Sloth Love Chunk And Chunk Love Prince

When making a list of Reasons The Internet Is Awesome, this has to be in the Top 50:

Top 40 Prince Songs (31-40)

For this week's Ranked!, we're ranking our forty favorite Prince songs! Here are numbers 40-31:

40. "Batdance"

His Name Is Prince, And He Is Funky

Yesterday I read something that made me very, very, happy. Prince held a press conference (cuz that's how he rolls) to announce he's going on tour! He's calling it the Welcome 2 America tour and Prince will play and MC it. It will include performances by Janelle Monae, Mint Condition, Esperanza Spalding, and Cassandra Wilson.

Prince, Cassandra Wilson, and Janelle Monae? I'm in.

I've been wanting to see Prince live for years. No further info on when and where the shows will be, other than they start in December.

Is there an artist you've always wanted to see live? Will you shell out to see Prince on tour? Does anyone else dig the Janelle Monae ArchAndroid Album as much as I do?

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LinkChurch: Prince, Brandon Flowers, Liz Phair

Here's our weekly wrap-up of pop culture commentary and news we didn't get a chance to cover during the week.

Culture Brats Highlights of the Week

• We name our favorite Schoolhouse Rock! shorts.
• We tweet LeBron James and The Decision.
  

Music

• Prince might think the Internet is over, but his new single kicks much ass.
• Charlize Theron could rescue me any day.
  

Television

• Are new episodes of Beavis And Butt-Head really on the way?
  

Surreal Moment Of The Week
This was easy! This week's honors go to MC Liz Phair.



What do you think? I like it.

Prince Tells The Internet He's Not Its Friend Anymore, Picks Up Ball, And Goes Home

I'm sure by now everyone has already seen the following, but if not, here ya go:

[Prince] explains that he decided [20Ten] will be released in CD format only in the Mirror. There'll be no downloads anywhere in the world because of his ongoing battles against internet abuses.

Unlike most other rock stars, he has banned YouTube and iTunes from using any of his music and has even closed down his own official website.

He says: "The internet's completely over. I don't see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won't pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can't get it.

The internet's like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good.

They just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you."

If you take a look around the web, you'll see that everyone's up in arms over this interview. "Prince is over." "Who's Prince?" "He sounds like a cranky old man."

Truthfully, Prince's thoughts on the Internet should not come as a surprise to anyone. Since the '90s, Prince has taken great strides to make sure he was paid fairly (or what he deemed fairly paid) for his work. The man legally changed his name to get out of a record contract. So it really shouldn't be that big of a shock that since he feels he doesn't receive enough money from iTunes and YouTube, his new album won't be available there.

Sadly, though, I see this whole thing spiraling out of control as the years pass, with Prince become more and more of a technophobe until he tours the nation in a purple VW bus (or possibly a Little Red Corvette), setting up displays at flea markets, and selling his music directly to the consumer via cassette.

I hope I'm wrong. And I hope you're able to get your next album into your fans' hands, Prince. Legally and profitably.

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Thoughts On The 2010 BET Awards

Um. So...

• Only Kayne could pull off a performance as egomaniacal as the one that led off the show. He sounded out of breath in a few places, but overall, it rocked.
• "Airplanes" didn't sound nearly as good without Haley Williams.
• Speaking of "Airplanes," I need to go out and buy myself a jaunty sailor's cap.
• Chris Brown does a mean Michael Jackson.
• Was it me, or did it seem like we missed the beginning of the Gary Coleman tribute?
  
• No thoughts on Queen Latifah. Actually, that's not entirely true. I just don't have any thoughts I'd like to share.
• It's 10:41 PM ET right now. Prince isn't performing, is he?
• It's going to be like the MTV Movie Awards when I kept waiting for Katy Perry to perform naked. Never happened.
• I could see Prince digging Janelle Monae.
• Ok. Esperanza Spalding's rendition of "If I Was Your Girlfriend" is mighty nice.
• Wish Alicia Keys would've picked something else other than "Adore."
• Paii LaBelle is doing "Purple Rain."
• Did she forget the second verse and just instruct the band to go into the "Woo-hoo" part?
• Prince caught Patti LaBelle's shoe! Not exactly a drumstick or a guitar pick, but I guess it'll do.
• Prince seems pleased with her performance. That makes one of us.
• Wow. Way to drop the ball on the Viewers' Choice announcement.

And... I think that about does it for me!

Or maybe not.

• I am enjoying "All I Do Is Win" with the marching band.

And... now I really am out of here!

Everyone Needs A Hobby: Prince Continues His One-Man Crusade To Save The Overseas Newspaper Industry

Have you picked up a copy of your local newspaper recently? This probably doesn't pertain to you if you live in a major metropolis like New York City or Los Angeles, but for the rest of us, our local papers are sad shadows of their former selves. I bought a copy of my local paper the other day and what once was five proud sections including the want ads, was now crammed into two (which included the want ads). I turn on the television or surf the web and see we're not experiencing a news drought, so what gives?

Prince, who once delivered the most depressing newscast ever in the song "Sign O' The Times," is looking to change all that. At least overseas.

In July of 2007, Prince gave away copies of his Planet Earth CD in copies of Mail On Sunday, a London-based newspaper. This was the first place that fans could obtain Planet Earth. (This was nearly three months before Radiohead's giveaway of In Rainbows, but no one remembers this.)

Prince is set to give it another shot: on July 10th, the first place you'll be able to get his 20Ten CD will be in the Belgium newspaper, Het Nieuwsblad. Fans in Germany will be able to snag a free copy on July 22nd in Rolling Stone magazine (which, I'm told, doesn't alternative covers between The Scorpions, Kraftwerk, KMFDM, Rammstein, and Falco).

Think he'll follow suit with something in the US? I hope so. You can purchase his last album, the 3-CD LotusFlow3r, for $4.99 at Target, so he's practically giving it away for free anyway.

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Better Album: Thriller vs. Purple Rain

Hello and welcome to our first installment of Criss Cross Counter Punch. Today, Archphoenix and Chag debate which was the better album: Thriller or Purple Rain.

* * *

Archphoenix: Don't get me wrong, I love me some Prince, especially Purple Rain. His purple funkness is quite a talented musician. But Thriller remains, for me anyway, the best pop album, pretty much ever.

Thriller is the best selling album of all time. Seven of the album's nine songs were released as singles and all seven songs hit Billboard's top ten list. The album won a record-breaking eight Grammy awards. I know, I know, just because it sells doesn't mean it's necessarily good (i.e. Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, Nickleback, etc.). But in this case, the fact that it still sells ridiculously well 25 years later is a testament to the longevity of the album.

Prince, "Pop Life"

Since a majority of this site will be about music and this will be a daily column, I felt things needed to start off with a BANG. I wanted a song that fit what we had planned for the site.

The song below wasn't our first choice. Hell, it wasn't even the second or third.

We had a song picked out to kick off Culture Brats, a song that was a great fit for the site, but I still wasn't completely sold on it. So I asked my wife to think of a song we could use.