Today’s first selection is a must-read for any fan of Prince, music in general, or celebrity in America. It is a deep examination of Ezra Edelman’s attempt to make a massive, nine-hour documentary about Prince’s life and death, and how changes in ownership of Prince’s estate may keep anyone from ever seeing it.
I understand Prince’s family wanting to protect his image. I think they are way off base, though, in believing that letting the world see this film would result in the interest in his music disappearing. The film would just confirm what I think most people already knew/suspected about his life and behavior. Hell, in his own auto-biographical movie, the one that made him a mega-star, he confirmed a lot of this. Oh well. Hopefully, eventually there will be a resolution and the public will be able to see the entire doc, not some watered-down version that his estate tears the most interesting and human bits out of.
“How can you tell the truth about someone who, when you’re talking to people, they all had different things to say?” Edelman told me. “How can you tell the truth about someone who never told the truth about himself?”
As mentioned some time back in a Friday Playlist, the upcoming Japandroids album will be their final act as a duo, bringing to an end one of the more uncommon arcs in recent rock history.
Ian Cohen got a very rare, extended visit with the band and breaks down the band’s history, how sobriety and distance made it difficult to continue as an act, and why there will be no tour for the final album.
At this point, it dawns on me that the Japandroids album covers are unwittingly telling the story of the band in real time. From the fraternal embrace on Post-Nothing, they grow increasingly distant but still shoulder-to-shoulder. On the Fate & Alcohol shot, Prowse is slightly blurred and further in the background. Painful and possibly unintentional as this symbolism is, it’s still hard to overlook.
The Boys Are Leaving Town: The Final Days Of Japandroids
The Onion will always Onion.
“Oh wow. I thought Brittany Mahomes was joking when she said she’d see me again soon.”
Horrified Taylor Swift Realizes Football Happens Every Year
This post was going to be exclusively music related links until I saw this bit of breaking Voyager 1 news this morning. Our little scientific miracle chugs on.
47-year-old Voyager 1 spacecraft just fired up thrusters it hasn’t used in decades