Prince

Hello, dear reader!

April is gone, but its links remain.

I’ve been obsessed with my current personal project lately (more on that soon), so apart from a handful of very brief movie reviews, I didn’t do much writing in April, though the web designers in the audience might want to take a look at my notes from last week’s Generate conference.

The links this go-round include some gems for Prince fans on the second anniversary of… See more →

Sweet Jesus I will be spending a lot of time with the annotated discography just launched by the Prince Estate. princeestate.com

“He realized he had to socially handicap himself to be the artist he wanted to be […] he had to be a complete enigma.” twitter.com/guardian/statu…

Prince’s original 1984 recording of “Nothing Compares 2 U” was just released for the first time. 💜 pitchfork.com/news/listen-to…

Hello, dear reader!

March is gone, but its links remain.

I gave a brief talk about designing information at the annual Society for News Design conference, and also shared my notes from the other talks I took in.

Always ahead of the trends, I left Facebook at the beginning of the month, a little over two weeks before the news about Cambridge Analytica broke (news which long-time readers may not have found shocking). Since think… See more →

1. “Cream,” Prince
2. “Love Takes Time,” Mariah Carey
3. “Gonna Make You Sweat,” C+C Music Factory
4. “Groove Is in the Heart,” Deee-Lite

How the hell did I never notice that Prince’s “Cream” is essentially a cover of T. Rex’s “Bang a Gong”?

🚨 For your weekend: Prince’s spectacular 1987 concert film, Sign o’ the Times, is now streaming on Amazon Prime. amazon.com/gp/video/detai…

Animated Subway Maps Compared to Their Actual Geography

These are a wonderfully concise look at design thinking.

How G.O.P. Leaders Came to View Climate Change as Fake Science

Murray Energy — despite its enormous clout with Mr. Trump and his top environmental official — boasts a payroll with only 6,000 employees. The coal industry nationwide is responsible for about 160,000 jobs, with just 65,000 directly in mining, according to the federal Energy Information Administration.

By… See more →

One of my favorite things I’ve read about Prince. daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2017/06/susan-…

I worked for Jared Kushner. He’s the wrong businessman to reinvent government.

I worry that this new office will be more of the same: a vanity project, one that exists primarily to put Kushner in the same room with people he admires whom he wouldn’t have had access to before, glossing government agencies in the process with a thin veneer of what appears to be capitalism but is really just nihilistic cost-cutting designed to project… See more →

Absent its jaw-dropping stage performances, Purple Rain is a weak film. And yet, there is something about the stilted drama of its narrative that elevates those stage performances, giving Purple Rain the peculiar distinction of being stronger for the inclusion of its weakest moments. Its otherwise clunky character development is lent a certain cohesiveness when expressed musically. The unconvincing relationships and turmoil established in various poorly-staged, non-musical moments somehow manage to make the already-amazing songs… See more →

Just saw Sign o’ the Times on the big screen and I guess I have to go home now but I just wanna dance. 💜

Medicine.

“Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you. I only want you to have some fun.” 💜

My first 3 albums, age 8–9, all on cassette:

Duran Duran: Seven and the Ragged Tiger
Van Halen: 1984
Prince: Purple Rain

Still 💜 ’em all.

You know the one. Dr. Everything’ll Be All Right.

“So if you still have friends
Raise a glass with them
Happy New Year
Prince can’t die again” macmccaughan.bandcamp.com/track/happy-ne…

A Final Visit With Prince: Rolling Stone’s Lost Cover Story

“All of us need to be able to reach out and just fix stuff. There's nothing that's unforgivable.”

The Contributions of Others: A Session with Jeremy Keith

“I’ve found that on the web, it’s best to assume nothing. That might sound like a scary prospect, but it’s actually quite liberating. Giving up on “pixel-perfect” control doesn’t mean giving up on quality. Quite the opposite: it… See more →

One of many magic moments in chronological Prince listening: Dirty Mind coda “Partyup” dovetailing perfectly with Controversy’s title track.

1985, home of the American Music Award for “Favorite Black Single,” announced by the whitest folks they could find. grantland.com/hollywood-pros…

“Remember when everybody used to have those arguments about who’s better, Michael Jackson or Prince? Prince won.” slate.com/blogs/browbeat…

That little dissonant detour in the chorus of “Sometimes It Snows in April.”

“All of us need to be able to reach out and just fix stuff. There’s nothing that’s unforgivable.” rollingstone.com/music/features…

Police Body Cameras: What Do You See?

“People are expecting more of body cameras than the technology will deliver,” Professor Stoughton said. “They expect it to be a broad solution for the problem of police-community relations, when in fact it’s just a tool, and like any tool, there’s a limited value to what it can do.”

Inside Operation Trump, the Most Unorthodox Campaign in Political History

Politics require some amount of cynicism and hubris. Trump… See more →

“1984 was the greatest pop radio summer ever [because] everybody was trying to make their own Prince record.” rollingstone.com/music/news/pri…

“He is feeling it because everyone is feeling it and he is everyone.” medium.com/@danielralston…

No more skipping live shows of artists that are important to me. No more opportunity for that regret. See everyone at least once, ASAP.

Even if it had ever occurred to me that Prince was mortal, I couldn’t have anticipated the magnitude of the loss. I’m still so sad.

“I remember a little scuffle broke out… one night and Prince said, ‘Stop fighting, you’ll mess up your clothes.’” rollingstone.com/music/news/pau…

After 5 months with @swinsian, I’m switching back to iTunes. Many reasons, but the final straw is the need to have Prince songs on my phone.

☔️

Spike Lee’s block party honoring Prince is the first thing I’ve smiled at all day.

Spike Lee and friends celebrate Prince. 💜

Spike Lee’s Prince block party. 💜

Taking a slightly different route home tonight.