Finished up my Nirvana discs tonight, and grabbed a stack of Prince as well (or, as CDDB craftily called him 0(+> ). I only have a few Prince CDs but unlike other artists where I have a more complete collection on LP, most of my other Prince is on cassette and therefore dead to me.

The Hits/B-Sides collections are respectable, and I also have the New Power Generation CDs (including the special limited edition of ‘Gold’ that I still think is sooooo cool). Couldn’t find ‘Diamonds and Pearls’ and its holographic cover last night though, so I’ll need to dig a bit for that. Just throwing on the collections last night though then the first few tracks of ‘Gold’ put me in a good mood last night. While ‘Sexy M.F.’ has its place on a mix disc on my computer (so I hear it a little more often) I hadn’t heard ‘My Name Is Prince’ or ‘7’ for quite some time. And with the greatest hits discs, so much of the stuff from the 80’s has stood up incredibly well. Where the synthesizers and kind-of jazz stuff on parts of the ‘Gold’ album sound a little more dated to me (in that ‘an R&B record from a genius like Prince in the 90’s has to have Funk, Soul, Jazz and Hip-Hop influences all included’ feel to it), the stuff off ‘Purple Rain’, ‘Sign O’ The Times’ and the other albums from that time seem to show off the best of what could be done in the 80’s. Prince, I imagine, was a monster in the recording studio and like Miles Davis he has always had a knack for finding some of the best musicians available at any given time that may not have big names for themselves yet. And the energy in the 80’s was also more urgent, almost frantic. The 90’s tracks are more mature, smoother and generally slicker. But put on ‘Let’s Go Crazy’ and the tempo and energy of the song builds up to that first guitar solo… then just keeps amping up. And you get a few glimpses into the kind of guitar player Prince is, which is some of my favorite parts of this song.

‘Sexy M.F.’ is Prince saying I’m a badass and can do pretty much anything I want to at this point in my career. The song is great, even if I don’t think I can put it on and sing along with Celia in the room. The drums, horns, keyboards and bass are all extremely tight as well. I can almost imagine that if the lyrics were actually being sung that this is the song that James Brown may of wished he had done. Except that the hardest working man in show business would never do something that could alienate an audience or prevent airplay. But the generation that let James Brown sing about feeling like a Sex Machine probably wouldn’t have stood for James Brown feeling like a mother-fucking Sex Machine. But the sense of control that James Brown wanted from his band and the competing layers of sound is all there and I could surely see James Brown signing and dancing to it on stage (especially over the last couple minutes of the song). Prince wasn’t worried about it though. He released it as a single knowing there was no way it was going to get airplay, and when the single showed up at Tower I remember thinking ‘this thing is going to see like crazy even if you can’t put it on the radio’. Hell, we couldn’t even play it in the store (though it started a number of times, there always seemed to be JUST enough time for a supervisor or manager to run to the front of the store to hit the |>>| button on the CD player before anyone could really be offended). Still, it did sell well, and my guess is that most people who know Prince know this song.

With my Nirvana discs, I listened to just a couple tracks off ‘Nevermind’ last night (‘Lounge Act’, ‘Lithium’ then ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’) before moving on to ‘Bleach’ and the ‘MTV Unplugged’ discs. What surprised me was how slick and well produced ‘Nevermind’ now sounded. This is the ‘grunge’ sound? I remember how gritty it sounded in the early 90’s, but listening to it now it surprises me how polished it feels. Don’t get me wrong, I still think it is a great album (and ‘Lounge Act’ is surely in my top 100 songs list) but it is strange to get such a different impression of an album that I feel like I know so well. So I put on ‘Bleach’ to see if my impression of it had changed at all, and luckily it hasn’t. It still feels quite rough and edgy and has a much more DIY feel (even if the evidence of studio production is still found in the recordings). And when I put on the ‘Unplugged’ disc, I was amazed at how much this band did in such a short time. And how amazing Kurt Cobain performs on this disc. While calling it ‘Unplugged’ seems a stretch to me, the smaller and quieter setting allows for an amazing range for him and the band. And actually, I think the music and his voice is actually at its most powerful on this disc. Amazing that it is with stripped down amplification that this happens.

My friend Kyle (who I know from the bus rides between Tacoma and Seattle) and I met up this morning as I was starting to write this post. Kyle is a blast to talk to and is as deeply into listening and finding new music to listen to as I am. Our conversations almost always get around to ‘what have you heard lately’ and between the two of us there will be a power group or two, some obscure jazz or out there rock. It’s always a blast to talk to him and we often pass headphones back and forth to give tastes of something. Anyways, as I start typing this post today I see him at the back of the downtown bus when ‘Love Buzz’ comes on. I stride back laptop in hand and hold my headphones out just as looks up. He puts the headphones on and within a couple moments of each other, both of us have had a flashback to 20 years ago. He gives me a fist bump. I think both of us had just had our mornings made for us… then we go on and talk about how amazing Nirvana was.

But the point that we both agree quite heartily on is the opinion that as amazing as Nirvana was, neither of us realized at the time that the guy sitting behind Kurt was the genius Dave Grohl. As Dave takes his post-Nirvana career higher and higher (Foo Fighters and no Them Crooked Vultures where he get to play with JOHN PAUL JONES!) you see how the strung out grungy look of Nirvana led to Kurt’s success and fall. While the smiling face of Dave Grohl may not inspire sales to depressed teenage kids, I think Dave got it right. I imagine he is thrilled with the career he has had and who he has been able to play with. And he got to be part of a scene-changing band without it destroying him. Kurt might be the legend, but Dave is definitely my kind of musician. More about this when I get to those Foo Fighters discs …