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Prince: A Purple Reign - BBC2 30/07/12 11:30pm


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Old 30-07-2012, 13:40
unique
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http://www.radiotimes.com/episode/ns...a-purple-reign

Prince: A Purple Reign

Review by:Jack Seale


If there’s a problem with this profile, it’s that – like its subject – it’s a bit short. An hour of telly simply isn’t an adequate container in which to capture Prince’s ludicrous genius.

Rhodri Huw’s film tackles this impossible task well, however. It judiciously skips through everything since 1991’s Diamonds and Pearls in its last ten minutes, leaving time for some nice insights into how snowy, white Minneapolis produced a 19-year-old funk master who played every instrument on his debut LP.

Collaborators describe the sheer hard work during his incredible mid-80s purple patch – one recalls Prince rehearsing until late, then arriving the next morning with Let’s Go Crazy on a tape he’d recorded overnight. As usual the mysterious man himself is absent, so the film favours still photos, those teardrop eyes burning through the screen.

About this programme

Profile of the enigmatic American musician, who rose to fame in the 1980s with hits including 1999, Kiss and Raspberry Beret. As well as achieving significant commercial success around the world, he won critical acclaim for his adventurous, genre-blurring albums, such as Sign O' the Times and Around the World in a Day - while also making headlines for his sexually explicit lyrics and stage shows, as well as his legal battle to retain control of his name and music. Featuring contributions by guitarist Dez Dickerson, Public Enemy frontman Chuck D, soul singer Beverley Knight and Paisley Park label president Alan Leeds.

interesting documentary on prince originally shown last year as part of BBC's black music history series, repeated tonight on BBC2 at 11.30pm presumably as the movie came out 28 years ago. upon release of the movie prince was simultanously number 1 on the US movie, album and single charts, something that no-one has done since, the beatles were the only other people to do it, and the album spent 24 weeks at the US number 1 spot, which no-one has beaten since
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Old 30-07-2012, 15:47
mevilhoney
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Thanks,I`ll be watching that,last Prince cd I had was that free one on the Daily Mail/Mirror. It wasn`t good if I remember. Only on the radio recently I heard something that was ripping off a little Prince.
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Old 30-07-2012, 18:08
soundstory
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http://www.radiotimes.com/episode/ns...a-purple-reign




interesting documentary on prince originally shown last year as part of BBC's black music history series, repeated tonight on BBC2 at 11.30pm presumably as the movie came out 28 years ago. upon release of the movie prince was simultanously number 1 on the US movie, album and single charts, something that no-one has done since, the beatles were the only other people to do it, and the album spent 24 weeks at the US number 1 spot, which no-one has beaten since
Yes it was very good, better than the Janet Jackson one the week before.....
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Old 30-07-2012, 18:15
Alvar Hanso
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Thanks,I`ll be watching that,last Prince cd I had was that free one on the Daily Mail/Mirror. It wasn`t good if I remember. Only on the radio recently I heard something that was ripping off a little Prince.
Lotus Flower, I think it was called, as a fan who has seen him live 3 times and has about 22 of his albums, it left me cold, I turned it off by track 3( still was never a fan of the period after The Gold Experience up until Musicology when he returned to form a bit)
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Old 30-07-2012, 21:50
unique
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Lotus Flower, I think it was called, as a fan who has seen him live 3 times and has about 22 of his albums, it left me cold, I turned it off by track 3( still was never a fan of the period after The Gold Experience up until Musicology when he returned to form a bit)
20ten was the last album, given away by the daily fail in the UK (3.5 million copies in a day), and by a bunch of different newspapers and magazines across europe the same day and throughout the week, so in all about 20 million hard legit copies in peoples homes in a week, and he got paid upfront. not bad for a ****ing awful album

lotusflower came before that, only released in the states originally, a triple cd only sold in target stores and just missed the number 1 spot by a few copies. again he did a deal with target to get paid upfront and made a packet. it got a later french release as a 1 disc and limited 3cd set (the 1 disc was just 1 of the 3 cds). lotusflower had some decent stuff on it. the bria valente album wasn't bad as an attempt to make a sade album. before that it was planet earth given away with the daily fail (3.5m copies in a day) but also sold as retail in the states and elsewhere, and given away with the 21 nights in london shows. that had about 2 or 3 decent tracks. it wasn't bad, it just wasn't cohesive

what's annoying is he has a pile of much better stuff in the vaults that he won't release or put on albums, but he'll release utter shite instead, but then leak out the odd track here and there that's miles better than anything on an album. WTF is up with that. he's also supposed to have a great album in the vault that was recorded before 20ten was released, but that seems to be shelved

band are in rehearsals now (again) and he's just ended his publishing deal with universal, so there might be something out soon
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Old 30-07-2012, 22:33
DRAGON LANCE
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Can I just say that Planet Earth (also given away with Daily Mail) prior to the not so good 20ten album was a superb album. The title track and Guitar are two of my fave Prince songs ever. His last great album, IMO.

I agree he seems to purposefully screw up on other releases though. In a nutshell, I don't think he cares anymore. If he wants it, he can unleash a barrage of classic songs we've never heard before from his Paisley Park Vaults. If he doesn't want it, he'll just release a load of crap, and not be bothered in the slightest. He's made his millions, he loves teasing his audience, he's happy to call himself a symbol or Prince and at the end of the day we are all part of his game. As are the record companies who are probably fed up of him by now.
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Old 31-07-2012, 07:19
unique
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Can I just say that Planet Earth (also given away with Daily Mail) prior to the not so good 20ten album was a superb album. The title track and Guitar are two of my fave Prince songs ever. His last great album, IMO.

I agree he seems to purposefully screw up on other releases though. In a nutshell, I don't think he cares anymore. If he wants it, he can unleash a barrage of classic songs we've never heard before from his Paisley Park Vaults. If he doesn't want it, he'll just release a load of crap, and not be bothered in the slightest. He's made his millions, he loves teasing his audience, he's happy to call himself a symbol or Prince and at the end of the day we are all part of his game. As are the record companies who are probably fed up of him by now.
that's pretty much it. he's pissed off so many people along the way, so after parting "mutually" from universal, the big names are hardly lining up at the door to deal with his shit. he could release the good stuff but he just holds it back. he is surrounded by yes men, he badly needs someone to say no, that's shit, release that instead

the thing is, whilst there are a lot of unreleased tracks circulating, the holes were plugged a while back, so we don't know much about the unreleased stuff from the past 15 years or so. he has put out some great stuff like rainbow children, news, one night alone, so there must be more like it, and that's what keeps fans interested, along with the live shows, the aftershows in particular
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Old 31-07-2012, 15:14
Aries_123
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Dammit! I missed it
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Old 31-07-2012, 16:54
Nasalhair
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20ten was the last album, given away by the daily fail in the UK (3.5 million copies in a day), and by a bunch of different newspapers and magazines across europe the same day and throughout the week, so in all about 20 million hard legit copies in peoples homes in a week, and he got paid upfront. not bad for a ****ing awful album

lotusflower came before that, only released in the states originally, a triple cd only sold in target stores and just missed the number 1 spot by a few copies. again he did a deal with target to get paid upfront and made a packet. it got a later french release as a 1 disc and limited 3cd set (the 1 disc was just 1 of the 3 cds). lotusflower had some decent stuff on it. the bria valente album wasn't bad as an attempt to make a sade album. before that it was planet earth given away with the daily fail (3.5m copies in a day) but also sold as retail in the states and elsewhere, and given away with the 21 nights in london shows. that had about 2 or 3 decent tracks. it wasn't bad, it just wasn't cohesive

what's annoying is he has a pile of much better stuff in the vaults that he won't release or put on albums, but he'll release utter shite instead, but then leak out the odd track here and there that's miles better than anything on an album. WTF is up with that. he's also supposed to have a great album in the vault that was recorded before 20ten was released, but that seems to be shelved

band are in rehearsals now (again) and he's just ended his publishing deal with universal, so there might be something out soon
Wasn't "20Ten" released with the Daily Mirror, and before that "Planet Earth" came out with the Mail? (You're right though - "20Ten" was bloody awful.)
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Old 31-07-2012, 21:45
unique
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Wasn't "20Ten" released with the Daily Mirror, and before that "Planet Earth" came out with the Mail? (You're right though - "20Ten" was bloody awful.)
yeah, you are right. you know i never got 20ten with a newspaper. i got a pile of copies of the cd early. the day of release it was pissing it down typical british style, really horrible. i had no reason to go outside, even though the store is across the street, so didn't leave the house all day. i was going to pick up a few more copies so i had a few with the paper and mag and to send to people etc, but then when it was raining and i already had a load of copies and i thought about PE which i have a huge pile of copies as i also got a load in advance, plus more on the day, and then tons more during all the o2 shows, as i had tickets for all the nights, plus i came across loads of spares, plus the guys on the door where just handing them out like sweeties. one guy i know got 200+ copies as for a laugh he tried to get as many as he could, and at least a couple of times got a full box of them. let's just say both of us will never need to get coasters from ikea ever again. i didn't get as many with musicology as that was a US only tour and they weren't so generous in handing them out on the door

i know the person who brokered both cd deals. for PE he had already arranged for a normal cd retail release, but had the rights to do what he wanted, and inspired by the daily fails tubular bells giveaway he thought it would be cool to be the first to give away a new album. he got a pile of cash in advance, more money than he would have got if he got a 50% cut the retail value of his previous album, so he was very happy. the record company weren't so happy to read that he was giving away for free an album they planned to release in stores. so pulled the uk release. it was released elsewhere though

for 20ten he got different deals in different countries. again paid upfront, and about 6 or 7 times as many cds were distributed to homes in a week, plus he made even more money from all the different deals. there was to be a 20ten deluxe with extra tracks, but nothing came of it. rich friends and hot summer were a couple of the extra tracks
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Old 31-07-2012, 23:22
Alvar Hanso
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ah 20 10, yes I remember now, has all of you seen Kevin Smith discuss his experience of meeting Prince, pretty funny and gives you some insight into his world
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Old 31-07-2012, 23:23
Alvar Hanso
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Dammit! I missed it
it's on BBC I player, I just watched it
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Old 01-08-2012, 00:00
Everything Goes
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it's on BBC I player, I just watched it
Im just going to watch it too.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode..._Purple_Reign/
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Old 01-08-2012, 07:22
unique
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ah 20 10, yes I remember now, has all of you seen Kevin Smith discuss his experience of meeting Prince, pretty funny and gives you some insight into his world
yes, both of them. i was there when kevin was filming. paisley park is just along the highway from the eden prairie mall where mallrats was shot, and the dvd commentry for clerks was recorded in mpls

what got me was kevin was actually naming names, just first names, but i knew exactly who he was talking about. prince went apeshit about it. they have a policy where they get people to sign stuff so you don't talk about things or hold them liable if you hurt yourself or anyone else (as they have a lot of ball games there, i was shooting hoops and playing tennis and stuff), but they stuff give you it with a pen and don't pay much notice, so kevin didn't sign it. he spoke about that in the second audience with dvd. i know the first was on youtube, i presume the second would be too
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Old 01-08-2012, 10:07
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Always left me completely and utterly cold. Never understood the alledged "genius" of the purple ponce.
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Old 02-08-2012, 23:50
mr muggles
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Cant deny it was gr8 to see a 'rough' overview of his career, but...

Parade was totally overlooked, apart from a brief clip of the Kiss single. Lovesexy didn't feature much either or 1999. And the Black album...

Would have been nice to have seen an interview with Chaka Khan, who has worked with him on a couple of projects.

Still, it was gr8 to see coverage of the earlier parts of his career.

Hilarious to see people interviewed saying his early way of dressing had 'never been done before' - Rick James was doing it all before! (and Little Richard before him!)

Still, overall it was long overdue.
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Old 03-08-2012, 08:04
unique
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Cant deny it was gr8 to see a 'rough' overview of his career, but...

Parade was totally overlooked, apart from a brief clip of the Kiss single. Lovesexy didn't feature much either or 1999. And the Black album...

Would have been nice to have seen an interview with Chaka Khan, who has worked with him on a couple of projects.

Still, it was gr8 to see coverage of the earlier parts of his career.

Hilarious to see people interviewed saying his early way of dressing had 'never been done before' - Rick James was doing it all before! (and Little Richard before him!)

Still, overall it was long overdue.

http://www.mixcloud.com/XFM/25-4-parade-april/

you might be interested in this, a fan did a documentary for XFM radio for the 25th anniversary of parade and intereviewed matt fink (keyboards), clare fischer (who did all the string/orchestra parts for prince), bill oddie (from the goodies, the birdwatcher bloke who is a massive prince fan), and brett anderson (from the band suede). he got an award for the show

the bbc omnibus documentary from the early 90s was one of the best documentaries. they originally arranged a rare interview with prince, and flew to mpls to see him, but he pulled out last minute, so instead gave the bbc some rare and unseen footage that was being put together for another unfinished prince project. the same documentary was re-edited as the prince of paisley park and shown in the states. there have been recent repeats of both versions on the sky arts channel and on vh1 (i think on demand) in the states. i think they used a few clips from that footage in the new documentary

if you saw the other docs from last years series you might have noticed they filmed the jam and lewis and public enemy etc interviews to cover janet, PE and prince. PE were recently on stage with prince in australia. i have videos of it. prince playing bass whilst flava flav raps 911 is a joke! if you think that's weird, prince covered fight the power in rehearsals in the 90s, and of course chuck d is on one or two prince productions and PE sampled prince once or twice on their own music

dunno why CK wasn't on it, but i presume it just depends on who is available, and getting bigger names to comment for docs isn't so easy. plus people have their fall outs with him. she's collaborated with him quite a few times over the years. one of his earliest demos was a recording of sweet thing, and it was her cover of i feel 4 u that ressurected her solo career in the 80s. only last year she was onstage with whitney houston at a prince gig in LA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyxyoWn9-jY

it was 29 years ago today that purple rain was played live to an audience for the first time at first avenue in mpls, that show recorded on multitrack (and filmed) and used as the basis for 3 of the tracks on purple rain. the album version of purple rain is edited and overdubbed from that performance
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