Prince Has Died
theverge.com
theverge.com
When asked what it feels like to be the best guitarist alive, Eric Clapton said, "I don't know. Ask Prince."
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-et-ms-prince-a...
> Tensions between artist and label first came to a boil in early 1994, when he decided to drop the name Prince and asked that people start identifying him by an unpronounceable symbol--thus disassociating himself, in a most burdensome way, from the guy who recorded some of the most popular and acclaimed albums of the '80s.
> To further express his frustration, he stopped performing Prince-era material in concert and began appearing in public with the word "slave" written on his cheek. In 1994, he also released "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World," a successful single that was distributed not by Warner Bros. but by the independent company Bellmark Records.
> In one breath, he'll say, "If I knew the things I know now before, I wouldn't be in the music industry." In the next, he'll talk about his craft with such passion that it's impossible to imagine him working in any other field.
I suppose few of his independent ambitions here sound that crazy today...but this was in 1996, 5 years before the first iPod.
https://storify.com/joesteinbcpop/conflicts-between-record-l...
edit: This one is a bit more thorough - http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2011/10/prince-bio-201110
I might be wrong but my understanding is that it was a way to get around his contract with his record label (not to disassociate himself from past material).
My understanding is that it was a hack to make life difficult for the label while fulfilling the letter of the contract in order to prod them to release from the contract. I think marketing his music became a headache for the label, and DJs ended up calling him "the artiste formerly known as Prince"
He was a bit of a curmudgeon when it came to digital music in that he wasn't a fan of it or the services that provide it.
Interesting, however, that he was a fan of SoundCloud.
http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/957510/prince-the-int...
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110624/12140014847/princ...
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jul/02/prince-pulls-mu...
Upon signing into YouTube, I was surprised not only to not find any of his songs uploaded, but to also find several articles about his extreme distaste for digital music after Googling the topic. I ended up going to the record shop and buying a used copy.
And as far as the topic of whether this story should on HN, I tend to treat this news in a similar manner as the death of Bowie. Both artists were really creative, and were fiercely passionate and intelligent (at least from what I've seen and heard), not to mention they were masters at marketing themselves. These are attributes anyone who values innovative technology and startups might be interested in — at least in my opinion.
Regardless of whether it is on- or off-topic, the world lost a great musician who blended genres and broke rules, and that is a shame.
The statement from the local paper is much more useful: http://www.startribune.com/authorities-investigating-death-a...
At the risk of being argumentative, it would be a case of dying for his own idea of God.
From my point of view, he wasn't a straight-and-narrow JW member because he kept performing material which didn't fit that view. I doubt that anyone had the pleasant surprise of Prince knocking on their door one Saturday morning.
"Prince had his change of faith, he said, after a two-year-long debate with a musician friend, Larry Graham. “I don’t see it really as a conversion,” he said. “More, you know, it’s a realization. It’s like Morpheus and Neo in ‘The Matrix.’ “ He attends meetings at a local Kingdom Hall, and, like his fellow-witnesses, he leaves his gated community from time to time to knock on doors and proselytize. “Sometimes people act surprised, but mostly they’re really cool about it,” he said."
Minnesota will be collectively mourning with the rest of the music community.
All of our guitars gently weep.
It was AIDS complications is what other forums are saying.
If this is considered irrelevant on HN perhaps the article linked shouldn't mention anything.
The cause of death has not been released yet, but reports say he had the flu. That has nothing to do with fame.