knowledge of the subject vs the superficial one), and she knew he was worth going for. I don’t think Dean is testing Cas, but I think that since John and Mary connected over Zeppelin LYRICS, the lyrics are as important for Dean as the music is. That’s why he used them to show Cas what he feels. And it also reminds him of his parents.

Plus, honestly, if reciting/playing Led Zepp lyrics to somebody doesn’t feel dirty and/or disgustingly romantic, you’re doing it wrong. “Squeeze me baby, ‘till the juice runs down my leg”? Really?

Led Zepp is connected to John

Remember how, when we see Dean for the first time connecting with a kid in season 1, he teaches him that “Zeppelin rules”? That’s because Zeppelin is in Deans mind “father’s music”. It’s something you show your kid, something you can bond over.

It’s a well known thing that we choose partners similar to our parents, so it’s not a shocker that Dean connects John’s music with his love interests. It’s nothing weird. If he was going for a girl, he’d look for somebody who is like more like Mary (and since she also loved Led Zepp - well, remember Jo?)

Led Zepp is connected to Mary.

Since Dean and Mary are so similar, it’s not surprising that his first thought how to connect with his love interest is through Led Zeppelin (just how her was, when she met John).

“Traxx”

Ha! This one is great. They spelled it this way probably mostly to get our attention. “Tracks” was a legendary gayclub in Washington DC, and even now there is a gay club under this name in Denver, plus there are gay clubs all around the US and Canada that are called “Trax” or “Traxx”. Subtle and awesome. It’s a nice shout out to Dean saying he was in Purgatory in Miami.

(Edit: Plus, as many people pointed out to me since I wrote this piece, XX is also a common shorthand for kisses. I knew that, but I wasn’t sure it was something Dean would do. But now I agree. I guess I didn’t give Dean enough credit for being sappy. :)

The whole “Deans top 13 Zepp Traxx” label is Dean “no-homo”ing the tape - “Dude, look how cool I am, ain’t got no time for good grammar and proper spelling, dude. Bro.” You know, in case Sam sees the tape, and there are questions. *eyeroll*

3) Music as a non-textual device

It was said once that even though Led Zeppelin is Dean Winchester’s favourite band, we will not ever hear it on the show, because the royalties are just too. Damn. Expensive. The show can’t afford it in their budget to put Led Zeppelin on the soundtrack, even though the band’s music is crucial to understanding Dean Winchester’s complexity. So instead of scraping more money, they pulled “High Fidelity”, and put music IN THE NARRATIVE. This, my loves, is pragmatism 101. Why to spend a fortune to put ONE Led Zepp song in the episode, when you could just send your viewers to their Spotify account and listen to ALL the songs there, thus creating their own soundtrack for this episode and the relationship between the characters. I wish I would be this smart. This actually achieved several goals at once.

All Led Zeppelin music is now a textual part of the universe and Dean’s character, not just two songs that he mentioned in season 4. We know the tape has 13 songs, but we don’t know which ones, which means all the songs can be there, until we are told differently - “Schroedinger’s Mixtape”. Some viewers can even no-homo the tape by picking the songs that are neither sexual nor romantic, but it will be HARD.

4) Michelangelo’s “The creation of Adam”

In the way this moment is shot, we are reminded where they stand in the beginning of this episode - Cas is the celestial being (who just has been to Heaven), and Dean once again represents humanity - the humanity that Cas is canonically in love with.

(On another note: Michelangelo is one of the most famous gay icons in history.)

5) This short moment showed us as well that there is so much stuff happening off screen that we never get too see. Who knows what else we don’t know? What else happened between these two characters that we never heard about? This made me think we should always be careful with the new showrunners, since they love puzzles, games, and pieces of information peppered over the whole season that are not always what they are. There is ALWAYS MORE. They love playing with meta reading, and it’s glorious.

Also, instead of showing us the moment where Dean gives Cas the tape (what would be a regular thing to do), they showed us the BACK END of the situation. We have to construct what happened from the end, backwards. We know Cas got the tape, both characters know what happened between them when he received it from Dean, but we HAVE NO IDEA. We don’t get to see it because we were not privy to that moment. It was JUST BETWEEN THEM. It was an intimate moment that no one else got to witness, even the audience. And it makes it so much more important. It adds a new level of privacy and intimacy to their relationship, and it’s amazing, especially since the last few seasons seemed like they never are alone anymore.

6) Why a cassette tape? Especially since we don’t even know if Cas has a way to listen to it?

Because it’s a frikkin’ romantic trope!

In the world of storytelling mixtapes scream romance, and not much else (well, parental love, but that is so not the case here). It’s a thing that made me sit up and stare at the screen the moment it arrived, because I couldn’t believe they went there. I thought it was another queerbaiting moment, like the infamous boner prom-shot, but once they started sharing with each other how they felt, ALONE, ON SCREEN, IN WORDS, I knew it wasn’t. It was a way to show more casual viewers a symbol they would understand, while still staying in character. Dean would not write a love letter, or a poem, or even speak openly about his feelings, but he so would take time and effort to create a tape, especially since mixtapes were the language of showing your feelings that was in use when he was young and had his first crushes. And if Cas was more human, he’d understand it immediately. I hope he did anyway, he has got his pop culture references from Metatron, maybe some John-Hughes-references there.

The tape is new, the label is clean, words visible, plastic unscratched. If it was a tape Dean had before, it’s be dirty from lying in his car forever. Plus, noone makes mixtapes for themselves, especially when they already have albums - it’s too much effort for too little gain. It’s not John’s, because it cleary says “Dean’s”. Ergo - it’s freshly made. For Cas.

In conclusion: with the shortest piece of dialogue possible, and exactly three movements of the actors, they shot the narrative onwards and upwards on so many levels:

Dean’s performing facade falling down,

Dean showing (and giving) his true self to Cas,

Hints of off-screen moments between them that we know nothing about (added a new level of intimacy),

Cas being linked to the textual and intertextual codes for eternal love and sexual seduction,

Some hints for the future,

Dean is humanity (and Cas loves humanity),

Bisexual!Dean,

Binding the show to its earlier seasons.

20 seconds. 13 words. I am blown away.

I probably could find more layers, but I think four pages of meta for 20 seconds of TV is enough for now. Thanks for reading! It was fun!

#supernatural #spn 12x19 #the mixtape #destiel #dean winchester #castiel #cas #screenwriting #brilliance #robert berens #meredith glynn #bobo berens #spn meta #dean is bi #season 12 #mind blown

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onestowatch · 6 years

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Q&A: Atlanta Producer-Turned-Artist Childish Major Is Proving He Can Do it All

Photo: Albert Pham

When it comes to the world of hip-hop, making a name for yourself as a rapper or producer is certainly no easy feat. Then there are people like Childish Major who make it look easy, as the Grammy-nominated artist is quickly making a name for himself as both a rapper and producer. The Atlanta native originally gained notoriety for producing for some of today’s hottest artists, including Future, Rocko, SZA, 6LACK, and most notably J. Cole. In 2017, Childish shifted gears to release his impeccable debut as a solo artist, WOO$AH.

Featuring appearances from SZA, Isaiah Rashad, DRAM, 6LACK, and even production from J. Cole, the debut was an applauded introduction to one of hip-hop’s newest rising stars. Now, as Childish steps into the limelight as both a producer and artist, he has his eyes set on every facet of the creative industry. Whether it be art, fashion, cooking, or acting, there’s not a realm the artist isn’t poised to tackle. We caught up with the renaissance man, producing extraordinaire, and now artist Childish Major to explore his past, present, and bright future.

OTW: You’re a pretty well-respected producer outside of your own solo music career. You’ve produced for Future, Rick Ross, Rome Fortune, and Arin Ray among others. How has the transition from producing to rapping been?

Childish Major: It happened kind of naturally. Producing wasn’t fulfilling enough as far as my passion went. I just started writing for myself and it became therapy. It became another level of creativity that I was enjoying. As far as making people see that, it was a little bit more difficult but we made it happen.

OTW: You used to rap when you were younger in Atlanta. What made you change your mind and pursue it full-time at this point in your career?

Childish Major: I mean it was something that I’ve always been doing, but I wasn’t always pressing play on people like, “check my record out.” Over time, I built the confidence when I saw people’s reaction to the music.

OTW: How’d you get the name for your debut solo project, WOO$AH? What does it mean to you?

Childish Major: Woosah is what you do to calm down, chill out, and relax yourself. It’s a peace thing. But for me, the project is just talking about the things that I went through: being a young producer in the industry and the mindset of what I thought it would be. I thought, “Okay, you got a hit record; that automatically means you’re a millionaire,” but that’s not the case. Thinking about the stuff that you go through and trying to hold relationships in the industry. It’s just me telling myself to calm down.

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OTW: What was it like taking a step back and having others produce your tracks instead of being in the driver’s seat?

Childish Major: I’m such a fan of people so it wasn’t that difficult. I think I’m doing it myself now a lot more because I’m getting better at producing for myself. I have to learn how to produce for both others and myself so it’s just a part of the process.

OTW: Are you one to stay away from hip-hop while you’re working on these projects, so as not to get distracted from your own particular sound?

Childish Major: I definitely study. I try not to study new stuff though. When I was working on my first project, I would study the greats and their first projects. I would study the type of information and level of information that they were giving. The production is subjective to me -- content is more important.

OTW: Now that you’re both a producer and artist, do you have any thought on how hard it is a producer to receive the due credit they deserve?

Childish Major: Yeah, I think a lot of them don’t get the credit they deserve just because of their approach. I feel like my approach is different. I go in with the mindset that I’m going to make hit records, and I honestly feel like I’m making hit records.

OTW: If you could produce for anyone who would it be? If you could jump on anyone’s production who would it be?

Childish Major: I would produce for Frank Ocean and jump on The Neptunes’ production.

OTW: Speaking of being fans of people, you’re a big fan of Pharrell?

Childish Major: Yeah, Pharrell’s been an inspiration since as long as I can remember. I was listening to his music and figured out that he was one of the masterminds behind The Neptunes. I fell in love with the sound and I started doing research. Then I figured that he was into fashion, art, and all these other aspects of creativity and it’s just inspiring man. He’s a genius. So why not tap into that? Why do something if you don’t want to be the greatest? In my eyes, he was the greatest.

OTW: Are there any other facets of the creative industry that you want to delve into one day?

Childish Major: I draw. I want to do fashion, acting, it’s a lot. Soundtracks, I cook, I’m going to have a cooking show one day. I enjoy doing different things. I bike ride.

OTW: Didn’t you do a soundtrack for something recently?

Childish Major: Oh yeah! A documentary on BET about the history of labels. I forgot about that. I need to write down everything that I do. My mindset is just head down working.

OTW: Speaking more on your soundtracking work, what was it like hearing your song on the season finale of the HBO show Insecure?

Childish Major: Crazy because I watched the first season and I was a fan. I told myself that I was going to get on there. I didn’t know that it was going to be to that capacity where it’d be my vocals on the show and then having a minute spot with no dialogue. We was calling each other like, “Yo! Do you see this shit!?” Shit was crazy.

OTW: You were on tour with CyHi and Big KRIT, how was that whole experience?

Childish Major: It’s been great. A great learning experience.

OTW: In a previous interview, you said that you feel like you bombed your first performance as a rapper. Do you feel like you’ve redeemed yourself?

Childish Major: Oh yeah, most definitely. That wasn’t my very first show, but it was one of my early shows and I bombed it. I was actually opening for Big KRIT in Atlanta. It was just a moment where I had a conversation with my manager, Jeff. “Alright, this is it. You either want it or you don’t. You’re going to fight for it this point on or you’re going to take the L and lose.” I was up for the challenge, so I used the little garage area where we keep all the sodas and water bottles and practiced in front of a mirror. It helped me get to the point we’re at right now.

OTW: I hear that you have a relationship with J.Cole and the Dreamville guys?

Childish Major: It started off with my relationship with EarthGang and J.I.D and they introduced me to Cole. From meeting Cole, I met the rest of the team and they just took me in. So I’m just like the adopted Dreamville kid. Those are all the homies though. They show nothing but love and I do the same.

OTW: J.Cole also produced “Supply Luh” right?

Childish Major: Yeahhh.

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OTW: Speaking more on WOO$AH, you’ve got some great artists with you on there. SZA and Isaiah Rashad for starters. Can you speak on how that came together?

Childish Major: When I was first produced “U.O.E.N.O,” it was around the same time that Isaiah Rashad had announced his signing to TDE. I reached out based on that, and then he would pull up on me whenever he was in Atlanta. We built this friendship that eventually became this brotherhood. A lot of times when we were talking, it wasn’t even about music. When I was making a transition from producer to artist, I would test out records on him and get his opinion. “Happy Birthday” was one of the joints that stuck out to him enough to point where he wanted to get on the record but he also wanted to use it for his own project. I’ve known SZA from the “Green Mile” (Z) project. He got her on it and then I hit her up to clear it.

OTW: I feel like Hip-Hop’s one of the few genres where collaborations are expected and applauded. You don’t really see that in other typical genres. Why do you think that is?

Childish Major: There are two sides to it. I love collaboration because that’s how you get new sounds. That’s how you get new vibes and new feels. It’s that aspect but then you also got the clout aspect. I really love it when it’s something organic and it has a story behind it.

OTW: Speaking further on the collaborations, there’s “I Like You” with 6LACK and DRAM. Major fan of that track.

Childish Major: Yeaaaah. “I Like You” is the joint! I appreciate that man. 6LACK, I’ve known him from being in Atlanta. He used to always pull up before he had anything going on. He’d just always pull up to the studio, same thing as Isaiah. Sometimes we might not even work but when we did work it was always dope. DRAM hopped on the record first because he came through the studio and we were feeling each other out. We played him “I Like You”, I muted all my vocals, and he did a take through the whole record. From there, I just took his bits and pieces and did what a producer does and move it in the places that I felt needed it. Got 6LACK to do a verse and that was it.

OTW: What can we expect after WOO$AH?

Childish Major: More personal records. You’re going to get to know me more but at the same time you’re going to have fun.

OTW: With Kendrick Lamar winning the Pulitzer, do you think hip-hop is getting more recognition? What do you think of hip-hop’s place in the world today?

Childish Major: Everything takes bits and pieces from hip-hop. It’s everything. It literally is the culture. Whether it’s the way people talk, carry themselves, dress, and all these high fashion brands. They’re taking graffiti art and putting it on their clothes. It’s literally everything.

OTW: What are your hopes for yourself as an artist in the future? What are your hopes for hip-hop?

Childish Major: For hip-hop, for it to just be continued to become the biggest thing that the world has seen. It’s going to keep evolving and changing. I just want to make sure that I’m a part of that. I want to be a staple in music itself and hip-hop for sure. It’s not just about being a household name, but I want kids that come after me and the people that came before me to know that he changed things.

OTW: Who are your Ones to Watch?

Childish Major: There’s this kid from Atlanta named Talib Matin. He’s dope. I’m listening to a lot of alternative. Jakob Ogawa, Clairo, Still Woozy.

#interview #childish major #hip hop #rap #j. cole #sza #dram #6lack #isaiah rashad

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mredlich21 · 7 years

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It’s awkward ending a Hindi Film 101 series on a Tuesday! So for this Thursday I’m going to do a quick one-off, not the history of a star or a star family, but of a genre. Just in time to appreciate the newest iteration on the crime film in Raees! (all the Hindi Film 101 posts are visible here)

A different disclaimer than my usual one! This is not a comprehensive overview, this doesn’t mention every important film or moment in film history. This is just a starting point, a 101 type view of the topic. If you have anything to add, or follow-up questions, please put it in the comments.

Hindi film began in 1913, but it had a struggling and difficult beginning because of the challenges of being an industry in a colonized country. Not a lot of money and resources available. And so genres and styles and so on didn’t really start flourishing until 1947.

And right at the start of that period, the crime drama began! The early king of crime was Dev Anand. Dev played the slick and cosmopolitan detective. CID was one of his earliest triumphs, due more to the brilliant direction by Guru Dutt than by the acting of Dev Anand.

I know, that sounds like blasphemy, because I always believe the star is dominant over the director in authorship of the finished film. But this is Guru Dutt! The master of light and shadow, the pivotal artistic element of film noir (noir=black). And also just a genius writer, came up with a great plot with characters filled with believable internal conflicts and memorable moments and so on.

(technically it was only produced by Guru Dutt, but it’s widely believed to have been ghost-directed by him)

Crime films in this era are shockingly similar to crime films in America in the same time period. Partially because, I think, the two countries were going through similar upheaval. Both of them and WWII vets returning home, rapid industrialization and urbanization, changing gender roles, etc. etc. etc. And so both countries had the “film noir” genre, featuring urban landscapes, bad and good woman, a hero who travels through shadowed realms, etc. etc.

(Thank you British Film Institute for the handy graphic!)

But there were a couple of significant differences. For one thing, while our hero may appear to have shades of grey to his character at the start, by the end of the film we usually discover he was fully moral and upright all along. More importantly, mankind in general tends to be on the lighter end of the grey scale. Taxi drivers, chaiwallas, strangers in the train compartment are all generally kind and considerate. Maybe situations force them into doing wrong things, but at heart they are inherently good. Essentially, this is film noir with an optimistic view of the future. Which presages the later version of the Indian crime film, which is entirely optimistic.

While the crime films of the early Independence era are strikingly similar to their American counterparts, India quickly broke off and started forming it’s own kind of genre. And this time, it was all about the star! Dev Anand.

Dev had two brothers, Chetan and Vijay. The three brothers formed their own studio, Navketan Films, and started cranking out brilliant mystery films featuring crazy twisty plots, colorful songs, and a casually debonair hero. No more big social statements or dark view of the world, everything is light and bright and hopeful. Both literally and metaphorically. Chetan and Vijay and Dev (all three directed at one point or another) loved bright colors and clear outlines onscreen.

(escaping from the police who are trying to get your suitcase by singing a love song!)

Moving into the 60s, this is the kind of film the audience came to expect from a mystery story. Even without Dev Anand, his brother Vijay would write and direct movies like Teesri Manzil with Shammi Kapoor had wacky rock and roll songs and a teen romance, mingled with a twisted murder mystery. These films use the complex plot to draw in the audience and the light tone to keep them entertained. And, since the point isn’t the family drama but rather the mystery, they also managed to throw in some really progressive ideas! Lots of independent women, with jobs and love lives and minds of their own.

(They mooshed the opening titles onto this song, but that let’s you see all the drama of the mystery, and the light catchy love song, in one video)

And then, POW! 70s! By the 70s, India and Bombay in particular were in a very different place. The country had been independent for 25 years, and the promises of independence had not come through. At the same time, thanks to restrictive laws, especially import and export laws, a criminal society had come into being, especially in Bombay with all the international shipping.

And so a new kind of crime film appeared. This time, the criminal is the hero, not the villain. He questions society’s rules, and if there might be a higher justice. We watch him rise and rise through the ranks, before the final censor mandated fall. But his death is shown not as a punishment for his sins, but as a final act of martyrdom, dying in an attempt to make society better.

The greatest of these is Deewar, of course. Amitabh as the young boy who is literally tattooed with the sins of his father, who sacrifices his future so that his younger brother can thrive, who is driven to crime out of frustration at the corruption that keeps a working man down. Who finally tries to move his life to a higher level, to find a better purpose, only to be driven back again and ultimately sacrificing all of his happiness so that the rest of society (his honest younger brother, his young sister-in-law, his aged mother) can move forward.

(The moment when he finally gives up on following society’s rules and starts to fight back)

Deewar is the greatest of these, but there are plenty of others. Coolie, Kaalia, Trishul, Zanjeer, Shakti, Dostana, again and again and again those who live on the sidelines of society are ultimately more noble than those who follow the “rules”. And then they end up as martyrs so that society as a whole can move on. Very occasionally someone will actually live through to the end of the film, but if they do, it is only after a lot of strife and misery along the way.

(Kaalia is one of the more cheerful ones, but it still has our hero’s brother killed and our hero wrongfully imprisoned. Also, Bob Christo! Go to White Guy in a fight!)

That was the 70s, the era of brilliance and agony and Salim-Javed at the height of their writing powers. And then came the 80s. The era of Qurbani. There were still good movies made in this decade, but the depth and misery of the 70s crime films slowly made way for something a little different. All the agony of the 80s, but treated with the lightness of the 60s. It was odd.

On paper, the plots were 70s style stories of separated brothers and good men driven to crime. But instead of Amitabh, you had floppy-haired Anil Kapoor, or sincere Jackie Shroff. And instead of Salim-Javed, you had Subhash Ghai coming up with his own stories and directing his own films featuring things like “Girl falls in love with her kidnapper, waits for him until he is released from jail, then has a huge fight scene on an island that convinces her father to agree to their engagement”. Sure, our hero still has a tragic backstory explaining his criminal behavior, but SHE FALLS IN LOVE WITH HER KIDNAPPER!

(And the rest of the gang falls in love with her! Stockholm syndrome is fun)

In 1988 Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak came out, and in 1989 Maine Pyar Kiya, and suddenly the crime dramas lost their place to romances. This is also, coincidentally, the era in which crime in real life became increasingly involved in the film industry. It had always been there, ever since the post-Independence era when blackmarket money from WWII started being laundered in film. In the 1970s, Hajji Mastan became king of the smugglers in Bombay, and a regular at film parties. It was his cool attitude and suits that inspired Amitabh’s character in Deewar.

(Haji on the left, Amitabh on the right)

But then in the 80s, Hajji was in jail and Bombay was run by Dawood Ibrahim and the D-Company. They were into gun running and drugs and darker things than the 70s gangs. They were also a lot more organized with a lot more international connections. And they decided to take over film, just like they took over everything else. They set up their own production companies, and terrorized the top talent into working for them. And they tried to make sure their films were hits by any means necessary, for instance the story Karan just told in his bio about being threatened if he released Kuch Kuch Hota Hai opposite (presumably gang funded) Chote Miyan Bade Miyan.

(To see a fictionalized version of the difference between Hajji and Dawood, check out Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai)

And this is the era when suddenly crime films start to go away! Not completely, there were still a few darker action films, like Ajay Devgn’s first big hit, Phool Aur Kaante, or Akshay Kumar’s Khiladi series. But they didn’t have a really distinctive flavor to them, they felt more like tired rehashings of previous styles.

(For instance, Khiladi was a loose remake of the old Rishi and Neetu hit Khel Khel Main. Campus hijinks mixed with crime drama)

And then Satya arrived! Ram Gopal Verma’s first big crime film. This was the first film to show gangs on a ground level. RGV used real steetscapes and cheap costumes and slang dialogue to evoke life for the young criminal in Bombay. And he heightened this effect by using mostly unknown actors, ones who disappeared completely into their characters and, more than that, into the narrative itself. The effect is a sea of interconnected stories and random incidents, not the perfect clockwork narrative of Navketan films or the Greek tragedy of the 70s films. Or the random colorful entertainment of the 80s.

RGV heightened this effect in Company, while at the same time adding style to it, color tones specific to certain scenes, odd angles, montages, using style to distance us from the characters feelings and keep the audience invested on both sides of the gangwar he is showing. More than that, Company was an explicit recreation of real gangland events, more than had been done before. Of course it wasn’t “officially” based on the feud between Chote Rajan and Dawood Ibrahim, but we all knew it.

(And because it is groundlevel and real, no big song sequences! This is officially from the film, but notice the singers aren’t the characters)

Sanjay Gupta is the other important director to note, and the one who is directing Kaabil, the other important crime film that just came out! Sanjay took Reservoir Dogs and remade it Indian style. Each member of the heist got a backstory, there were song sequences (more than just the one in the original), and most of all there was style! Kaante is the first Indian film to be shot entirely abroad (in LA). Besides that, there was the way the light changed tones scene by scene, from golden to blue to green. The loose suits, the styled hair and beards, the whole thing was just new and different and shocking.

(So sunny! So goateed!)

The end result of this film was not that a lot of movies got filmed overseas, or that Sanjay Gupta went on to a brilliant career (there is only so far inventive light filters can take you). But that style became a key component of crime dramas. Hairstyles and cool camera angles and business with props suddenly became part of the expectation for crime films.

The newest string of crime dramas are period films, telling famous incidents from the real life of Bombay crime. Mixed with stylish touches, catchy songs, “realistic” locations and costumes. The character depth and twisted plots have gone away a little, but the style quotient has gone up.

(I love this song. But from what I’ve read about it, I have no interest in actually seeing the movie. It’s all about the final shootout. Thus the title)

Raees is clearly based on Abdul Latif, even though the filmmakers deny it. With some definite style in the filming of it, a big focus on hairstyles and costumes. But also with the one liners (from the Salim-Javed era) and elaborate heist schemes (from Navketan Films) and bad woman dancing (from all the way back with Guru Dutt). Along with some kind of goofy and applause inducing fight scenes from the 80s.

(We have crime films to thank for Helen! This was her big break out song, age 15, in a twisty mystery with Ashok Kumar and stolen jewels and a missing brother)

Hindi Film 101 One-Off: a Brief History of the Crime Film It's awkward ending a Hindi Film 101 series on a Tuesday! So for this Thursday I'm going to do a quick one-off, not the history of a star or a star family, but of a genre.

#Crime Film #Deewar #Guru Dutt #Hindi Film 101 #Ram Gopal Verma

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