| Hey Soul Mates,
#5 Musicology... Prince. The hottest live performance of the year was accompanied by the release of my #5 disc, Prince's Musicology. The shows on the Musicology tour were a tour-de-force. The album is brilliant too. It starts off with the old school blast Musicology where Prince name checks Earth, Wind & Fire, James & Sly. It's the funkiest groove of the year. But this record ain't a party all the way through. Two ballads, the arena rocking A Million Days and sultry Call My Name, balance the funk of Life of the Party with its Diwali breakdown and hilarious story of Illusion, Coma, Pimp & Circumstance. Prince hits pop paydirt with Cinnamon Girl. Not the Neil Young song, this is a meditation on the life of a middle eastern kid driven to action in the post-9/11 world. The controversial video features Keisha Castle-Hughes from Whale Rider as the title character. Musicology is not a comeback. Prince has been releasing album after album the last 25 years. It's just that the fans came back. This album goes a long way toward reviving Prince's relevance to pop music. It's a reminder of his prowess as a writer and performer. This album has been nominated for a half-dozen grammy awards. The most noms for Prince since Sign "O" The Times and probably his most solid disc since that 1987 groundbreaker. Love, Power, Peace |
Hey Soul Mates, Check out your boy. Yes, I did look that damn suave at the Grammys last night. Look, the tickets very clearly said "black tie." What could be less rock and roll than black tie? Not wearing "black tie." Frankly, the hipsters and the club girls just looked silly. Maybe I'm getting sartorially conservative, but you must be clean for the Grammys. We arrived early in the afternoon. A beautifully mild afternoon in downtown L.A. and not a sign of the predicted rain. I wanted to experience the whole nine, so we got there in time for the "Pre-telecast" ceremony. This is where 97 of the 108 gramophone statuettes are awarded. It was much more entertaining and endearing than the actual broadcast. The winners were genuinely moved, were not limited in their speech time and came in all stripes. Now, very few of the acts I voted for won. But the day did start off with a bang as OK Go won best short form video for the treadmill hopping video for Here...
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