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@ChickieD posted this in the other Prince thread - AMC and Carmike will be playing Purple Rain in theaters this week:
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Some great links to videos I’ve seen going around:
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If wouldn’t be crazy crowded EMP is showing that for free this weekend.
And says ‘sold out’ already.
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I love that he changed his name to a symbol just to mess with his record label (and in the process shine a huge spotlight on his grievances even though they were largely ignored by mainstream media because “lol his name is a symbol”).
It’s just absurd to me that they literally owned the rights to his given name until he was out of his contract.
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That’s the recording industry for you - they’ll take everything they can get if they deem it profitable enough. There was a long history of especially black artists getting screwed out of royalties and being denied access to their works. Prince’s intervention here was critical to opening up new avenues for all artists, but especially African Americans to demand more favorable contracts form their labels (or to strike out on their own).
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The symbol was also very clever because, not only did it give him lots of publicity, but he basically changed his name from Prince to Prince. If he’d used any other combination of letters in the alphabet, his name would change. Instead, he created a new “letter” which by itself said Prince. Same name, different spelling. If you’re at all pop savvy, you just look at that symbol and think “Prince.”
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It’s not shyness but an intentionally-cultivated image. Andy Warhol used to give interviews like this too. Both of them were well aware that playing it mysterious and evasive would give a much more memorable interview than answering an interviewer in a typical fashion. It takes a lot of self-assurance to do that.
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Just came back from Purple Rain. It’s held up better than I thought it would. Sure, the lace gloves, those 80’s triangular sunglasses, assymmetrical haircuts place it firmly in its era, and the plot is as thin as a dime, but Morris Day’s comedy is classic (“the password is what?” “that’s right” “what’s the password?” “exactly.”) and the emotions in the music are as real as the plot is hokey. Everyone in the theater clapped through those epic final three songs when Prince gets his groove. And then the final flash of light out of the guitar neck and the Blue Steel moment as it cuts to the credits. We had fun.
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Not Bernie Sanders too!
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Ah, and the dual mics for the vocals/backing track was such a neat idea as well! 
Of course, it can always go horribly wrong as well…
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Reading on Wikipedia suggests that British pop culture cannot be truly apprehended without understanding “Industrial Action.”
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Anyone but me just can’t stop thinking about Prince, about how fabulous he was, about how we all thought he was fabulous but then now that he’s gone we realize he was even more so? It’s weird. I feel this deep ache to hear his music and hear people talk about him. I haven’t really thought that much about Prince in a while. Now I hear his music and I think, “Wait, how come nobody talked about his vocal range, that I can remember, when I was in high school but now listening to this stuff again, holy cow the guy had a huge range, and it’s effortless.” or I see a montage of his outfits and I’m like, “He totally out-Bowie’d David Bowie with his epic outfits.” Or, watch a video and think, “Did anyone mention that he’s like, a better dance than Michael Jackson yet? Because he was really good.”
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Saw Diana Ross’ daughter yesterday telling the tale about the time that she met Prince when she was around 11/12… Backstage at one of his big stadium concerts – he was making the rounds and came up to her and her mom and did the usual niceties… He then turned around to move on and she was faced with his cheeky countenance…
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