I would like to formally thank whoever manages the NFL’s YouTube channel for helping me—and millions of other frustrated viewers—mourn Prince. In the wake of his shocking death yesterday, one ofthe rare videos of Princeavailable to stream online is the NFL’s high-quality footage (with accompanying commentary) of the 2007 Super Bowl Halftime Show—aka the greatest Super Bowl Halftime Show there ever was, and ever will be. Similar regards go out to Radiohead, for fighting to keep Prince’sexquisite and rageful cover of “Creep” at Coachella 2008 on YouTube. I fear the internet may have gone mad without these few clips that have escaped Prince’s tireless copyright war, if not for slacking off at work then for sharing on social media. How do we perform our grief publicly if not with recommended viewing?
It has been truly odd watching people try to figure out how to mourn Prince online, given the scarceness of his work in that arena. By now even the big Boomer bands more or less have submitted to the internet’s gravitational pull, some with a big Spotify deal but most everyone by simply not ardently policing takedowns on YouTube rips the way that Prince did.
I understand and respect Prince’s wishes to keep his music monetizable in spite of the whole unpredictable “art should be free” belief that the internet enabled. (If you’re Prince—and please remember how unshakably confident Prince was—you know you’ve got something that people will continue to buy.) That, of course, doesn’t account for the way that the social web has allowed us to use pop culture ephemera—clips from old TV shows, GIFs of specific lines of dialogue in movies, songs previously thought to be lost—to communicate with our social circles. When someone like Prince dies and fans have no way to express the specificities of their fandom online, it makes for some pretty interesting sharing. I saw peopletweeting screenshots of the lyrics to their favorite Prince songs, instead of sharing some shitty YouTube rip.
Now I’m not necessarily advocating in favor of the shitty YouTube rip, but seemingly ageless Prince dying out of the blue at age 57 is what I would describe as a crisis for many music fans. Desperate times, desperate measures—and sometimes for a greater good. For about a week after David Bowie passed, people in my own feeds continued to share their favorite overlooked album cut or 40-year-old TV performance or music video, particularly because Bowie was such a visual artist. It was a worthwhile way to remember this man who seemed bigger than life itself, and I learned a few things about Bowie as I grieved.
In this way, I view Prince in almost exactly the same light as Bowie—a highly visual artist who deserves to be seen as well as heard, particularly now after his sudden passing. You can watch MTV’s on-air marathon of his videos or listen to Minnesota stationThe Current’s stream as they rip through all-Prince sets, but those are passive acts of fandom. People who want to express their sadness online have few specific artifacts to share in light of Prince’s passing, even on the slight chance they do subscribe to Tidal (where Prince’s catalog streams exclusively), or you know, actually paid real money to own these albums. (PSA: Pay real money to own these albums, they are worth that much and more.) Given Prince’s contentious relationship with the internet, this is a situation that is almost wholly unique to him, and the absurd amounts of people who love him.
You didn’t have to be cool for Prince to rule your world. He was someone that if you were born at any point after, say, 1980, you were most likely aware of in some way from a young age, even if it was simply as “that guy who changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol.” It was as if the world just taught you about Prince, or at least his biggest hits—in suburban shopping malls, on the radio, as some distinct (yes, purple) thread in modern pop’s cross-stitch. This is truly incredible, considering how fucking filthy Prince’s music is. And yet, his slightly less explicit songs—from “Little Red Corvette” to “Raspberry Beret” to “1999” to “Kiss”—became the pop soundtrack of America for decades (and counting).
It’s no surprise, then, that as I walked home on Thursday evening, Prince blared from cars up and down Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues in downtown Brooklyn. It was warm, windows were open, and people were trying to cheer themselves up with the very man who got them down. It felt good to share these songs with strangers out loud in the street, particularly “Darling Nikki,” the Purple Rain cut obscene enough to inspire the Tipper Gore crusadethat led to the establishment of parental advisory stickers on albums. How delicious to hear Prince’s quivering badness howl like it was meant to, to see it dance on the grave of a bygone-era’s prudishness.
This scene also reminded me of how New York felt the night another culture-shifting icon—Michael Jackson—died in 2009, a time when Twitter was still mostly nascent and your mom wasn’t yet on Facebook. In other words, there were far fewer people channeling their inner monologue and grief towards social media at that time. But they were certainly still out there in the streets feeling and dancing, and they were there again last night. I have to say, it didn’t feel terrible to mourn Prince for real, out in the world. I have to imagine, too, that it’s probably what he would have wanted.
But for the sake of the task at hand—performative mourning of iconoclasts who meant everything to everyone—allow me to share with you my own (highly specific) favorite Prince moment. It’s impossible to pick one, but this one at least makes me laugh, which is what we could all use right now. Midway through “International Lover,” 1999’s seductive closing piano track, Prince announces: “Good evening, this is your pilot Prince speaking/ You are flying aboard the Seduction 747/ And this plane is fully equipped with anything your body desires.” I love Prince for that. He was so comfortable with sex, he could show that it’s pretty funny, too.
Find more on Prince and his legacy here.