the artist formerly known as prince

Last night we were watching the American Music Awards on television. My daughter enjoyed bouncing around to the mostly insipid performances, while I struggled with having to accept that what was on display was the current state of music. Except it wasn't.

Most of the performances were lame Madonna-MTV-video-staged rip-offs. And either the sound system was completely out of wack, or most of the performers couldn't sing in tune live, from Coldplay to the Disney Jonas brats. I'm afraid I tend towards the latter, as Miley Cyrus and Beyonce sounded fine.

But when the Pussycat Dolls hit the stage all I could think of was Prince and his revolving door of babes through the years that sang or danced their way through his performances and videos. At least the Prince girls were trashy and fun. The Dolls were neither dolls nor fun. Just loud, fast and trashy.

And what ever happened to the Purple One? Well, appparently he has ditched Minneappolis for L.A. and is proseltyzing door-to-door. A recent interview with The New Yorker proves that Prince is just as strange and mysterious as always. But not necessarily in a good, crazy rock star way. The description of his "pad" versus the religiosity of his sound bytes doesn't mesh at all. I'm not sure our new president (or anyone in Washington, Democrat or Republican) would understand Prince's take on politics. Sigh.



At least we'll always have Raspberry Beret (insert you favorite tune here.) I'm not sure how he reconciles songs like Gett Off or Cream with his belief system. Of course he does have purple thrones, platform flip flops and a hot tub. God bless him, he's a dinosaur.

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