Obsession of My Life during the Month of September 2011: Prince

In the grand tradition of posting terrible sharpie’d tattoos I’ve dreamt of getting, I give you September’s ode to my latest obsession:

Split ends and Tramp Stamp 4Evah!  I’m actually embarrassed to have posted that photo, but my very personal trainer took the time to follow me around my apartment while I was topless, so I couldn’t just not post it (and by ‘very personal’, I meant she’s my best friend, and I threw ‘trainer’ in there simply because she drunkenly eggs me on while I practice Cagle exercises in my bathtub on Thursday nights).

Class, class, class.  So anyways, after nearly an entire summer of listening to hardly anything except Yacht Rock, I spent my September getting my sex on with the Sex King himself:

 

Oh god.  I think any attempt of going after the under-twenty-five demographic for blog viewership is completely futile at this point (and I swear I like modern stuff too!), but I can’t help my unabashed love for Prince, nor would I ever want to.  He nearly tops the list of my favorite artists of all time.  Not only did the Little Red Corvette help me lure in and pulverize whatever fell in the way of my sheets last month, he also reminded me of how okay I am with songs about peace, love, sex and nuclear proliferation – as long as it doesn’t reek of sandalwood and acid breathe.  Plus, this clip wouldn’t exist without his existence:

I’m not gonna say much about his more recent music because there isn’t much to discuss.  It sucks to say genius runs dry sometimes, but it can, and it does.  However, 80s and 90s Prince knows how to temporarily transform me from being an asshole into a smiley dance machine.  It doesn’t matter what activity I’m doing while listening to Prince – whether it be cooking, fucking, weighing myself, spitting, writing or making a filter – my butt begins to impulsively sway, and all of a sudden I start feeling sexy:

The major negative criticism I have of that song is that it’s way too short.  I usually end up playing the track about six times in a row before I’m fully satisfied.  On first listen, my very personal trainer was a total bitch, and not only said that she hated the song, but also that it wouldn’t even be relevant if it weren’t written by a big name like Prince.  After taking my leather glove off and slapping her face with it for such blasphemy, I kindly explained to her that the lyrics of I Wonder U (and countless other Prince songs) remind me of the breathless, yet grammatically erroneous compliments people give each other during a really fun make-out session.  Right?  Like, in the heat of the moment when you say, “You’re such a hunk/so full of spunk/I’ll give you head/til you’re burnin’ up” and so on.  Anyways, before I go into the next…whatever you call it…I need you to watch this:

Good taste in art, the Joker has!  There’s a parallel here, and I’ll get to it in a bit.  But first, there was a thought that occurred to me when I was deliberating as to why Prince isn’t as massively popular in the annals of American pop culture as Michael Jackson.  Both artists had comparable talent, and they each did their fair share in popularizing R & B with…um, lighter-skinned listeners.  But, have you ever listened to MJ’s lyrics?  Aside from Dirty Diana, and to a lesser extent Billy Jean, Jackson’s lyrics were so clean, that every parent, child, and fucking dog could stomach his songs for their sheer pop value.  Whereas, no matter how deserving of accolades Prince’s music was, there was no chance in hell of him reaching a global audience simply because his songs were just too damn sexy.  When Michael Jackson started focusing on heal the world/peace on earth bullshit (the period, incidentally, that the quality of his music started sliding exponentially), Prince was dry-humping backup dancers at the MTV music video awards.  To prove my point, every movie I’ve seen him referenced in only involves adult fans:

Surprise, surprise, Julia Roberts still manages to look smug while singing along to Kiss on her Walkman.  “Don’t you knock?”  Ugh, barf.  Don’t you talk to anybody, in a movie or on the outside, without total condescension?

So anyways, the parallel I mentioned earlier after the Joker’s jaunt in the art museum:  I don’t agree with many, many things that Tim Burton has done, but one thing I think he was rock solid on was selecting Prince to do the ’89 Batman soundtrack.  It makes such perfect sense to pick someone who clearly doesn’t give a fuck about what other people think of him to write music revolving around a villain who’s the exact same way.  I mean, you couldn’t imagine Trust playing along to Oswald Cobblepot eating a bucket of fish, right?  No.  The Joker was as sexy in his chaos as Prince has always been in his – match made in heaven.  The Penguin was just gross.