The two contemporary artists Prince loathed
Prince was one tempestuous man. Never one to suffer fools gladly, the pop icon held nothing back in advertising his dislike for certain members of the cultural elite.
Remember how he ejected Kim Kardashian from the stage during one of his concerts, pushing her back into the crowd with an elegant swivel and a ‘bye bitch’ wave? He had no time for the superficial side of the entertainment industry. Originality, artistic integrity and independence were of the utmost importance, and anyone who didn’t treat them with the same reverence was, in his eyes, unworthy of praise.
Sadly, the music business has rarely held pop artists to such high standards, and this was precisely the issue. Prince seems to have seen nothing but the greed of cash-hungry music executives in modern pop. What had once been a space for forward-thinking artists to commune with the cultural sphere had become the very vanguard of capitalism. Prince had used his own career to shock audiences into embracing new ideas. Nobody was as scandalous as Prince, and nobody made purity of expression look so essential.
Three years after his death, the Prince estate released the posthumous memoir, The Beautiful Ones. As well as containing hand-written lyrics, cartoons, and unseen photos, the book featured passages criticising the contemporary music industry. In one, Prince wrote: “We need to tell music execs that they keep ramming Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran down our throats and we don’t like it no matter how many times they play it.” One wonders if Prince’s distrust of consumer-oriented pop music was connected to an anxiety about mass media in general. He never owned a cell phone, and as far back as 1999, he was criticising what in one MTV interview he called a “disintegration in music.”
Prince’s words must have been especially hurtful for Katy Perry, who once explained that Prince and his film Purple Rain were a major influence on her when she was starting out. When Prince died, she took to Twitter to offer her sympathies, writing: “And just like that…the world lost a lot of magic. Rest in peace Prince! Thanks for giving us so much.”
I imagine Prince was turning in his grave.
