A new single, that might be by Prince,?was released yesterday on what appears to be Prince’s new web site. That single is accompanied on the web site by a video, which probably features Prince, and a teaser of which was posted last week to a YouTube channel that might be Prince’s. Are you following?
Needless to say, Prince is a pretty weird dude. I think we can all agree on that. He’s great though and I love him, but sometimes I’m not sure why. He definitely takes himself much too seriously and?he comes across as inappropriately frisky for such an itty bitty, soft-spoken?man. He also has a tendency to do things that are?too pretentiously odd … like changing his name to that stupid symbol.
And now?he has apparently burst into the twenty-first century with a bizarre, irritatingly cryptic on-line presence. Though it isn’t him for sure. But it?probably is. Irritating, right?
To summarize more coherently (or as coherently as possible), here’s what has happened recently, Prince-wise. Earlier this month, a new YouTube channel and Twitter account were established under the?mysterious name 3rdEyeGirl, featuring new Prince stuff, but not overtly claiming to be Prince or even legitimately associated with Prince.
The Twitter bio, with the mysterious profile picture,?reads: “International Art Thief. Everything you think is true. Underground. Soon to be above.”
Via Twitter and YouTube, 3rd Eye Girl has so far shared three short videos, each one featuring one of Prince’s three back-up?musicians speculating about the identity of 3rd Eye Girl. It’s very adorable and prankish. Then, earlier this week, 3rd Eye Girl unceremoniously tweeted a link to a brand new website: 20pr1nc3.com
The site is pretty spare, furnished with only?three?items?so far. A?semi-video for the new song ?Screwdriver;” a cryptic trailer that might be about Prince’s performance(s) at the?Montreux Jazz Festival, but who the fuck knows; and an audio file by Andy Allo, a gorgeous funk singer and Prince prot?g?. So it’s clearly Prince’s site, but it’s awfully weird. Could he not have hired a proper designer?
The YouTube channel only has 7 items … all Prince-related, but very bizarrely curated … including an audio file for a new song called “Chapter and Verse” and live footage of Prince on stage performing “Eye Could Never Take the Place of Ur Man” from 1987’s “Sign ? the Times.”
The new single, “Screwdriver,”?that appears for the first time in full on the mystery site, is somewhat disappointing. It sounds like a background track for a tampon commercial,?and the video is primarily the song lyrics in big block letters, Schoolhouse Rock-Style, with intervals of obscured band footage.?In the video, Prince is wearing one of those idiotic animal hats with the attached scarf that hangs down so it’s not immediately obvious that it’s him. But it is. And it’s almost unfortunate because?the song is not good. The worst part is that the terrible lyrics (that’s he’s proud enough to feature in those giant block letters), including the repeated “I’m your driver, you’re my screw” … but with a drawing of an eye cleverly?replacing the “I” and?”ur” instead of “your/you’re.” Watch the video and you’ll see what I mean. It’s pretty awful.
http://youtu.be/9a6WwT9LNJw
JimmaJamm says
I thought it was pretty common knowledge that he changed his name (his real name btw) due to the desire to escape the recording contract that essentially owned him.
From Vanity Fair: “During one meeting, a Warner executive said,