Shadow Puppets 1
We, the tribe who cut our teeth during the powerpop era, were forced to listen to a lot of music we didn't really cotton to--some of which was okay, some of which was, as the kids say, Teh Suxxor.
I always felt bad for not liking Prince--his fey misogyny got on my nerves, even if he could play the guitar. All those girls--couldn't they play their copious keyboards in something other than lingerie?
In addition, it seemed to me that both he and Michael Jackson were playing with a certain kind of androgynous hatred for women--shit, Prince still wears more makeup than I do. And remember, this was before Michael Jackson was publically known to get children drunk and sleep with them, and even before Prince himself had his famous catfight with Sinead O'Connor.
So it's not a Tipper Gore thing with me: I could care less whether the music is sexually explicit. But there's always been a certain Short Man's Disease bravado in Prince's assertions of sexuality. And I admit, I just found it kind of icky.
But not as icky as this.
Shadow Puppets 2
As noted in the title of this post, I don't object in principle to the guitar/penis metaphor, if it's done cleverly. But I also confess that I don't see a lot of difference between this and Michael Jackson grabbing his crotch in "Black or White," or indeed, his younger sister's nipple peek last year in the same forum. And yet, apparently there has been no real outcry over the ickiness, which is really just an extension of the ickiness he's been leveraging for the last 25 years.
The video is here.
