Thursday, April 21, 2022

Prince & Co.

I'm not a guitar solo guy, but yes, this is by far the greatest live guitar solo of all time.  It also reiterates that while white people are dull as hell, The Beatles are still incredible.  - XMASTIME, 2011

Every year on the anniversary of Prince’s death, we have to sit through about 90,000 posts about his lead during While My Guitar Gently Weeps at the George Harrison tribute concert. And rightfully so - he is, duh, fucking amazing.

HERE IT IS, ONCE AGAIN. PLEASE ENJOY AND I'LL SEE YOU IN A FEW. 

But as the years go by now I worry that entire generations are going to see this video before they know the song on the White Album. By the time I saw the Prince video I knew and loved every single inch of the song, so nothing Prince could do would affect how I think of the song itself. But if you’re some young kid and hear “OMG you gotta see Prince lay down some sick shit!”, what you basically see when you click on the video is Prince laying down some badass shit while some sad old white dudes strum acoustic guitars like a couple Girl Scouts around a campfire (a serious offense of NOT ROCKING!) So obviously they’re going to assume the song is probably lame other than when Prince comes in to totally fire-bomb it, which is a shame since the song IS ONLY ONE OF THE GREATEST SONGS EVER BY THE GREATEST BAND EVER!!!! Prince was one of the most famously reclusive celebrities ever, so even getting him to show up at this event - during normal, waking human hours - shows just how much he thought of George Harrison. But now I’m worried that with each generation, the brilliance of the song will be slightly watered down because of the video.

Of course I’m also an idiot, since every day The Beatles probably pick up a million news fans who know and love the White Album, so.

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