Okay, so I promised to write about Prince here a little while back, but I haven't really been sure when to start, and as I write I don't have a huge amount of time to do so but want to update this blog before the weekend. So what I thought I'd do is pick one element of Prince's appeal/talent that I really noticed for the first time recently, and restrict my comments to just one album - the one I'm most familiar with, Sign 'O' The Times.

So this is my current observation about prime-era Prince (who I will refrain from referring to as "his purple blah blah funky shortarseness" like music journalists always do): he makes you like sounds, and types of song, that you would never normally like.

Exhibit #1: 'Play In The Sunshine', from the very get-go, is so completely frothy and fluffy, in such a specifically 80s keyboards way, that even now I find it a bit much, and to my indiekid late teens self it was completely unacceptable... and yet. When the sun is out, especially, and you've got something to be happy about, this is a completely irresistable song. And what I think is most interesting and brilliant about it is the way it seems to recognise within the song how OTT and silly it is, and how it's impossible to fight that in this context - through the sequence where a group of voices shout "Play!" and Prince replies churlishly "No!"; this sequence is repeated with increasing pace until he caves and just howls "Yeeeeaaahhh!!!".

Exhibit #2: the song that it this applies to most today (meaing this point in my life rather than Friday) is 'Starfish and Coffee' - one of my favourite songs on the album, but if anyone else recorded a song with these lyrics, I suspect I'd want to hurt them. Especially the chorus - again, it's the breezy fluffiness, coupled with dayglo psychedelia, that I'd expect to grate - nonsense poetry, followed by the claim that "if you set your mind free baby, maybe you'd understand"... I can only imagine the fury I'd feel for someone like Des'ree if they had written or even covered this song, and given the subject matter, you can double that if the artist was male. But it's Prince. And somehow he makes it work. More than that, he makes it sublime.

(Note: I must write much more about this album. Perhaps about every song, but I promised that about the recent compilation I made, didn't I...)

Further thoughts on 'Rock Your Body' (because at least two people have registered their strong agreement with the post below), I give you: the basic dance steps explained.

1. Stand with your feet together and your shoulders leaning forward slightly, arms hanging loosely by your sides.

2. Imagine you are standing up to your waist in a barrel, the diameter of which is not much wider than your waistline. Bring your left arm up and then down as if to tuck it by your side inside the barrel, with the flat of your palm facing outwards.

3. Repeat step 2, this time with your right arm.

4. Look left, and then right, with small movements of your head, as if you were about to cross a busy road.

5. Take a step to the left with your left foot, and then slide your right foot over so your feet are together again.

6. Wiggle from your shoulders to your waist.

7. Stand on one leg and spin 360 degrees.

Simple!

Advanced pop dancing: the 'Crazy In Love' dance is more like... I dunno, super-hyper aerobics or something, but with a really overt sex vibe. I think you might have to be Beyoncé to be able to do it, though. Or just be limber (baby) - more limber than I am, anyway. If you haven't seen the video for this song yet, by the way, do it. Between the thumb-biting ("do you bite your thumb at me, sirrah?"), the dancing in geysers, and the whole Bogey-and-Bacall thing she and Jay-Z have going (without the age difference, I know, but it still works for me), it's just staggering. Whatever your sexuality or gender, I defy you not to love Beyoncé after this.

And if the rest of the songs on her album are up to the quality of 'Work It Out' and this one... wow. It comes out in a week and a half, about three days before I get paid next... Oh yes.

Finally got round to adding links to the mudshow (where vitriol is dispensed to the deserving) and the recently resurgent no way jose (brother in "issues" with bad religion). Read and learn, there will be a test.

Even back when I was studying them at uni, I could never decide on a favourite out of the Romantic era poets. Neither to read and write about (I'd have happily ditched another paper to do extra Romantic paper questions), or to idolise. William Blake is something of a god to me, but then again Byron was a total fucking rock/pop star... and that's before we get onto Keats, the younger Wordsworth, or Coleridge.

And in trying to juggle my desire to be all five of these (but ideally Byron or Blake) when answering the questions, look what happened in the following quiz:


You are Percy Bysshe Shelley! Famous for your
dreamy abstraction and your quirky verse,
you're the model "sensitive poet." A
vegetarian socialist with great personal charm
and a definite way with the love poem, you
remain an idol for female readers. There are
dozens of cute anecdotes about you, and I love
you.


Which Major Romantic Poet Would You Be (if You Were a Major Romantic Poet)?
brought to you by Quizilla

Shelley? Percy fucking Shelly?

Two months ago, I could have got Byron with a little wishful-thinking, but I'm not sure that's a good thing. Maybe I should give Percy another chance...

The whole thing with 'Rock Your Body' is that at first you think "hmm, this isn't as jaw-droppingly good as his last two singles, there are better tracks on the album than this", and then by the 25th time you hear it you realise that it is permanently engraved in your brain, utterly effortless and gliding and fun like being in the park on a sunny day. Justin is my avatar. If you believe you can dance that well, one day you will too, young 'un.

Yesterday, to top off an already splendid day (translation: a terrible day, but don't worry, it's fine, it's OKAY, everything is fine), I somehow managed to delete just slightly less than the entirity of my Hotmail inbox. On some level this was a disaster, but it feels like a missed blessing - a kind of mini-purge, requiring less sacrifice than moving to the other side of the world and living in a hut (cultivating a large beard), but with some of the same intended psychological effects. I now no longer have a list of names I need to reply to and Things To Do staring at me every time I log on... many of which I was never going to get round to anyway.

If you feel I owe you an email, though, it's probably best to holler at me now. I do love you all, honest.

When will I learn not to speak too soon?

There are too many people I owe email to, there are too many things I need to do in relation to my flat. There are stories I need to tell and shiny pound notes I need to pull out of a top hat. There are TOO MANY THINGS, damn.

But life is still good.

the witchy hour

Life feels very strange right now. I blame Red for reminding me inadvertently that night time is my favourite time for most things that aren't sleeping, and that my favourite time for sleeping is mostly in daylight, extending just past noon. But goddamit, I have to be at work at nine tomorrow and I should *not* be in some 24-hour net cafe, feeling like sleep is at least another hour away.

Oh my God. Scissor Sisters' 'Backwoods' appears to contain the lyric "if you take drugs with the thugs in the clubs what you really need is hugs in the discotheque".

This band's genius only increases. I know I keep promising a longer rant on the subject of them and specifically 'Electrobix'... It's coming. For now, go to the official site for tunes, but even better, check this out.

I wonder if they could take LCD Soundsystem in a game of tennis.