Prince
Max Weinstein sent this to me two weeks ago and I absolutely forgot to post it. It's in reference to Prince's "new" album and his unmistakable genius.
It's from this thread: You know how amazing... I've collected it in one longer post for you.
You know how amazing it is when you hear LeBron James recite an entire quarter’s worth of plays from memory, flawlessly? This is a good metaphor for understanding one aspect of Prince’s genius. Let’s look at his 1986 platinum-selling album, Parade…
It’s an incredible album, one of Prince’s very best. (It’s the one with “Kiss” on it.) But structurally, it’s a bit odd — the first side of the album is a continuous suite of songs that segue together, bridging a whole range of styles and tempos.
That’s not so odd; all of Prince’s albums mix styles! But what’s extraordinary is how he *recorded* those songs. On April 16, 1985, just days before the release of his “Around the World in a Day” album & only *ten days* after the end of the Purple Rain tour, Prince got to work…
At Sunset Sound in Hollywood, Prince hit the studio and sat down at the drum kit. There, he played the drum track for four songs, the entire first half of one of his greatest albums, straight through. From his mind. Right on time. All the fills, every break & every tempo change.
Next, he layered on the bass. Then keys. Then guitars. Recorded all the vocals, including his own harmonies. Though they’d do another session a few weeks later with an orchestra to add strings to the tracks, in one day, Prince created four brand new unrecorded songs from scratch.
A couple days later, Prince went back to work, releasing the Around the World in a Day album; it immediately hit number one. Those 4 new songs would come out a year later when Parade was released. And all these years later, it’s still amazing.
Unmatched musical genius.
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