Page 7 - Pop History: Prince Pt. 1

Episode Date: February 4, 2020

Gird your loins and put down a towel, we're kicking off our series on Prince.   Listen to Pop History free on Spotify!   Need even more Page 7? Let's go crazy. Support us on our Patreon page and get weekly bonus Patreon-exclusive content! Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Page 7 ad-free.Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Get a little bit closer. With your consent. Listen to the Last Podcast Network. Free on Spotify. Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to say to get through a thing called life. I just listened to, I was rushing to get here in Ubs, and the dude was like, so what do you want to listen to? And I want to listen to Prince! And we both kept playing, let's go crazy.

I think we listened to it about four times in a row. And if you want to pick a song that is the ultimate pump-up song, let's go crazy. And there's so many. Is this episode just going to be us all differently singing different Prince songs at the same time in false set of voices? You're not going to let the elevator break a step up. No, let's go. I needed this episode because I am, I want to say like a secret. I don't want to say not a fan.

I don't know how to describe this. It's like I've always liked Prince. I've always enjoyed his music. Have I ever sat down and actually listened to a Prince album? No. Have I seen Purple Rain? No. Is it something that it's like I've always recognized Prince is good and almost been intimidated by his catalog. By how much stuff that he's put out. It's amazing. So this, I needed this episode to force me to sit down and just let this man's music wash over me in a wave. Like, wave after wave after wave. It's unbelievable. And we've only, I'm going to go ahead and say this now. Spoiler alert, whatever. Everybody could like whatever with it. Whoa.

We're only getting through Purple Rain on today's episode. His career up through Purple Rain. I don't even know. I don't even know. It is, it's the, the man has 39 albums. 39. 39 of them. How many, did you count the songs?

Oh, my, no. You know what? I didn't count the songs, but I'm sure it's lots and lots and lots. There are some. There's quite a few double, double LPs, what do you call it? Yes, double albums, double LPs. triple doubles. Completely separate albums in the same year multiple times, like not connected to another. He's a, he's a song machine. And then, so for Christmas, I wanted to go out big for my

brother for Christmas this year because, like, I actually had enough money to give him, like, a really good gift, and it's been a while for me a little bit. Thank you, Patreon. He's like, yeah, thank you, patrons. He is, like, a classically good gift giver. So I had seen a pitchfork review for this re-released deluxe edition of 1999. And I looked it up and they had this vinyl release of that. And that's what I got for him for his birthday. And it was like, I forget how many, it's a ludicrous amount of LPs or of records. It is like a bunch of records because it's all this extra content that he didn't even

release that he recorded around the time, during those sessions. That's also amazing. It's our. So, you know, when he passed away, everybody did talk about this. vault of Prince. Like, we've only gotten, with these 39 albums or whatever it is, we've only gotten a small taste of the amount of music

that he's recorded in his lifetime. Oh yeah. The man is prolific. And the shit that he didn't even put out is some of the best shit you could ever write. It really, it's insane. His genius and I know that that is something that, I mean, you cannot deny whether you

are into Prince's music or if you are not, his music is next level. Who's not into Prince's music? Especially he had so many different areas. There's just some people that are not into funk. There's people that aren't into R&B. I think these people are wrong, but these people do exist, and that's okay.

This is why I am a little bit of a sleeper on Prince that I talked about just now. I'm really not super into the sound of the 80s. Or at least I wasn't classically for many, many years. Up until more recently, now that I'm more into pop and things, I can go back to it and really admire it. But I did not really like the synth. sound and this is the sound that Prince perfected and brought to the forefront.

This literally, they call it the Minneapolis synth sound wave that happened. Then he was the pioneer of. The coolest trick he did was he took funk and he took R&B and he took rock and roll and he took new wave and he put it all together into this fucking monster sound that is unbelievable. But for me, you can never call that sound magic because if there's one thing I've learned in this research, He does not like his stuff to be referred to his magic because that's Michael Jackson's word. But he said that's not my word.

That's how you describe Jackson's music. But a very controversial thing we'll talk about in the next episode, somebody does call him magic in his later years. Yes. And I was shocked when you told me this because... Yeah, because he really hates being described as magic because he says that funk is rational.

Ah. And which is such an interesting way to look at it because then you think, behind the brain of such a genius that he looks at it in a way that I think that certain artists look at what they're doing and they're creating art and they're saying something and he is doing all those things

but most of all I feel like he makes music because he is music I don't think he thinks in any other way outside of himself and his music and that's what it's like I've never been that obsessed

with anything in my life do you think his little tiny body is just filled with notes. Maybe. Maybe he's five, too. That's a little magical sounding. He's shorter than I am. But it makes sense because magic is Disney, right? Magic is, and that is Michael Jackson. That is all his weird aesthetic. And Prince was not that. He was like raw sexual energy. Also, though, one of the things that I thought was amazing, and I did kind of know this, because of course 1999 is like essentially an anti-Cold War anthem. But how political he was as well. Like, everybody thinks

Prince, they think just sex, sex, sex, sex. And even he felt like, and I mean, jack you off, head, all this stuff, for sure. It was like sexier than I even thought it was on the onset. I was like, wow, this guy. Song about fucking his sister. Yeah, he talks about it, incest, baby. It's a lot. But he also talked about politics.

Like, he literally, names of songs referencing the president and, you know, nuclear warfare and all this stuff as well. Controversy is such a cool album because of that. immediately he was doing that. Usually someone gets big enough to where they start talking about politics and stuff and then they, a lot of times they have a lot of a fan-based turnaround because of that.

He was doing it before he was even that big. Well, he was bigger than his britches from the start, which we'll obviously talk about here, but he is confident. Yes, and also because, so on top of all that, what Prince really brought to the conversation about

gender and fashion in a time where David Bowie, oh my God, The fashion is insane. But David Bowie was, you know, pioneering this huge movement. I don't know. I know it wasn't just David Bowie, but I'm saying. Lots of people were a part of this. And Prince really solidified, you know, he's wearing high heels.

He's wearing lace gloves. And he's making the world think about how a man or a woman should dress, pushing the boundaries of taste and accessibility. Can I put a suggestion in the suggestion box for you? Please, go concrete. Could you do, um, 2021 purple reign of terror? Ooh, that's kind of fun, goth, purple rain. So I need more, like, frills.

Yeah, a lot of lace. But also, I feel like then the problem is I'm going to have to start wearing those little tiny panties that Apollonia wears. And I wear usually primarily thongs, but I don't know if I wanted that tiny in the front. No, I think it's more about layers. You need a lot of scar. I would say it's like a pirate hooker. Yeah. So you're talking about like a mix of Prince and Stevie Nix?

I can do this. Oh, girl. You could pull it on. I can definitely do this. I'll get some shawls. Do you fucking stop me from doing it? Oh my God. By the way, also Prince tried to give Stevie Nicks Purple Rain back when it was more like a country song and she was too intimidated by it.

I did my research. Yeah, you did. I'd be terrified to. I would sincerely be scared to work with Prince. Well, because that's, I think that this is also another thing that I really want to get into is separating here, at least for me, the idea of who he was as a person and his music. Yeah, you're scaring me a little bit. I didn't get as much of this from my research and I feel like you're going to have to educate me

on why you think he's a horrible monster, Jackie. He's not a monster. Hot take. I just would never want to be friends with him. I'd be a lot of like have a really great weekend with him. But outside of that, I think it's like, because this is the problem. Is you what, like I honestly,

I also confession alert, watch Purple Rain for the first time with this. And in watching how he treats women and overall just how he treats other people in his life. He sees himself as a genius because he is a genius. And he doesn't trust anyone else's opinion because he is the number one about everything that he does. Oh my God, Jackie, stop describing yourself.

You hush. But then on top of it, then I watched how many hours I watched him perform and all these clips of him on stage and I'm mesmerized. Oh, my God. It's just, it's just palpable. Like, I feel like being, like, dirty when I hear most of his albums or you're just like, it gives you goosebumps still. Even when the music's like 25 years old, you're like, ah, this fuck so hard. Like, this could be a song that came out today and it would be such a slam hit.

And no one can recapture some of it. I mean, no one has done anything like when doves fly. It is just its own, in its own league. You say when doves fly? When Doves Cry When Doves cry This is what it's only When Dooms cry

That's okay Last night when we were talking about Darling Nikki I called it Little Nicky a couple times Which is Like the Adam Sandler movie It should be a very different song Let's jump into it

Because we do not have more time to waste Yes Let's get into it, Prince Born in June of 1958 As Prince Rogers Nelson in Minneapolis, Minnesota I wonder if he was a gem.

Now, is he a gem? Yeah. And Minneapolis is like going to be this major set piece for his entire life. And it's something I didn't even realize until I visited Minneapolis. And someone's like, yeah, he loved it here. He lived here all throughout his life. That's where Paisley Park is. And it makes more sense of why if you go back to our Lizzo episode of why Lizzo ended up working with Prince

because she also is a part of the Minneapolis sound. And much like our John Waters episode. where he uses Baltimore as his backdrop. He very much uses Minneapolis as inspiration. My God. And much like our Joan Rivers episode. Oh my God. How is it like it?

It'll be an episode of content about a person's life. That's all I have. So his mother was a jazz singer named Maddie Della, and his father was a pianist and songwriter named John Lewis Nelson, whose stage name was Prince Rogers. His mother and father performed in a jazz group called the Prince Rogers Trio. And this is another fun thing too, which I didn't even, honestly, in looking at Prince, you don't expect that his first name is actually Prince.

Yes. He was actually named Prince after his father's stage name. And also his father said because he wanted him to do everything that I couldn't do. Hell yeah. And I love to that his grandparents are from Louisiana. And if you've ever been to Louisiana, specifically New Orleans, music is a part of every inch of that city, and I think that it's just in the blood for this guy.

Like, it was predestined that he would become this major, major musical act. As a kid, he didn't like his name, actually, and had people refer to him as Skipper. Which is, uh, oh, that's not better. No, it makes you think of the cat. Was it Skip and Sex and the City? Oh, yes.

I think his name was Skipper. Skipper? It was a, no, whatever was, it was annoying. But, no, it is a, it's a, A big name to put on a child because you are essentially saying, like, your royalty, you have to adhere to all these things. You have to achieve all these things. I can see that being a little intimidating as a kid. Oh, for sure.

And he really did have a tumultuous relationship with his parents as well, which we will see later on. And in Purple Rain, it's a little exaggerated. Yes. But it was, I don't think that they had a very good relationship. But on top of it, apparently Maddie Shaw, his mother was a fun-loving part. with a stubborn irrational streak and he said that she would spend what little money the family had for survival

on partying with her friends, then trespass into my bedroom, borrow my personal money that I'd gotten from babysitting local kids, and then chastised me for even questioning her regarding the broken promises she made to pay me back. Good Lord.

Raw. I'm sorry, this is also all written in Prince's own response. Prince has his own way of writing. So all of his own notes that are transcribed is in the idea that's like money is always the money symbol. It's all this weird shorthand that you kind of have to string together. Eyes are the cartoon eye.

Yeah. Kind of like a middle schooler. Yes. Also, by the way, and this is one of those weird. Is he like Joan a little bit where he maybe makes things up sometimes or there's this whole story about how he had epilepsy in childhood suffering from seizures at a young age until one day he just snapped out of it, which sounds insane to me. Didn't he say like an angel took the epilepsy away from him or something?

Or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. And which it does sound like a little bit of a tall till. Though, although I had read some interviews and accounts of friends that knew him in school when he was young and he did have seizures. So maybe he just grew out of it. Maybe an angel didn't take it away. Well, but isn't, to an extent, I'm sorry if I'm incorrect about seizures to anybody who has seizures.

but part of it is a mental state as well. Like, can you sort of, if you have certain disorders, you can kind of work your way out of them. I imagine, but he probably would have had to go to therapy for that. And if there's one thing I'm really picking up what he's putting down, I don't think he ever went to therapy. And I think maybe he needed some therapy. That boy and that man had a will like nobody else.

This is true. This is true. We will talk about his work ethic, too, in a little bit. It is obscene. He writes his first song at the age of seven, which was called a funk machine. Hell yeah. He always knew where he was going, baby. I wish that existed. I couldn't find that anywhere. But at just 10 years old, his parents divorced.

His mother remarried and had a kid who Prince did not get along with well, which led to him always being in between homes a little bit. He was always switching back and forth, which is always going to be a disaster for a healthy childhood. And on top of that, I think that something that we're also glossing over is the fact that his father was also a very good musician. Yes. And this is a big part of that I think that he had a lot of issues, or so it seems, that

he was never going to be as good as his father is. And that is, I'm assuming, part of what drove him is just, he really thought that he would never be as good as his father. But also, and I think conversely, his father never felt like he made it far enough and put that on his son, like a stereotypical stage dad. For sure. situation. So his step brother,

the stepbrother Baker did, however, end up taking Prince to see James Brown in concert, among other things, clearly got a lot of that stage presence influence from James Brown. If you've ever seen a James Brown live performance and work ethic, honestly,

because that guy was intense. So while living with his father, his father bought Prince his first guitar. But later Prince moved out and in with the neighbors, the Anderson's. He actually got kicked out of his father. house. Oh. And he got kicked out of his father's house because he, his father walked in on him in bed

with a girl in his own home when he had gotten home from work. And he kicked him out and he said, I sat crying at a phone booth for two hours. That's the last time I cried. Wow. Jesus. He said, he moved into the Anderson's basement, who was a good friend of his. Why didn't he cry again? You know, I don't, he's steel. He's made out of steel. He cried. in Purple Rain. He does. Yeah, but it's false. It's false tears.

Did you just Google sad print stories? Is that what happened, Jackie? So I have none of this in my notes. Okay, so he moved in with his neighbors. Yes, he moved into the basement of his neighbors, and he turned the bedroom into a rehearsal space as well, and you referred to it as a hedonistic wonderland, where he and Anderson engaged in carnal acts with a variety of girlfriends.

Wow. Andre. Andre, who would end up being the basest for Prince in later years as a part of his act, The Revolution. So it goes all the way back to then. Man, I bet those are some nutty nights. And nutty is the word, right? Because they were probably nutting all over the place.

They were, they were nutting all over the place. I mean, he was pretty young, right? Yeah. Yeah. And this is also at the same time. So you've got to think of how young they were. Right. Because Prince's first band actually formed when he was 13.

and the group was called the Grand Central and then eventually it turned into champagne. It was Prince, his cousin Charles, and then Andre was also in that band and they played original music and the style of Sly and the Family Stone and Earth, Wind and Fire. And I'll tell you what, back at that age,

I could have filled up a milk carton with my dirty nuts. I'm just saying, I must have been a crazy... Be ashamed of your sexuality for one day. Are you kidding? I watched Astronauts White. every day. I was a masturbating maniac and I would watch all those movies where they're like, all these boys are always masturbating all the time.

Like, but what about me? I'm masturbating constantly. I wish I would have figured that out, but I didn't figure it out by 13. Oh yeah, I was going to town. Once I figured out the hot button, I was like, oh my God. Man. I mean, it's the episode to talk about just dirty, fun, guilty, man. There's just so much sexuality in his music.

How can you not? Constant. He also, though, was a bit of a jock. He played football, basketball, and baseball at Central High School in Minneapolis while being pushed by his father to pursue music. Also, also, if you remember the Dave Chappelle episode where I believe it's Charlie Murphy, right? It's all real, yes. It's all real.

That he was really good on the court and he would be obsessed with basketball for many years. There was one interviewer that wrote a book about him that talked about how, you know, he was a pretty normal guy to talk to. He likes simple things like basketball. He liked to talk music, you know, all this kind of stuff. But I do love that he was such an animal on the court. It's so funny. And everyone should go look at that Charlie Murphy's story on Dave Chabelle.

And thinking of this time, so he's not only, so he's a jock star, and apparently was good at every sport that he tried to do, as well as he was then teaching himself every instrument he could get his hands on. And during all of this, he's also showing up at school, which especially at this time, he's showing up to school in high heels, in like in gregarious fashion for the time for a boy to wear to school

and he didn't give a fuck. He just wanted to dress however you fucking wanted to dress and go for him. But imagine that like thinking of that and how even at that age and me thinking of trying to dress differently than everybody else,

but then on top of it also being a jock star. Like that's like what power? hour that is. He's got some brass cahone. Yeah. And he also was a student at the Minnesota dance theater through a public school urban arts program. So he's learning all the moves as well. And I mean, you listen to the music all the time and you're like, Prince is so fucking good. I can't believe you played like all of these instruments on these albums, especially on the early records. Then you watch Purple Rain or last night I put on Prince Sign O the Times, which is a live concert, and I believe it is free on Amazon Prime, by the way, so check it out. Man, and we will

talk more about Sign of the Time. We're not even going to get to Sign of the Time. We're not getting there. We're not getting there yet. But his moves are crazy. His moves are also lightning fast sometimes. You're like, I cannot believe that you're able to move like this while also fucking rocking out and singing these songs. It is just the whole package. And of course he was studying dance at an early age, it really, really shows. Also, if you've never seen Prince Live, have you've never seen any clips of it, stop right now and go watch them. Because just it's his dance twos are insane.

And the fact that he's doing all of this while playing and singing, and I just, I can't. My loins gets set of flame. I know. It's crazy. You get so amped. Nutting like a Christmas goose, too. What now?

What happened? Did you say Christmas goose? He's just as nut. is it's like a squirrel. It's like an opposite squirrel. He's just shooting it out everywhere. I mean, everybody's nutting in the audience. Everybody's like, it's hard for my loins.

On top of it, Jeff is out of town. An opposite squirrel? Yeah, an opposite squirrel, because instead of gathering the nuts, he's sort of putting them out. He's giving them away. He gives the nuts away. Yeah, yeah. He is an opposite squirrel.

Right? He's a very generous squirrel. Now, tell us another statement. A bad story to make us upset again, Jackie. Don't worry. We'll get upset later on. I know. We're already, we've got so much more to go.

Yeah, I'm barely into the first page of my notes here. He meets a man named Jimmy Jam in 1973. I thought you made that up, by the way. It was like Jimmy Jam, Holden. Meets a man named Jimmy Jam. No, it's everything. At just 15 years old, who spots his mini talent, starts working with him. Jimmy Jam is this producer guy.

At 17 years old, he joins his cousin's husband's band, 94 East, along with Andre. the bassist, where he contributed guitar tracks and some songwriting on that. So he's starting to get organized a little bit, starting to work with people. It's 18 years old that he ends up with producer Chris Moon recording a demo tape, which Moon took to Minneapolis, this Minneapolis businessman, Own Husney. I know, all these names sound like they are from a, like, a musical, like, newsies or something. You know, but anyways, he goes to Own Hunsy, Husney, rather, who signs prints to a management contract and puts together and this an even stronger demo tape.

And actually, Chris Moon, he met when he was making music with champagne. And then Chris Moon is the person that actually encouraged him to use the name Prince. Because at this point in time, Prince wanted to be called Mr. Nelson, because that was his last name. And Chris Moon said, I said, look, let me break it down for you this way. There's this white guy named Willie. Maybe you've heard of him. Maybe you haven't. we don't want you getting confused with Willie Nelson,

which is why he went with Prince, which I think that that's obvious. It's obviously. He could not have been confused with Willie Nelson. I wonder if it's because Prince made him think of his dad and he didn't want to have that connotation. Right. I could definitely see that.

It's very possible too, yes. I could definitely see that being a thing. So, but he needs this businessman to really package him. And I think that's what gets him starting on the path of what it is to be a rock star. what it is to be a big star. It's more than just good music. It's more than just the dance moves. You've got to put it all together.

And this actually gets him a recording contract with Warner Brothers, who even at the time is like a huge, huge label for your first label. Oh, yeah, crazy. And this is the audacity of Prince. We're going to start it right now. And the most mind-blowing part is when we get to Purple Rain. We'll talk about that then. But he somehow manages, even though he's 18 years old.

He's got nothing behind him. Somehow he gets full creative control for three albums and the retaining of his publishing rights. He was the youngest ever signed and the contract allowed prints almost complete artistic control. But how? Remember we were just talking about Mariah Carey. So this is, Mariah Carey's years later. Right. And still where it's like they wouldn't give, like even she was groundbreaking because she was a woman that got it.

But that's also many years after this. Well, it's just, it doesn't make, okay, I know he doesn't like being called magic, but this is an irrational thing. Come up with a different word. Come up with a different word. Mystic? Mystical? He's the mystical, prince, cical, kitty cat.

Now we're just doing cats. No, it's a cat. He's jelly-cull. Prince is gelical. Oh, he's a jellical. Oh, my God, he is a jellicle. Right? He's so mad somewhere.

Is that amazing? God, he'd be pissed at us for comparing him to cats. Probably, I'm going to assume. At the time, his manager said about him signing with Warner Brothers, Warner Brothers was just the right place for him to be because they were a very artist-friendly label. And also, he had turned down a number of top producers that would have produced him on his album.

I trusted him so much that I fought for him to be his own producer. That's from Owen Husney, who was his then manager. Gotcha. So let's talk about for you. His debut album, which is very good. It's not a breakout at all. And I do like that that's part of his story. He did struggle at first.

He didn't just immediately pump out the hits. He's recording this at Studio 80 in Minneapolis. Although, did you listen to For You? Because for you is a great album. It's great, but I had never heard any of those songs. Me neither. It was fucking awesome. So, yeah, he's recording at Studio 80 in Minneapolis,

where he cuts his last demo with producer David Rivkin, but Warner Brothers chose Tommy Vicari to executive produce the effort, who was known for his work with Carlos Santana. So we have to talk about this for a second, because if you look at for you, it says it is produced, arranged, composed, and performed by Prince. Yes. As what the album says.

So although Prince would produce for you himself, Tommy Vakari, who had worked with everyone from Billy Preston to Santana, was brought in to serve as executive producer because says Owen Husney, who is his manager, Lenny did say to us, you've got to have somebody who's got gold albums on the wall already, which is why David Zee suggested Tommy Vakari. So Tommy Vigari, even though he is technically

the executive producer while making it, was not on the album because afterwards, because Prince wouldn't listen to him. Prince steamrolls him. Heirrari talks to him. Vicari refers to this time as just absolutely, draining, absolutely damasculate, like, just

miserable, because Prince is just not listening, is not taking his, you know, you'll listen to him, if he says something he agrees with, he'd put it in, but other than that, and that is crazy to hear that for a very first album. For a 19-year-old and then on top of it, that

apparently Earthwind and Fires, Maurice White, who is the producer of Earthwind and Fire, wanted to produce Prince, and Prince also said no to that because he wanted to do it by himself, that He didn't want any old-fashioned shit. Wow. He'd said that he wanted to reject the styles of R&B at the time.

He thought that he was greater than already starting out than what had come before him. Even though it influenced him and he very much appreciated it, he wanted to be better than all of the quote unquote black music that was out at the time. Right. It's, it is mind-blowing. And I guess that it sort of lends it. a little bit that he was a kid, that you could have that sort of arrogance. But he was accurate at the same time.

But he just, to just imagine this little tiny child just stomping on everybody as he's making this album just going, nope, nope, nope, I'm doing this. And they're just going to be like, well, I guess we're going to just listen to this kid. He's got the deal. Vicari does convince Prince to move the project. one thing he was able to convince him of is to move the project to a studio in Sausalito, California,

a place called the record plant. That's where most of the basic tracks and everything are recorded over three months, all vocals and instruments. 27 total were done by prints including guitar, bass, piano, keyboard, orchestra bells, and drums. This is obscene.

Like, if you've ever seen a recording process, looked at what that is. and heard this album, which sounds really good. It sounds like a full band of real people performing. And it sounds like a whole choir of people singing with it. Like, it's nuts. It is. Yes.

This might be a controversial. Controversial. We're going to have multiple of these, I think, on this episode. I am actually a little afraid of Prince's ghost hearing this and cursing me. Right. It's a great album, but I don't. don't feel like it's him. He didn't develop his own style at this point.

It sounds very of the time. Well, he's also very young. He's still figuring it out. Yes. Billy Elish figured it out, okay? Oh, my God. She's a billionaire, and she was a millionaire where she started.

Listen. It is true, though. She didn't figure it out at age 17, which is kind of insane. No, her older brother did. She had been to produce for a long time, but we're not going to get into that. Her entire family helps.

Maybe utilizing her as a marketing. tool, but we're not going to get into that. We will, but we should definitely do an episode on Billy Elish at some point. Sure. But yeah, it is, you're right. It is him still discovering the sound he's trying to find. He doesn't even find it on his next album, which is a bit more of a breakthrough. Soft and Wet is the closest he's going to get on this album to the Prince Defining Sound

that we get to with controversy 1999. Right. And the open sexuality stuff. It's like a little bit, it's pulled back a little bit. It's traditional. It's traditional. why I wanted to talk about it is because Chris Moon, the dude that we were just talking about,

is someone that worked with him to help him write this song, even though he does not get any credit for it. And Chris Moon, I think that we can attribute some of his double entendange and the beginning of it in soft and wet, because it says Moon, I thought, guys are probably not gonna be the primary audience for a five foot two falsetto singing guy. It's probably gonna be girls,

And it's probably going to be younger girls who think he's cute and sexy. But I decided that because we're dealing with younger people, the sexual component can't be blatant. That's why we need a double entendre that infuses his music with some sexual energy. The song is about a kiss, but it can be inferred that the song is about other things as well, which is where most people's minds go. So soft and wet was conceived as a marketing tool by Prince and Chris Moon to start, which is like eventually we, we will see even more and more later on. This was testing the water to see, how would this work? And I think that's really good.

And then you listen to us off and went, and what's funny is I feel like, yes, I could see where he was coming from thinking that it would only be effective on younger women. But little did they know just how profound cocaine would be in the 80s. Therefore, how much everyone would just fucking love this falsetto voice, funk rock. Everyone wants to get freaky, wants the cocaine roll. I mean, he's just, I mean, later on, I swear, you can hear other, I can hear other people slipping and sliding in their own seats.

I can hear it in the clips. Just face covered in powder. Yeah, one of my little factoids I really want to get out there about for you before we move on is the initial track, the first track of the album, he did 46 vocal lines layered into it. and that's all the kind of stuff he was doing in post-production. 46 different vocal tracks layered. And again, that's insane. And again, I've never been obsessed with anything to that point ever in my life. Yeah.

That gets to like Kubrick levels of perfectionism and things like that. So, yeah, another Prince saying, fuck you, Warner Brothers chooses an art director to design the album cover. Prince just books his own photography. photographers to do it. And that's where we get the photo that you see. Prince's face lit by candlelight in a dark room. And he referred to himself, Prince actually referred to himself as a physical wreck when all was said and done. The cost of recording ended up being twice the initial advance from the record company. And the album does not light the world on fire. As we said,

it reaches number 163 on the Billboard 200 chart and number 21 on the Billboard R&B albums chart. And that is another indicator of where we're at in time when it comes to the racial divide of music. And I really want to start highlighting that now because that is the hurdle Prince must overcome. Is getting from R&B to the mass audience, getting from, because R&B is just, it's like that was essentially dubbed black people music for lack of a better term. And the Billboard Top 100 or whatever, that was where pop and rock and all this stuff. And it wasn't married yet. It was not the space for black music, weirdly enough. It was kept separate in this gross way.

It's not that there wasn't the space for black music. There wasn't the space for what he wanted to be was music for anybody. Yes. He wanted anyone to hear it no matter what they were, no matter what they identified with, and see his music and be like, I enjoy this. Well, yeah, and I also, I think probably it helped him develop his own style from the fact that this album didn't hit that hard. He used that as a motivation to kind of break out.

Because I think when he did that album, he was trying to fit into a mold a little bit still. And I think that him not succeeding as much as he wanted to with it made him test other, like really come into himself, basically. Yes. Yeah. It's this hurdle that is forcing him into The Prince Will Know. Also around this time, they're not called the Revolution.

yet specifically, but he is because he has to play live shows, so he needs to actually start actually Prince working with other people. So he pulls together bassist Andre Simone, Des Dickerson on guitar, Gail Chapman and Dr. Fink on keyboards and Bobby Z. on drums.

They will eventually be called The Revolution. This is an eclectic mix from Minneapolis's north side. Their first show is at the Capri Theater in January of 1979, after which they did headlining club shows, starting with the Roxy in West Hollywood in November in 1979, before cutting their teeth.

Which is still there. Yeah, oh, yeah, for sure. And then they cut their teeth opening for Rick James' Fire It Up Tour for 42 dates. Now, so the members that you mentioned are the OGOG members. They are not what you will see later on as the Revolution in Purple Rain. That, of course, is bringing in pianist Lisa Coleman. And then there's Brownmark who's the bassist. He took over for Andre Simone and also Wendy Melvoine.

She comes in and replaces Dickerson. He was awesome. It was hot. All of them are amazing. And he purposely wanted women musicians with him in his backcountry, which I love. He made it a big point. He worked better with women in general. We'll get to it.

But for Purple Rain, he even pulled in for recording engineers specifically to women to record and stuff. And he just really, I think there was something about the way that he worked with females a little bit better over males. And that was a purposeful thing for him. According to Brian Z, he memorably described the band as Prince's embellishers. We embellished his music vision. Prince was also openly not a team player. He said, the reason I don't use musicians a lot of time had to do with the hours that I worked. This is what he told Rolling Stone in 1985.

I swear to God, it's not out of boldness when I say this, but there's not a person around who can stay awake as long as I can. music is what keeps me awake. I mean, he, again, his obsession, if he could have just maybe had gone to a therapist at one point, maybe he could have, like, we could have talked about this a little bit. And I know that you're a genius

and you're making incredible music, but let's communicate a little bit better. He said there will be times when I've been working in the studio for 20 hours and I'll be falling asleep in the chair, but I'll still be able to tell the engineer what cut I want to make. I used engineers in shifts a lot of,

the time because when I start something I like to go all the way through there are very few musicians that will stay awake that long that's that's how I feel about podcasting I can just talk and talk and talk for 20 hours straight I'm that passionate about it Natalie will just be like we are our uh Joan Rivers episode with Natalie was actually 24 straight hours long 24 straight hours we had to edit it down because we just and literally I there was a fake me that came in there was a fake Jackie that came that was just in a dress. They were just birds. They were just going,

ah, yeah, and they were just going, I don't know what, I didn't even notice. I was so in the moment, talking. It's unbelievable, and she literally, Natalie carries a whip with her

to strike Jackie, to strike me. And then also to strike herself, I mean, we don't need the self-flagellation. Sometimes you have to, to keep it going. She wears a scarlet A

on her chest to let everyone know she's had sex before. It's unbelievable. No. Yeah. Is my brother's wife? Yeah, I'm the,

I'm the most sexual podcast. It's definitely not me. I'm known as that. I've got a million analogies. I don't want to discuss any of our listeners, though. I'll keep them to myself. So I want to be your lover is the big hit that he gets off of Prince, the album, which is his follow-up to for you,

which he quickly puts together, mind you, because the first album did not set the world on fire. He wants a stronger release. Again, he's, of course, writing a range. producing, composing, and performing the entire thing himself. He had some vocal harmony done by his friend, Andre Simone, on the song, Why You Want to Treat Me So Bad. But he does get, I want to be your lover over.

It is, and the video for it showcases is playing every instrument and singing on the song, which is a lot of fun to watch. Did you see the cover of the album and the back cover of the LP? Because, oh my God, the front, Prince is shirtless, a halo of Farah Fawcett waves. On the back of the LP, his intentions to kick against rock and soul conventions were clear.

There he was, Sands clothes, riding atop a winged white horse, a Dionysian nymph, full of sexual intent. Dionysian. Dion. Dian. Dian. Dian. I know it's Dionysian. Diocesian.

Nymph. Diocinetia. Full of sexual intent. And it is, I mean, he's throbbing a pons. Oh my God. Where is that description? Yeah. Where is that?

I forgot. I read this description. I was like, yeah. All of his album covers are truly extraordinary. Yeah, they really pop. You're like, damn, especially after this one with dirty mind is like, wow, wow, wow, what? It's a hachimachi. Yeah.

Yeah, I did, I said, I did this a lot this week. Wow, wow, wow. I did that a lot, just listening to and viewing. Prince. I mean, especially I've been alone because Jeff is out of town. And so I openly did watching a clip of him yesterday. I was going, swing, swing to absolutely no one except myself. So he does have two other R&B hits on Prince the album, Why You Want to Treat Me So Bad and Sexy Dancer. He did, I Want to Be Your Lover and Treat Me So Bad, both on callback to a previous episode, American Bandstand in 1980. He performed them. And he, in classic Prince

fashion, refuse to speak with Dick Clark, only holding up like numbers and stuff to communicate and just smirking the whole time. And apparently an astounded Dick Clark struggling to interview the shy singer and guitarist after the performance, even though Prince was just not speaking to him, told Prince the music he played was not the kind of music that comes out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Which, that made me, I wonder if Prince continued to think about that of like, oh, it's not what comes out of Minneapolis? Right. You want to hear what I'm about to fucking bust your, face open with? You know, I feel for Dick. Wow.

Well, I mean, I want to be your lover. I get it. It is not a normal American bandstand. We get into sexy episode, but I don't know about all that. But yeah, and this, by the way, you're not going to hear a lot of quotes from Prince because he classically did not do interviews, really. He kept to himself. He was very

private guy. I mean, that is a lot of times the type of person that's really big on stage is going to be really not big in the private life and everything. But yeah, he straight up doesn't do interviews all through Purple Rain. It makes sense because he also is very open. This is from that same Rolling Stone interview from 1985.

He said, I used to tease a lot of journalists early on because I wanted them to concentrate on the music and not so much on me coming from a broken home. I don't live in the past. I don't play my old records for that reason. I make a statement, then move on to the next. It's almost as if he's saying, I don't have fucking time to explain to you what I'm doing to because he's writing, composing, he's singing, doing all of this for 39 albums.

Well, smartly so too. He is defining himself on stage and becoming this thing. Entity. I don't think he wants to be set down on earth by knowing what his childhood was like. I think he wants to be this thing that is. He's an alien.

That's what I like that. He did eventually start writing his memoir. Sure. The very, the beautiful ones. Yeah. Yes. But yeah, for most of it, he did want to seem just, I think, sort of like, ethereal. Yes.

Mystical. Mystical. Mystical. Angelical. He was going to appear a gelical. He was a bit of a, not at Mr. Mistophiles because that was the magical cat. No, he's a bit of a rum-tum-tugger. He's a bit of a rum-tum-tugger.

He's definitely tugged on something. He is a rum-tum-tugger. All right, everybody. Let's get into, I think my initial, like, okay, this is when he's fucking put out the hit jam shit with dirty mind. It is awesome. This is the end of 1980. It is him out fully as the sexual dynamo.

And he's finally like, I am sex. He might as well, he should have been called sex, not Prince. Yeah, it got dirty. It was dirty. He recorded mostly in his home studio. Many of the songs were cut in actually just one night. And it's notable for its shock value and especially around this time. These songs would be shocking today, but it would be, like, you know what I mean?

But back in the early 80s, songs like head about seducing a bride-to-be with a very awesome pussy-eating session. I mean. You know what I mean? I was intrigued. If you've listened, I mean, I'm intrigued. Right. I guess I'll try it if you say you're that good. I'd like to proposition you with a spectacular pussy-eating session.

Okay. I guess I should try before I get married. And then you have sister, which features the line, Incest is everything it's said to be, which is a little rough. That's a little rough because he has an actual sister. And he wasn't close. I would be a little uncomfortable if my brother made that song. Oh, yeah.

I mean, I won't even let my family listen to my podcast. You think I would let them listen to something that's just like, I suck Jeffrey. Yes, you've met him. I suck his dick, mom. That's really catchy, though, Jackie. I was looking Natalie in the eyes as I said it. There's a lot of really uncomfortable things happening at once.

This is an uncomfortable episode. If you wanted to be more like Prince, you'd sing about fucking your brother. Yeah, yeah. I'm glad you didn't say Henry in that song. No, no, no, no, no, no. That would have been, we might have had to have stopped the podcast for a little bit. Right, no, they've never on a podcast pretended like they had some weird sexual relationship bringing there. That's never happened.

happened before. But so 1980s dirty mind switching the subject. Look at how good she is switching the subject. Wow. Look at her. That's really when he puts the Minneapolis sound on the map. Yes. It is when he's fusing different genres of music together.

This is really, this is when he takes a giant leap creatively. And for the first time, it's when critics have started giving him his accolades similar to, oh, the plot line of Purple Rain. Yeah. That he started off thinking, and knowing he's a genius and then eventually his beloved.

It wasn't stuff I was super familiar with, but I did hear songs on this that I had heard before. Well, when you were mine, I think is one of the bigger ones. I think that is a fantastic print song, one of his first great songs. And apparently he actually wrote that on the balcony of a Florida hotel room after declining an invite to join his band

on a day trip to Walt Disney World. And this was during, which is hilarious to be, this was during, so I just loved the mental image of him all pouty on a, hotel balcony and then it cutting over to like the rest of his band like riding rides and like laughing also though apparently he was really struggling during this time and that's why he had such a good creative output because uh it really sucked being on tour with rick james rick james i didn't write down any quotes but they were like laughably mean like he really was a dick about prince and he was like no one listens wants the list of that kind of shit whatever like rick james is kind of a jerk but he also at this time because now we see Prince is the entity, the jellical entity that he is. But at the time, again, you have to remember things were very different then. And even there's all these stories about when they were touring, when Prince of the Revolution

are touring with the Rolling Stones. There's one in particular when they said they were at the LA Coliseum. This is around the time after Dirty Mind comes out. It says Prince hits the stage in his signature black bikini briefs and a trench coat expecting a similar enthusiastic reaction to what he was getting in the smaller venues on their tour. It was quickly apparent, however,

that the predominantly white, rock-oriented crowd was not feeling it. The music wasn't the problem. The artist's new wave inflected funk may not have made sense to the older crowd, but it was Prince's androgynous appearance. He's getting booed. They're throwing these people.

But what I love about it, though, is that what does he do because he's getting all of this bad backlash? He's like, well, fuck. you, I'm going to dress even crazier. And he then just triples down on his androgynous look and doing whatever the fuck he wants to do because he's trying to make harmony at the

end of the day, not make dissonance. And I think that's also another point that that is huge when it comes to Prince is that he wasn't trying to push anyone out of the audience. He wasn't trying to say, I'm not a black artist. He was trying to say that I am all of it. I want to be all of it. It doesn't make sense to me. that happened at the Rolling Stones because that is also sort of a sexual androgynous. Big Jagger's so flamboyant.

Well, this is what the weird hypocrisy that happens with people, especially when it comes to race and things like that. It is just, it is, and this is what he's trying to break through on is to become known as this rock and roll god at the same time of being this like funk-infused thing.

Princess publicist Howard Bloom said, the record industry provides probably the strangest example of segregation. in South African apartheid. A frequent unspoken separation of blacks and whites that subtly and insidiously damages our industry. If a black axe record is rock and roll and belongs to on AOR radio, that's too bad.

The Black Special Markets Department drops the record because it's not appropriate for black radio and the white AOR and pop departments generally refuse to touch the record because of the color of the artist who made it. Which we were just, we have been talking about this on page 7 because of Lil Nas X. So this is still happening to this day.

The Grammys just got a blasted for this kind of thing. Yeah. And not recognizing hip-hop enough in their ceremonies. I mean, it's still an issue. But also, wasn't it on the country music awards, like Billy Ray Cyrus got an award and they didn't for that song like not Lil Nas X? Oh, I don't know. Which is like, that's ridiculous.

Yeah. And so it's still happening. Yeah. And, you know, and Prince is leaning into it. Next, he names his next album Controversy. And this is 1981. By the way, very little space in between these albums. And there's a lot of good shit on these albums.

It continued his exploration of dirty, dirty, fuck fucking music with songs like sexuality, do me, baby, and jack you off. Prince said, sex is something we can all understand. It's limitless. Hell yeah, Prince. I love that. And because it is an umbrella under which all people,

for the most part, can get, underneath. I get why people are turned off by how sexual he is, especially in this time. I get it. I mean, I don't because obviously you guys have heard it. You listen to me. So I think that you,

but I understand that it made some people uncomfortable. I could speak towards that a little bit because I'm not, you know, I've talked about classically I don't like, like, sexy TV shows and stuff. And it is, I have to let go of a little bit of my own personal bullshit to like lean in to a song like jazz. you off. But once you do, it feels

so good. Oh, yeah, baby. And also politically, though, I really love his politics in this album. He said, it was a revelation recording this last album. I realized I could just write what was on my mind and things that I'd encountered, and I didn't have to hide anything. The lyrics on the new album

are straight from the heart, whereas the other albums were more feelings, more dreams, and fantasies, and they stuck to the more basic formulas that I'd learned through playing top 40 material in old bands. Yeah, totally. And I really loved how he got sort of guttural. Like his moans and his whales and stuff started coming up in these albums.

Oh, yeah. So sexy. Totally. It's a little gothgy, too. Yeah. A little punky, too. Like, he's got a lot of stuff going on in there. And he's really addressing things.

I feel like a lot of pop stars, it took them decades to get ballsy enough. I love the lyrics and controversy. Am I black or white? Am I straight or gay? Do I believe in God? Do I believe in me? And he goes on to invoke the... Lord's Prayer in this like dirty sexy pop song.

Because this will come into play later on when he becomes a Jehovah's Witness, but he was raised Seventh Adventist, Adventist. Seventh Day Adventist, which is a very strict Christian organization faction. I know a lot of that religion. I know that it's a very, it is very religious and very strict about what they feel about a lot of things that I don't agree with. And so you can see that Prince never really loses that, even though no matter how sexual his stuff gets,

there are still the elements of the idea of God, the idea of religion. He never lets that go. And so when people are like, oh, but he's so sexual, his God fear is still there. Yeah, and also, sex isn't that fun without it being a little naughty. Yeah, that's why you're going to make it bad guys plot. Yeah, I guess that.

Before we get into his true breakout with 1999 and when he becomes full-on prince, the absolute rock god giant pop star that we know today, we should say around this time he also puts together a side project called The Time for which he wrote and performed most of the instrumentation and backing vocals, usually under a pseudonym, with lead vocals by Morris Day, who is the comedic relief, the nemesis group in Purple Rain. Is he the comedic relief in Purple Rain, or is he the man that puts a woman inside of a dumpster?

You didn't find that at all? Yeah, you mean comedy. I was like, did he just put her inside a lot? He got through, and it's supposed to be funny. She's like, where were you? I missed you. Because he left her after fucking her, and then he throws her in a dumpster.

Not figuratively. He basically picks her up and throws her in a garbage can. But remember the part where he's like, do the bird dance? Oh, my God, the bird dance is so fun. I mean, we'll talk about the bird dance. You didn't laugh at all when he threw that grown woman into a trash can. I mean, of course I kind of did, but I was just like, damn, that's fucking harsh, bro.

It was more jarring. I've been waiting for you all night. Where were you? And then he just throws her to trash. Rose or in a dumpster. I mean, it's very bad, and we should all feel very troubled about that. I saw this movie as a little girl, and I'm sad that this is my welcoming into being a woman. I just can't stop thinking about Apollonius panties.

It's weird. It's just a swat. He was rubbing her straight up her vagina in that movie. He was there. We were watching them to have sex with each other. Like, I think we were watching them have sex with each other. I'm sure that there was no actual. All right.

We're getting ahead of ourselves here. We'll get to Purple Rates. Dude, this is a quote from Jimmy Jam, member of the time, who I mentioned earlier. Jimmy Jam is just such a funny name. It is such a good name. That's where the comedy comes in. But he, he, this is just one of many delirious quotes about Prince's work ethics, so I love all of them. He said, we'd rehearse seven hours a day.

He'd come to our rehearsals, then go to his own rehearsals. Then he'd cut all night in the studio. And the next day, he'd show up at our rehearsal with some new song that he wrote. and it would be Little Red Corvette or something and we'd be like, wow, that's dope. The other thing he'd do, he never wanted you to have a free hand. When I would be playing the keyboards,

if my left hand wasn't doing something, he'd say, find a part, fatten it up. Your hand shouldn't be idle. Then he would want you to sing a harmony note. Then it would turn into their hitting choreography out there. You guys need to hit it too. He was like a drill sergeant, but it taught you that you could be so much better

than you think you could. be if you just apply yourself. It's just, I feel like he's just putting these standards on people where it's like, did you like it when your father did that to you? No. Why are you doing this to people that can never, that are, no matter how insanely talented they are, it's so much to ask of someone that is not as, again, as obsessed with it as he was with everything.

I wish that I was obsessed with stuff enough. I don't know if I'd want to hang out. with you? What would you be obsessed with? I don't know, but I just knew all I took away from that Disney thing was like, I would have never skipped a day going to an amusement part. Right. So I'm never going to be Prince, ever. You'll never be bummed out on a hotel balcony writing a great song.

I want going wall coaster. Yeah. No, my fun takes precedence. But to him, again, everything he thought was music. And I guess if I would think of anything I thought of to the point that Prince thinks about it, I guess it's going to be food. Like I guess, I mean, I do have a hot dog tattoo, but I also don't like think about hot.

Like I don't wake up in the middle of the night sweating because I'm thinking about hot dogs. I mean, I have, but I don't usually. What is this story? I'm trying to think of something that I would be obsessed with. The way that Prince is obsessed with. I think I'm obsessed with. Dance and aerial train, like my circus stuff.

I think about 24-7. Yeah. For me, it's the circle of 90-day fiancé at this point, which is upset. So maybe we really just need to lean in the way that Prince leans in And this is what we need to learn from him Because even after he was getting all this hate and everything for the time when he was doing the touring He said you know what people that aren't hip to it I hope they do get hip to it

Where it's like well you got a step to me then bitch I'm sorry I keep your paradise again You just called Natalie a bitch Are you challenging me today's Natalie, point counterpoint on that. Wow. I think it's just because the content is so sexual, so it is a little uncomfortable,

which, like, I watched Purple Rain yesterday with Henry and Natalie, and Henry pretended to also touch on himself, not like in a silly way. Wow, again, this story is just making me upset. Like, he was being funny, like it was a funny thing. He was being a fun guy. It's a lot to watch with your family

Just a warning if you're gonna watch Burble Rain for the first time Maybe don't watch it with your siblings Or your mom If you do wanna touch yourself in front of your sister Ask for consent That's all I'm saying And then I get and it's why

I think that's still isn't it that illegal Right Not just I think just looking and touching Yourself probably Well I don't know the laws You know what I haven't brushed up On the incest laws and I think that that's okay for me I think that means I'm doing something right

So it's 1982 and Prince is just 24 years old when he went into the studio to make both an art album and his big pop crossover at the same time. Keyboardist Matt Fink said, I think he was trying to become as mainstream as possible without violating his own philosophy, without having to compromise any of his ideas. To some extent, he was trying to make the music sound nice,

something that would be pleasing to the ear of the average person who listens to the radio. yet send a message. Matt Fink also said he was invited to Prince's bounce house in his backyard one afternoon while making 1999, and he walked into the bounce house and he said, oh my God, I'm way at waist deep and what I think is glue. Oh, my God, it wasn't, it was balls.

And it was Bulls and come. Oh, was it bulls and a cumm? I got so excited that Prince had a bounce house in his backyard. No, I don't think he, no. Paisley Park, I imagine was nowhere near, even though I'm saying this outside of controversy, I'm saying ride-wise, things like that, was nowhere near as fun as Neverland.

I will throw that out there. Wow, that is controversial. I think it was not fun in a lot of ways. I'm saying when it comes to the content of it. Well, there was some rides that you didn't want to go on too. We were talking about, so 1999, this is really, we are, well, we're off the rails. Now we're off the rails.

We have papers in front of us. This is when he is finally heading in the direction that he wanted to be headed in. Finally, Prince's audience were getting more diverse. So Des Dickerson said, in the beginning, especially when we're doing the Fire It Up Tour with Rick James, we were doing what was foundationally an R&B circuit. Even though most of them were arena shows or at least larger cap theaters, we were playing primarily to African American audiences. But Prince's game plan was that we were going to be this multiracial, multicultural rock band, and we weren't going to be pigeonholed. One of the analytics that went into measuring our success in reaching that objective was the racial mix of the audience. For us collectively, we wanted to be a band that was popular.

We didn't want to be a popular black group or a biracial or a multiracial group. We wanted to be the biggest band in the world and all that entails. And this is when they become that. This album is recorded both at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles and in his purple house outside of Minneapolis. And it is heavily influenced by the new romantic movement and new wave music coming from groups like Duran to Rand and the new technology being used. utilize for it. Now, tech is king right now. This is actually when technology really takes over

popular music sound. So it's about having the newest machines. It was about having the Oberheim synthesizer and the Lynn drum machines, the top of the line stuff, newest coming right out at that time. And that's how they were building these songs with these pulsing synthesizers sounds that defined the sound of the 80s in a way that more so than many other groups at the time. It did, but he was using what was popular at the time, but it really was his own sound. It really was Prince coming into himself for fucking sure. And defining it for everyone else. Yeah.

And that's the big thing. It's like, this is what 80s music will sound like, motherfuckers, and that is how it happened. Also, talk about technology, though. Video killed the radio star. This is the MTV Revolution, and that's how he's really able to break out on another level is with his videos for 1999 and Little Red Corvette, which were in heavy rotation. This was actually a first for black artists. MTV, much like what we were talking about before with other institutions,

was classically a very white, widely programmed channel musically until Prince. Prince was the first one. And then, of course, Michael Jackson would take over not too long after that, but he was really the first one. And despite being a double LP, 1999 became a number seven hit and went platinum within a few months on the strength of pop anthems like 1999, Little Red Corvette, and Delirious. So I guess being a double LP usually would hold it against you when it comes to the billboard top of the charts. I don't understand the part of that when it comes to the business. No, I have no idea. But apparently it's very difficult to do that.

And this is when he finally is getting the success and the critiques that he really wanted. And he was hitting it, which really what gives him, well, this is at the same time that I have to talk about this story. This is really when Michael Jackson and Prince started feuding. And a lot of people would ask of like, oh, they must like each other. And there were many times that Quincy Jones would come in an attempt to get them to work together and they fucking hated each other. So in 1980, that makes more sense to me than I'm liking each other.

I mean, it does because if you think it's like they are, like all of this buildup. In 1982, his little red corvette was competing with beat it for airtime on MTV. Prince released his breakthrough album 1999. This release earned the singer his bestselling album and nod for fifth bestseller of the year. Coming off of 1981's controversy, it set up the proper career inclined for Prince. But just one month after 1999 hit story,

Jackson released thriller. Enough said there. Michael Jackson goes to the stratosphere and has the biggest album of the year and the biggest album of all time. And Prince is like, I gotta get to that. Hell yeah. So at the same time,

this is when, which please look it up, there is footage of when they both, both Michael Jackson and Prince went to a James Brown concert. And so James Brown invites Michael Jackson up on stage and Michael Jackson starts dancing in a like few, style of both James Brown and Michael Jackson's moves, and then he goes over and he

whispers to James Brown, and essentially he said, you should bring up Prince, too. He should bring up Prince. So Prince wants to top him. So Prince comes up on stage, and he goes over and takes a guitar from one of the people on the stage, doesn't realize it's a lefty guitar, can barely play the, I mean, he still shreds it. He still Prince. He did it with a lefty guitar.

And then he attempts to do these dance moves, but it just, the audience was not. not having it. And then he, like, bowed because no one was getting into what he was doing. And then he goes to, like, spin off stage and he knocks into a prop, this, like, lantern prop thing that knocks over into the audience. And so essentially Michael Jackson set him up to, because he knew that he was going to want to top him, that he comes on stage and just, it's uncomfortable to watch. Because he just biffs it.

And so that is really, really, really, So this after thriller and 1999 going head to head. And it's just going to spin out from there. I'm going to keep dropping in little tidbits because I'm obsessed with their mounting feud over their lives. It does make me think of stepbrothers. And I would like to see a movie of those two. And then he put his balls on his drum set. Did you touch my drop set?

All right. I think that is where we're going to leave off. We're leaving things out. We're leaving things out. We were saying we were going to... No, there's too much. We are at the point of purple rain. We kept saying that we were going to get to purple rain,

but I don't... You guys, we have too much information, and I think, because we've said this multiple times throughout the episode, I think we're just going to kick off next episode with it, because I don't want to rush through it. You can't. Yeah, and I'm in agreement with that, and we just have so much to talk about,

guys, I think this actually may be our first three-parter already. I don't even think Wizard and the Bruns are, done a three-parter before. This is obscene, but it is too prolific. Again, we've only talked about, what, four, five albums? Of 39. And of course, we're going to have to clip through

some of them. We're going to have to clip through some of them. But I even saw, there's like an oral history of just his Super Bowl halftime show online. There's so much. I hate this so much. So even his later career that doesn't have as many memorable albums has all these memorable moments and things

to talk about with all that stuff. Well, you can't, you can't speed through Purple Rain. You gotta take it nice and slow. We gotta take it nice and slow because it's so what he does.

Dude, it has been in my, I want to say it's in my head all week. It's been in my soul all week. And also, Little Red Golf and Merrittoo. Oh, so good. So good. Nikki has gotten into my soul.

I have been trying, it's the same with Mariah Carey though in sitting and like a child trying to sing a lot. along with the high-pitched singing that I could never hit. Right. So here we are. Prince is now literally we're at the point where he's transitioning from

Nightclub Act to Arena Act. This is the period where he's on the map fully as the man we know as Prince. Not yet the symbol, though. And he is about to make the craziest demand. This is the most impressive thing I've ever seen by a person in a career, staying to his management. If you don't find, if you don't get me a deal

for a major motion picture, I'm going to drop you. That is where we're at in Prince's story. That is where we'll leave you this week. The Cajonies, the Cajonies, the Cajonies. That's what I want you to remember

about Prince. Maybe it's like, he's all nut. He's all nut. What am I learning about this? I need to be nutting more. I need to start believing in myself more of just like, you know what? No, no, no.

I'm not asking you for this. I'm telling you. you I deserve it. And that's what I'm taking from all of this research. Right. And that is where we're, that is where we're going to get to next week. I can't wait to talk about it. I can't wait to talk about sign of the times. I can't wait to talk about just all this, just huge career explosion. Prince the God is next week. Let's get into it. The rise, the fall, the rise again, as per usual, the absolutely tragic early passing. Let's cry again. Oh, I will. I feel like I will. I'll cry about it.

It's just because I'm going to be wearing those apollonia panties. There you go. And I'll be chafed. The ones with the strain that's just like loose fabric in the front. And now it's time for apologies. I'm sorry for all the cum jokes I made. Sorry I don't have anything to apologize for because I'm too perfect. You're an angel.

I was trying to think about it. But yes, Natalie, yet again, you show the demon shows us she is actually truly an angel. She's an angel. And us angels are flying to heaven because I'm excited about our move to spot of We're not going to die. We're just going to Spotify. Ah, that's good. Pop history is going to Spotify exclusive on Valentine's Day, February 14th, 2020.

Put a heart on it. If you haven't tried Spotify, it's free to download and use on any device. No credit card needed. All of our episodes are already on there. So go ahead and check it out. All you have to do is search for our show in Spotify to start listening for free. And Jackie, can you download all episodes for offline? listening with a free account, sorry not sorry?

Holden, sorry, not sorry, you can download all episodes for offline listening with a free account. Oh my God. With Spotify, you can listen to all your favorite podcasts and music and think about how much Prince would come all over the stage all in one place. And that's Spotify. We're excited about it. We're going to listen to Pop History together on Spotify. Free on Spotify.

We love you guys. Yeah, also check us out. Patreon.com page 7 podcast. Also, also check me out on Twitch.tv.TV forward slash hold nater. So you can check me out and the Natty Jean on all the bullshit. And I'm Jackie

and you can follow me on Jack that Worm. Yay! Yay! Yay! Oh my God, we have so much more prints to talk about. Oh my God, dude. Love you guys. Bye. Bye. Bye. This show is made possible by listeners like you. Thanks to our ad sponsors.

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