Penman on Prince

I really enjoyed this piece, made me want to listen to Prince - and of particular interest is this identification of a sort of hollowness at the centre of Prince. I've always felt unable to connect with Prince's music emotionally and this made me think perhaps that could be part of the 'fun'.

Now reading some of Penman's other LRB essays and I must say I'm jealous of his writing skillz.

Compare the sacharrine sweet centre of Michael Jackson's music, probably disguising some thoroughly immoral behaviour behind the perimeter fence.

Mind you of course MJ was increasingly artificial - his face, his tics, his persona.

Fame is a motherfucker.

edit: and in today's social media climate not so possible - the thing now is to be relatable and reachable. The closest to MJ/Prince as a persona (and a mad one at that) these days is undisputably Kanye.

Im assuming the forgive me if I go astray at the start of poetix new poem comes from the 1999 quote in the penman piece. I was going to steal it too.

So did you read it luka?

Is Penman the (Pen)man?

"Parker’s flinty, recondite music slowly shades into the background; he becomes better known for a ruinous pile-it-high lifestyle, for being the only addict pre-Fassbinder to get fatter, not thinner, as his habit deepens; for plunging into late decrepitude only to die in the lap of luxury, in a high-society eyrie belonging to the Rothschild child and ‘Jazz Baroness’, Pannonica de Koenigswarte."

Elegant sort of sentences like this (although 'Rothschild child' e.g. is shite)