I received my copy of the deluxe edition of Prince's 1987 album, "Sign O' the Times." Check out my unboxing video below!
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Saturday, September 26, 2020
Friday, September 25, 2020
"Shock-a-lock-a, Boom!" - Giveaway
Friday, September 18, 2020
"We Can Work It Out" - Experimenting with Facebook Ads
I set a goal for myself to increase my monthly newsletter list to 1,000 this year (I have just over 700 as of today). I've had great success collecting email addresses through my giveaways (come back next week for another one, btw), but I wanted to explore other avenues. Over the past week, I ran two Facebook ads to gain new subscribers, and things were decent for my first try!
See below for the details and if you haven't subscribed to my monthly newsletter, you can do so right here.
First, I created a "lead generation" ad, which collects email addresses directly on Facebook. I'm pretty happy with these results. The ad will be finished tomorrow, and I think I'm going to hit 50 leads. I spent approximately 70 cents per email address, which isn't too expensive for me. I would run this type of ad again and spend more money to get 100 new subscribers.
Cost: $33.63 (of $35)
Duration: 6 Days (of 7)
Reach: 2,017
Leads: 46
I wasn't sure if people would put their email addresses directly on Facebook, so I ran a "website visitors" ad that took them off Facebook and directly to my signup form on MailChimp. Although this ad reached more people, fewer people signed up for my newsletter. So, moving forward, I will only run the ad above to collect email addresses, but I will utilize the "website visitors" ad to send people to my blog to get more views on my content. I'll also plan to run some ads to boost the number of people who "like" my Facebook page.
Cost: $25
Duration: 5 Days
Reach: 4,319
Clicks: 101
Subscribers: 16
Friday, September 11, 2020
"Count the Days" - Song of the Month
Each month I will share some brief, personal thoughts on one of my favorite Prince songs.
"Count the Days" is technically a New Power Generation song, released as the third single from the band's 1995 album, Exodus. Of course, Prince played an integral role, though disguised as "Tora Tora," one of his many alter egos. Bass player Sonny T. takes the lead vocal, but Prince's guitar is the real star. (By the way, Prince positioning Sonny as a lead vocalist reminds me a lot of Jimi Hendrix featuring drummer Buddy Miles as a singer in the Band of Gypsys, but that's another discussion for another blog.) I fell in love with this song watching a video of a live performance on British TV program "The White Room." First of all, Prince, aka Tora Tora, somehow made a costume of a face-obscuring scarf, hat and black-and-white suit look appealing. I love how he was so meticulous about image and mystique.
The song is a perfect example of how Prince is able to write in layers. If you don't listen closely, you might think "Count the Days" is a love song. That was my first reaction because the TV host introduced the song by commenting on Prince and Mayte Garcia's relationship. The music is pretty, pleasant and almost tranquil. Listening again, I heard a deep connection to Curtis Mayfield, and I began to think Prince was simply focused on evoking a feeling of old-school soul music, especially because the lyrics seemed so cryptic.
"Here's a church, here's a steeple/Here's a motherfucker that I gotta blow away."
But I knew something was missing. I talked through the song with my friend and writer Scott Woods. We asked ourselves, how often is Prince purposely nonsensical, and how often is he writing personal lyrics? In my opinion, "Count the Days" is very personal, and there's a thread of anger under the lovely melody. You could imply the song is about his deteriorating relationship with Warner Bros. Prince is literally counting down the days until he is out of his contract. And you could read the whole Exodus album as an escape from the control of the record label, but also as Prince's mission to free other artists, especially Black artists, from the limitations and abuse in the music industry.
The video for the song adds another layer. It features historic footage of events during the Civil Rights Movement, including Martin Luther King, Jr. at the March on Washington, and his wife, Coretta Scott King, standing over his coffin. Prince felt very strongly that he could use both his celebrity and advocacy for artist rights to help create a better future for Black people in America, and much has come to light about his charitable contributions since his death. So, it makes perfect sense to me that he paired a song about being enslaved to a corporation with a video about the plight of Black people.
I once found myself thinking, "This song would be more enjoyable without the abrasive lyrics." But that's precisely the point. We can't be fully at peace with the world because we aren't fully free. Think about what Black people are still enduring in 2020. We're still counting the days...
Count The Days from Irresistible Rich on Vimeo.
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Friday, September 4, 2020
"With an Intellect and a Savoir-Faire" - Purple Recommendations
There are a lot of folks consistently creating great content about Prince. Here are some recent examples that caught my eye.
1. Muse 2 the Pharaoh: The Sun, The Moon and Stars
Darling Nisi's podcast explores Prince-related topics from a female perspective. Her latest episode explores Prince's natal chart.
2. Podcast on Prince: Bernie Grundman Interview (Patreon only)
This long-running Prince podcast features news, reviews and interviews. The latest episode features a noted mastering engineer who recently worked on the forthcoming remaster of Prince's "Sign O' the Times" album.
3. Press Rewind Prince - Lyrics Podcast
Jason Breininger's podcast analyzes the lyrics of Prince's music, album by album. He's currently on Around the World in a Day. Check out all the episodes featuring a lineup of special guests.
Zachary Hoskin's blog analyzes Prince's discography, song by song, but he often has some interesting detours along the way. This post imagines "a circa-1984 Prince without Purple Rain." Creative stuff!
This is a new venture by De Angela L. Duff, the mastermind behind some compelling Prince symposia. Subscribe to keep up with all of her Prince projects and much more!
DJ UMB and Edgar Kruize have been inviting guests to dissect each track on certain Prince albums. The latest in the series included a surprise contributor who worked with Prince for years.
7. Purple Playground: Academy of Prince performance
This summer music program "enriches teens' lives with Prince history and a chance to make music inspired by him, helped by musicians who played with him." Watch the young people play a song they wrote with help from Shelby J., Adrian Crutchfield and Elisa Fiorillo.
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Friday, August 28, 2020
"A Reason to Believe" - "Graffiti Bridge" Presentation
Check out my presentation, "Graffiti Bridge: Prince’s Sacred Triumph over the Profane," from the #DM40GB30 Symposium
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Friday, August 21, 2020
Song of the Month - "The Greatest Romance Ever Sold"
Each month I will share some brief, personal thoughts on one of my favorite Prince songs.
Released on Arista Records in 1999, Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic was supposed to be Prince's "comeback" album. Unfortunately, it failed to make an impact in the mainstream music industry. He and label head Clive Davis reportedly hoped the first--and only--single, "The Greatest Romance Ever Sold," would appeal to women and teenage girls. I was in the latter group and I actually remember seeing the video on BET or MTV, so the marketing was on point. During that time, I knew some of Prince's classic music and respected his talent, but I was not engaged. I thought the song was interesting, but his look was odd to me. I remember noticing his eye shadow and thinking, "I don't really understand this aesthetic," but in junior high-level language, of course. I was fully into the boy bands and young, R&B groups of the day. Other than his attempts to design "The Greatest Romance" to fit into that sound (to a point), Prince was an outlier for me. Frankly, I thought he was weird and a little scary. It's funny; I see some of this thinking in my teenage niece's perception of Prince today. Just a few years later, I would watch Purple Rain and then listen to The Rainbow Children and become a superfan. Now, I actually love the song and the video. He and his co-star are absolutely gorgeous. It is my favorite track on Rave, which is my least favorite album in his discography. It's sexy, slick and has an intriguing, Arabic-influenced melodic line. The lyrics are poetic. I also like how much he is feeling the beat in the video and in the Rave Un2 the Year 2000 concert film. Is it his strongest song? No. But I love how Prince can't help but make quirky musical choices even when he's attempting to make a conventional product.
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