Nothing Compares 2 Prince Rogers Nelson
April 19, 2018 9:46 PM   Subscribe

The original "Nothing Compares 2 U", with accompanying tear-jerking video.

Maybe fresh news for now but everybody's gonna hear it soon enough, the Prince estate has released the original 1984 recording of Nothing Compares 2 U, and I have to say that it's pretty awesome.

One of a few songs about his fiancee, Susannah Melvoin. Susannah is Wendy's twin sister, of Wendy and Lisa fame immortalized in the song Computer Blue, part of the Revolution and later their own eponymous band.

Susannah also did a few other things. See previously
posted by ashbury (31 comments total) 39 users marked this as a favorite
 
Hot damn.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 9:54 PM on April 19, 2018 [2 favorites]


Seems to just be this version with dubbed footage?
posted by onya at 10:33 PM on April 19, 2018 [1 favorite]


Thank you for this Prince, ashbury, Holy Spirit, everybody!! Sublime.
posted by riverlife at 11:14 PM on April 19, 2018


I cried like a baby listening to this in the car this morning. I'm Going Through Some Stuff Right Now and hearing Prince singing Nothing Compares for the first time hit fast and hard.
posted by potrzebie at 11:46 PM on April 19, 2018 [5 favorites]


It's interesting that his original doesn't seem to have the microtones that Sinead's did on "To You" in the chorus.
posted by msalt at 1:19 AM on April 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


Unlike most artists, I am eagerly awaiting the inevitable flood of posthumous releases from the Prince estate.
posted by snofoam at 1:52 AM on April 20, 2018 [12 favorites]


Lovely.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:18 AM on April 20, 2018


I went to the doctor guess what she told me
Guess what she told me
She said boy you better try to have fun
No matter what you do


Prince always looked like was trying to have fun, no matter what he did.
posted by chavenet at 2:47 AM on April 20, 2018 [10 favorites]


Sounds like I Am the Walrus at the beginning.
posted by PHINC at 3:22 AM on April 20, 2018


I haven't missed a musician this much since Sinatra passed away.
There's just a gaping hole in life and in music where they used to be.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 5:26 AM on April 20, 2018 [4 favorites]


I just discovered last night that the Prince estate had put up an annotated discography. (Warning, giant typography.)
posted by Catblack at 5:46 AM on April 20, 2018 [4 favorites]


Seems to just be this version with dubbed footage?

To my ears, the songs sound distinctly different, and the description below the fold indicates that this is a just-released version.

This is one of those posthumous "in memory of" "mashups" that pair a somber or sad song with old footage, including occasional slow-downs, particularly when the person in question looks into the camera, that usually makes me roll my eyes. But this time? Perfectly fitting tribute. (It's not sappy when it's someone you truly miss.)

Also, was Prince doing all his amazing moves in heels? DAMN.
posted by filthy light thief at 5:57 AM on April 20, 2018 [4 favorites]


Prince isn't singing The Family version though, He put the band together and the album was released under his label. I like this Prince version better.
posted by ceejaytee at 6:24 AM on April 20, 2018 [3 favorites]


Also, was Prince doing all his amazing moves in heels? DAMN.

I thought that was basically the ultimate precursor to his death, because he'd done those moves in heels for years, and he had chronic hip pain from it. Thus painkillers and eventually his overdose.

.
posted by limeonaire at 6:41 AM on April 20, 2018 [10 favorites]


Prince always looked like was trying to have fun, no matter what he did.

That's one thing that gets me about the footage (which doesn't seem to be synced up very well with the song IMO); we knew he could move around a stage, but there's an innate playfulness to his moves that's bracing. Michael Jackson may have been the superior dancer, but Jackson's routines were rehearsed to within nanometers of their lives. Sometimes it seemed like he wasn't even aware that there was an audience watching, which was never a problem with Prince.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:45 AM on April 20, 2018 [3 favorites]


Also, was Prince doing all his amazing moves in heels? DAMN.

Yes, like the majority of women in the same field.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:13 AM on April 20, 2018 [21 favorites]


As much of a musical god as Prince was, I still prefer the Sinead version. But this is really, really cool.
posted by DrAstroZoom at 7:22 AM on April 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


but Jackson's routines were rehearsed to within nanometers of their lives. Sometimes it seemed like he wasn't even aware that there was an audience watching, which was never a problem with Prince.

I will vehemently push back on this. Not at all the case, especially on Michael’s Bad and Dangerous tours. I don’t know how anyone could see those shows and not feel the strong connection to the audience.
posted by girlmightlive at 7:45 AM on April 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


Unlike most artists, I am eagerly awaiting the inevitable flood of posthumous releases from the Prince estate.

I hear you on that. Kevin Smith tells a story about how Prince had invited him up to Paisley Park to help with a film that Prince was wanting to put together to show at Cannes. After a week of interviewing rooms full of fans about their reactions to Prince's new album, it came time to wrap things up:
So it ends and everyone gets up to go and this is the last session. The week is over. And he kind of goes out a back door and shit so he can avoid autographs. And I collect my stuff and Stephanie. . . who was my chaperone, wasn't even there anymore.

And I said to her before she left, I was like: "This is the last day. What are we gonna do? Am I cutting this thing?"

She's like, "They've been cutting it. He used some of the footage at his show last night."

I'm like, "Really?" I feel so useless.

I'm trying to maintain my composure and stuff's being already cut?
I said, "So you'll have a cut of the film next week."

She said, "Don't count on seeing it."

I said, "Why?"

She said, "A lot of this stuff never sees the light of day."

I was like, "What do you mean?"

She's like, "I produced 50 music videos for him ."

I said, "Which ones?"

She said, "You've never seen them. They're for songs you've never heard ."

I said, "Where are they?"

She's like, "He puts them in a vault."

I was like, "For what?"

And she's like, "I don't know."

I was like, "Is it just him on-stage?"

She's like, "No, 50 fully-produced music videos with costumes and sets. Money was spent."

I was like, "And they've never been seen on MTV or anything? BET, VH 1?"

She's like, "No. He just puts them in the vault."

I was like, "Like in case the fucking world goes up.. . .we'll have entertainment?"

She's like, "That's just the way Prince is."
posted by radwolf76 at 8:05 AM on April 20, 2018 [13 favorites]


Musicians of Metafilter -- the chords sound different right before the chorus.

In Sinéad's version, the "But nothing, nothing can take away these blues" sounds like {vi, III7} in the key of F.

But the Prince original, that same line sounds like {vi, ♭VII7} in the key of B.

Is this right? I'm so accustomed to the Sinéad version, but it's refreshing to hear it played in a "new" way.
posted by klausman at 8:07 AM on April 20, 2018


Sorry, Prince lovers, but the best version of Nothing Compares 2 U is by Jimmy Scott
posted by Dressed to Kill at 8:13 AM on April 20, 2018


I've heard the live version that was released on the Hits/B-Sides collection, so I knew his version, but seeing it with the footage is pretty poignant. I wish the two were synced a little better but it's still pretty great.
posted by PussKillian at 9:34 AM on April 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


I'm not crying, you're crying. Watching those moves sure explains the chronic pain. Miss that man.
posted by haunted by Leonard Cohen at 9:51 AM on April 20, 2018 [3 favorites]


klausman: I'm hearing IV-bVII7 (instead of vi-bVII7) in the Prince version. I like both, but the Sinead progression still gets to me more.
posted by svenx at 10:03 AM on April 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


It's interesting that his original doesn't seem to have the microtones that Sinead's did on "To You" in the chorus.

If I remember right, there are other tracks on the same album that do that — I've always assumed it was something she got from the Irish old-style singing tradition she draws on, but maybe I made that up.

Holy hell it is an excellent interval though, wherever it comes from.
posted by nebulawindphone at 10:46 AM on April 20, 2018 [3 favorites]


I don’t know how anyone could see those shows and not feel the strong connection to the audience.

I will admit that I never saw Jackson live. (Nor Prince, sadly.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:52 PM on April 20, 2018


I've heard the live version that was released on the Hits/B-Sides collection

Is that it? Because as soon as I started listening I realized I knew this version.
posted by bongo_x at 4:05 PM on April 20, 2018


No this isn't the version from the Hits/B-Sides collection. That's the version I grew up with (was barely familiar with Sinead's) and that one has Rosie Gaines. Music is different too.
posted by Danila at 6:29 PM on April 20, 2018


I went to the doctor guess what she told me
Guess what she told me
She said boy you better try to have fun
No matter what you do

Quoted above, minus the killer line: but he's a fool.

What a song.
posted by kozad at 9:03 PM on April 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


PRINCE FEMME ICON 4EVER miss you...
posted by latkes at 9:16 PM on April 21, 2018


radwolf76: She's like, "That's just the way Prince is."

But now two years after his death, his estate is a mess and his legacy unclear. (Karen Heller for Washington Post, April 18, 2018)
Interpreting Prince’s wishes could be an academic discipline. He was a propulsive, complicated artist; few performers have exacted more control over their art. Highly litigious and wary of the Internet, he waged a career-long crusade for sovereignty over his seismic body of work, which includes 39 studio albums, fighting with his record label, streaming services, YouTube, fans, and bootleggers.

And yet — surprisingly for an artist who craved absolute authority — Prince left no will. “I don’t think about ‘gone,’ ” he told Rolling Stone two years before his death. Instead, he left a mess.

His estate, estimated at between $100 million and $300 million before taxes, is being supervised by many individuals not of his choosing, though some former aides are involved. Several heirs — who include a sister and five half siblings, not all of them close, and one of whom hadn’t seen Prince in 15 years — are filing legal challenges while contemplating a possible wrongful death lawsuit.
So perhaps we'll all be waiting a while more for that vault to be cracked open and all those unseen music videos and unheard tracks will be open to the public.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:01 PM on April 25, 2018 [1 favorite]


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