Prince: The Making of a Pop Music Phenomenon

208 Pages·2011·1.478 MB·English

by  Stan Hawkins, Sarah Niblock

Prince: The Making of a Pop Music
Phenomenon
Stan Hawkins and Sarah Niblock
Prince: The Making of a PoP Music
PhenoMenon
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Prince: The Making of a Pop
Music Phenomenon
sTan hawkins
University of Oslo, Norway
and
sarah niblock
Brunel University, UK
© stan hawkins and sarah niblock 2011
all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
stan hawkins and sarah niblock have asserted their right under the copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the authors of this work.
Published by
ashgate Publishing limited ashgate Publishing company
wey court east suite 420
union road 101 cherry street
farnham burlington
surrey, gu9 7PT VT 05401-4405
england usa
www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
hawkins, stan. Prince : the making of a pop music phenomenon. – (ashgate popular and
folk music series)
1. Prince – criticism and interpretation. 2. Popular music – social aspects.
i. Title ii. series iii. niblock, sarah.
782.4’2166’092–dc22
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
hawkins, stan.
Prince : the making of a pop music phenomenon / stan hawkins and sarah niblock.
p. cm. – (ashgate popular and folk music series)
includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-7546-6876-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) – isbn 978-1-4094-3439-9
(ebook) 1. Prince – criticism and interpretation. 2. rock music – united states –
history and criticism. i. niblock, sarah. ii. Title.
Ml420.P974h39 2011
781.66092–dc22
2011014193
isbn 9780754668763 (hbk)
isbn 9781409434399 (ebk)
bach musicological font developed by © Yo Tomita.
V
contents
List of Music Examples vii
General Editor’s Preface ix
Preface xi
introduction 1
1 The Making of the authentic Pop icon 15
2 inscriptions of otherness: Dandyism, style and Queer sensibility 35
3 a god of earthly Pleasures 55
4 Voicing the erotic and the sublime 75
5 ‘Take Me with U, Prince’: Female Identifications with
a Male Pop icon 95
6 The Princian sonic universe: Matters of compositional
and Performative Proficiency 123
7 The live experience: Performance and Performativity at the
o2 arena 151
Selected Discography/Filmography 175
Bibliography 179
Index 189
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list of Music examples
4.1 speech forms in musical dialogue in ‘Purple rain’ (Prince and
The revolution, ‘Purple rain’, Purple Rain, warner, 1984) 79
4.2 The melodic hook of ‘Purple rain’ (Prince and The revolution,
‘Purple rain’, Purple Rain, warner, 1984) 80
4.3 Main riff in section b of ‘raspberry beret’ (Prince and The
revolution, ‘raspberry beret’, Around the World in a Day,
Paisley Park, 1985) 84
4.4 groove from ‘when Doves cry’ (Prince and The revolution,
‘when Doves cry’, Purple Rain, warner, 1984) 88
4.5 four-chord synth riff in ‘1999’ (Prince, ‘1999’, 1999, warner, 1982) 91
4.6 ‘Party’ in ‘1999’ (Prince, ‘1999’, 1999, warner, 1982) 92
6.1 bass line from ‘Tramp’ (otis redding and carla Thomas, ‘Tramp’,
The Dock of the Bay, rhino stax/atlantic records, 1967) 135
6.2 ‘7’ – ‘and we will watch them fall’ (Prince and the new Power
generation, ‘7’, the Love Symbol album, Paisley Park/warner, 1992) 135
6.3 lyrical articulation in ‘7’ (Prince and the new Power generation,
‘7’, the Love Symbol album, Paisley Park/warner, 1992) 140
6.4 bass riffs from Planet Earth (Prince, ‘Planet earth’, ‘guitar’,
‘somewhere here on earth’, ‘all the Midnights in the world’,
‘chelsea rodgers’, ‘lions of Judah’, Planet earth, nPg/columbia,
2007) 143
6.5 selected riffs from Planet Earth (Prince, ‘Planet earth’, ‘guitar’,
‘The one u wanna c’, ‘future baby Mama’, ‘Mr. goodnight’,
‘resolution’, Planet earth, nPg/columbia, 2007) 147
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general editor’s Preface
The upheaval that occurred in musicology during the last two decades of the
twentieth century has created a new urgency for the study of popular music
alongside the development of new critical and theoretical models. a relativistic
outlook has replaced the universal perspective of modernism (the international
ambitions of the 12-note style); the grand narrative of the evolution and dissolution
of tonality has been challenged, and emphasis has shifted to cultural context,
reception and subject position. Together, these have conspired to eat away at the
status of canonical composers and categories of high and low in music. a need has
arisen, also, to recognize and address the emergence of crossovers, mixed and new
genres, to engage in debates concerning the vexed problem of what constitutes
authenticity in music and to offer a critique of musical practice as the product of
free, individual expression.
Popular musicology is now a vital and exciting area of scholarship, and the
Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series presents some of the best research in
the field. Authors are concerned with locating musical practices, values and
meanings in cultural context, and draw upon methodologies and theories developed
in cultural studies, semiotics, poststructuralism, psychology and sociology.
The series focuses on popular musics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
it is designed to embrace the world’s popular musics from acid Jazz to Zydeco,
whether high tech or low tech, commercial or non-commercial, contemporary
or traditional.
Professor Derek b. scott
Professor of critical Musicology
university of leeds