Dear friends, I could easily construct many years’ worth of New Masculinities Playlists drawing exclusively from the catalog of one artist: Prince. If you’re a regular reader of this website, or even a casual observer of masculinities in popular culture, you already know why. Prince’s incomparable discography, iconography, and public persona were the very sound and image of an identity liberated from the nonsense confines of mainstream gender.
This past week, I had two Prince-related pleasures. First, Prince’s estate released for the first time his original 1984 studio recording for “Nothing Compares 2 U.” Listen to the vulnerability of the wobbly organ line in the intro. Listen to the confidence of the cymbal crashes. Follow the winding path of the saxophone solo. Imagine creating something so beautiful and never feeling a need to show it to the public. It’s one of a hundred worthy entries to the New Masculinities Playlist in Prince’s catalog… that we know of. It’s my track 4 for 2018.
Second, I visited Paisley Park for the first time. My favorite moment came while I was standing on the parquet floor of Studio A, gazing into the control room. Behind his favorite drum machine and synthesizer, barely visible in the artificial candlelight, I could see Prince’s chair. You ever get chills looking at an office chair? I did. Prince must have spent thousands of hours in that chair, building beats, composing lead riffs, recording vocal tracks, perfecting his pop symphonies. A mundane leather office chair, the center of the pop music universe.
Brian Heilman is a listener, learner, evaluator, advocate, opponent of gender, proponent of pop music, Senior Research Officer at Promundo, B at B&B Justice Factory, and frequent list maker.
Edited by Brett Goldberg
