My Name Is Prince... for now, anyway [October 11, 1992]
Plus: the first great rave album, The Prodigy Experience
Greetings, Time Travellers! đ Welcome back to the week of October 11, 1992.
đ° In the news this week: The U.S. Presidential debates bring humiliation for current President George Bush, who is caught looking at his watch while an audience member asks a question about the recession.
đœïžWoody Harrelson, Wesley Snipes and Rosie Perez star in basketball comedy White Men Canât Jump
đșOn telly, ITV launches their new Saturday teatime show, Gladiators.
đ¶ Tasmin Archer is the new UK Number One with âSleeping Satelliteâ but for now letâs focus onâŠ
This weekâs Number 7: âMy Name Is Princeâ â Prince
Do you like your name?
Is your name a source of power, a part of your identity? Perhaps your name is a family heirloom, a delicate braid connecting you to previous generations. Maybe your name was chosen for its special meaning, or maybe youâre more like Bruce Willis in Pulp Fiction (âIâm American, honey. Our names donât mean shit.â)
My name is Bernard, which is something of a Primark sweater of a name: dull but functional.
Youâd be surprised at how many regional pronunciations of Bernard exist. Americans stretch it outââBer-nawrdââso it almost rhymes with âDie Hardâ, which is fun. Australians and English people elide the middle letters, pronouncing it like âBeh-nidâ.
Here in Ireland, it is unmistakably pronounced as âBurn-Nerdâ. Small children find this hilarious, and they love to put a heavy stress on the âNerdâ part. My own daughter regularly mocks me about it and asks why I donât change it.
âBut thatâs my name!â I say.
âGet a better one, nerd,â she replies.
Iâm not sure I want to change it though. Your name is such a fundamental part of who you are. A new name would feel like a new identity.
Heavy lies the crown
In the United States, names have a complicated history. Enslaved people had their names taken from them, and often were appointed new names by the people who enslaved them. A cruel slaveowner joke was to give some slaves very regal names, such as Caeser, King, Queenâand Prince.
Slavery wasnât that long ago, historically speaking. The grandchildren of those freed in the Civil War were the people who gave us the first generation of popular music. For example, a slave who was forced to work for the Confederacy had a grandson who became a famous jazz pianist: Duke Ellington.
Duke Ellingtonâs real name was Edward, but he chose the regal stage name himself, as did his contemporary William âCountâ Basie. Both men picked these names as a reflection of their lofty ambitions.
Another person who picked a regal stage name was a Louisana jazzman called John Lewis Nelson. He played around Minneapolis in the 40s under the name Prince Nelson, although he wasnât as successful as Duke or The Count, and failed to land a record deal.
In 1958, Nelson fathered a son, and decided that this boy would succeed where he failed. He named the boy Prince.
So, you see, Prince wasnât lying when he said his name was Prince. Itâs not an honorific. Itâs not a nickname or a stage name. He was, and always has been, Prince.
And Prince was fully aware of the history that came with that name, including the associations with slavery, as well as his fatherâs expectations. A piece in the Quietus says:
âIn his unfinished memoirs, Prince describes his motherâs eyes lighting up, teaching him to write [his name], conferring onto him his fatherâs sexy authority. Prince never tired of trying to redeem this frustrated musician.â
My friends call me Your Majesty
My daughter recently surprised me by asking if she could change her name.
Not a big changeâshe just wants to legally adopt her preferred spelling. Still, it still came as a bit of a shock. Kids these days seem so cavalier about their identities, chopping and changing everything in the name of clearer self-expression.
I sometimes wonder who Prince really was in 1992, and if he even really knew himself.
Obviously, we all know what happens to Prince in the 90s. He released âMy Name Is Princeâ (a song in which he states that his name is Prince twenty times) and then, almost immediately after, he changed his name to an unpronounceable emoji:
Now thatâs comedy.
Prince changed his name because of a creative dispute with his label, Warner, with whom he had just signed a $100 million record deal. He said, âPrince is the name that my Mother gave me at birth. Warner Brothers took the name, trademarked it. I became merely a pawn used to produce more money for Warner Brothers.â
If we see âMy Name Is Princeâ as the opening salvo in this battle with WB, then the song takes on a different meaning. Heâs not saying âMy name is Princeâ; heâs saying, âThe name, Prince, is mineâ.
Well, my name is Prince and Iâm here to say
But I think thereâs something else going on here too.
Prince always had a slightly fraught relationship with hip-hop. He tried rapping a few times in the early 80s before declaring the form to be a creative dead end. But hip-hop didnât die, and songs like Public Enemyâs âFight The Powerâ made him realise that rap music wasnât going away.
(Thereâs an excellent deep dive into Princeâs rap career here.)
The problem was that Princeâthe man who could normally do everythingâwasnât an especially strong rapper. His solution was to bring in Tony M, the guy with the deep voice on âGett Offâ, who was arguably an even less good rapper than Prince.
âMy Name Is Princeâ feels like Princeâs attempt to jump the hip-hop bandwagon. The lyrics are written in the grand tradition of rappers introducing themselves and then telling you what theyâre here to say, something that started with the Sugarhill Gang back in 1979. Tony M appears at the end of the song to spit some bars. Theyâre⊠fine.
Prince pushed hard for âMy Name Is Princeâ to be the opening single from The Love Symbol Album, arguing that the hip-hop elements would make him relevant to a younger audience. Warner Brothers disagreed and pushed for a more traditional Prince song, â7â.
Prince won the argument, but âMy Name Is Princeâ flopped in the states, failing to make Top 30. The great pioneer Prince seemed to be chasing a trend for the first time in his career, and he was being left behind.
Annoyingly, Warner Brothers were right about â7â. It went Top 10. It is very good.
This moment must have been a crisis of confidence for Prince. Every Prince has to become a King someday, but people like Dre and Chuck D were occupying his throne.
Maybeâand Iâm just speculating hereâthatâs part of why he changed his name. The craziness of the Warners deal (a hundred million dollars!), the shifting musical landscape, the disappointment of âMy Name Is Princeâ.
It must have been tempting to hit the eject button and try not being Prince for a while. Maybe a new name can lead to a new destiny?
Thatâs just speculation. I have no idea what really happened in the mind of His Purple Majesty. All I know is that if you do change your name, make sure itâs something people can pronounce. Otherwise, people will just call you The Artist Formerly Known As Bernard until you get so annoyed that you just change it back.
Have you ever thought about changing your name? Do you think Prince was an underrated rapper? Share your thoughts on this piece in the comments:
And if you enjoyed it, please do me a solid and share this post
Elsewhere in the charts
Number 8 (â from 12): âTetrisâ â Dr. Spin
Hereâs a fun fact: Doctor Spin is actually none other than Andrew Lloyd Webber, entering the world of novelty dance songs with a bit of help from producer Nigel Wright.
You have to wonder⊠why? Why, Andrew? Why are you putting out tacky, cash-grab records. You are already so, so rich. You do not need any of that Sesameâs Treet money.
And thereâs a simple answer: itâs because heâs a Tory.
Number 9 (â from 23): âA Million Love Songsâ â Take That
Speaking of ToriesâŠ
In fairness, Gary Barlow wrote this soft-rock ballad when he was only 15, which is quite impressive. Itâs quite sweet, although it sounds more like Barry Manilow than their actual Barry Manilow cover.
Also, maybe a bit risky? East 17 were coming after them with a far more edgy and fun sound. This battle of the boy bands is really heating up.
Number 17 (New Entry): âStickyâ â The Wedding Present
The Weddosâ tenth single-per-month effort. Two more of these to go, and then weâll talk about the whole lot when we review the compilation, The Hit Parade.
The B-Side on this one is a cover of Bow Wow Wowâs post-punk classic âGo Wild In The Countryâ.
Number 22 (â from 25): âSometimes Love Just Ainât Enoughâ â Patty Smyth & Don Henley
Patty Smyth has had quite a life. She started out in Scandal, who had a hit with âGoodbye to Youâ, the video for which has some terrific First-Year-Of-MTV energy.
Smyth got married to post-punk legend Richard Hell, of Television and The Voidoids. While she was pregnant with their first child, Van Halen approached her and asked her to replace David Lee Roth. She turned them down, but she did do some backing vocals for Don Henley on tracks like âAll She Wants To Do Is Danceâ.
Towards the end of the 80s, Smyth broke up with Richard Hell and got married to the bad boy of tennis himself, John McEnroe. She then got her old pal Don Henley to lend some vocals on this track, and she finally had a global solo hit worthy of her talents.
Not bad for someone that even Google sometimes confuses with Patti Smith.
Number 36 (New Entry): âEverybody Wants Herâ â Thunder
Thunder here making an absolute mockery of the âgrunge killed hair metalâ theory. They had a great time in 1992 while both looking and sounding like Extreme.
There is so much cowbell on this record. Itâs terrific.
Album of the Week
The Prodigy Experience â The Prodigy
Controversial opinion time. Iâm not saying this to be contrarian and feel free to disagree, butâŠ
The Fat of the Land and âFirestarterâ were the low points of The Prodigyâs discography.
They were fun, donât get me wrong. I saw them live twice during the Fat Of The Land era, and I jumped around lots to âFirestarterâ in my student disco days, and I very much enjoyed the Prodigyâs rockstar era. But thereâs no denying that the music is a bit knuckleheaded, especially compared to what they had done on previous records.
I say they, but The Prodigy are really a he. Liam Howlett always worked alone in the studio, splicing beats together like a funky Frankenstein. And his first work was something of a monster, a track that MixMag accused of killing rave:
Itâs not Liamâs fault that other people copied this formula very badly (including Andrew Lloyd Webber himself, as mentioned above). If you forget about âTetrisâ and âSesameâs Treetâ, you can hear that âCharlyâ is a work of genius, with massive beats supported by well-chosen, surprising samples.
âCharlyâ appears on The Prodigy Experience, but the rest of the record tries to put some clear water between The Prodigy and the kiddie rave pretenders. Opening track âJerichoâ comes roaring out of the gates with some very grown-up samples, including AC/DC, Jungle Brothers, Hijack, and the reggae classic âKunta Kinteâ:
The main vocal sample on âJerichoâ urges you to âkeep on dancing/keep on dancingâ. As if you had a choice. As if you could stop. Experienced is one of the most sustained, relentless onslaughts of rhythm ever committed to vinylâa full club set from a DJ at the top of his game.
âEverybody In The Placeâ and âOut Of Spaceâ are two of the best and most memorable dance singles to emerge in the 90s. Theyâre both just joyous, kickass, go-bananas anthems, with âOut Of Spaceâ being a slight personal favourite (although âEverybody In The Placeâ feels like an early preview of their sophomoric masterpiece, Music for the Jilted Generation.)
But most of the deep cuts on Experience could have easily charted too. âYour Loveâ is irresistible, bordering on house music at times, while âRuff In The Jungle Biznessâ sounds like if the Um Bongo ad went on a two-week bender in Magaluf.
The only breather from all the insanity is the slightly trance-ey âWeather Experienceâ toward the end:
The Prodigy Experience is referred to as the first great rave LP. I donât know enough about dance musicâs esoteric genre borders to argue that, but it is without doubt a great album. Coherent from start to finish, never losing focus or repeating itself, always surprising. Thatâs the problem with The Fat of the Landâitâs just doesnât hit these highs.
Howlett was just 21 when he made this record. He absolutely deserved to call himself The Prodigy.
Feel free to tell me that The Fat of the Land is good actually in the comments
Next Week
A big special edition about one-hit wonders! Subscribe if you havenât already:
In the early 00's, I was on a soccer team. My nickname? "Billy Hoyle." Oof.
The Fat of the Land did for The Prodigy what the Black album did for Metallica. Experience and Jilted are amazing albums and are infinitely more interesting.