Prince's Legacy #4

#4: Musicology

Musicology dropped in 2004.  It’s an R&B-heavy album and was Prince’s most successful album since Diamonds & Pearls.  My bestie and I went to the concert and scored front-row seats.  We were maybe twenty feet from His Royal Badness and it was epic!!!  My bestie is an even bigger fan than I am; she saw him in concert five times.  One of the things she told me was that Prince’s concerts ALWAYS started on time, and that magical Monday night was no different.  The show was from 7:30 – 11:30 and opened with Morris Day & The Time.  We were screaming like lunatics and on our feet the entire time.

I remember it like it was yesterday.  Prince opened with “Musicology” and shortly thereafter, invited several women to the stage to dance.  The bestie and me tried to go, but were cut off by some of the roadies.  It didn’t matter.  One by one, those who failed to keep up with The Purple One were ceremoniously dismissed from the stage and the “winner” was allowed to simulate playing Prince’s Telecaster for maybe two minutes.

At some point during the first third of the concert, I was jumping up and down and singing along with everybody else and Prince pointed at me! Swear to God; hand on my mama!  Me!  The General of the Purple Army pointed at me, a lowly minion.  I imagine I looked a hot mess with my boobs bouncing, but I didn’t give a shit.  My bestie swears he didn’t do it, but that’s because he didn’t point at HER.  It was one of the greatest moments of my life.

The second third of the concert was magic.  Prince gave the band a break and came back onstage in a red outfit and an acoustic guitar.  He plopped down on a stool, played some of his classics and 18, 238 loyal fans sang in unison.  There were several moments when he didn’t even sing; he let us do it for him and his smile was the stuff of unicorn dreams and dragon tears.  The final third of the concert brought the band back and closed out with his past hits and ended, like all Prince concerts do, with “Purple Rain.”

It was a charmed evening.  I spent the rest of the week partially deaf due to our proximity to the stage, but I gave not one single fuck.

Now on to the album review.  Favorite tracks are “Musicology,” “Call My Name,” “On the Couch,” and “Life o’ the Party.”  “Musicology” and “Life o’ the Party” are funky cuts with sickening beats and if you can resist getting up to dance, you’re a stronger person than me.  That bass…O_O!

“On the Couch” is a straight up church song.  Not the lyrics, but the music.  Anyone who grew up in a black church like I did will recognize that tune right off.  Prince just put some stank on it.  I am convinced that Prince was watching Love Jones one night and wrote the lyrics to “On the Couch” while doing so.  He makes a reference to the movie, so I’m convinced.  It’s a sexy track and now anytime I hear that church anthem, I will think of Prince and sex, not Jesus.  Oh well.

“Call My Name.” 

*sigh*

I was writing Lovesick and listening to this song when I received word that Prince had died.  I felt like the bottom of my stomach fell out as I conferred with friends on FB and Twitter, trying to get clarification on what and when.  When it was confirmed that he was gone, I put “Call My Name” on repeat and listened to it for hours as I cried on my couch in the fetal position.  If you know the song, then you know the chorus.  Literally, I was saying his name because I felt like maybe everybody was wrong and Prince had trolled the entire world; that if I said his name, everything would be back to normal. 

Well you know how that turned out.  To this day, whenever “Call My Name” comes on, I think about that night.  I think about how much joy his music gave me and gives me still.  I don’t cry anymore, but I do have a moment.  I still love the song regardless.

Musicology reached to #3 on Billboard.