(Credit: Far Out / Allen Beaulieu)
No one plays songs better than Prince.
Even when “The Purple One” was playing songs written by others, he was able to inhabit any melody and transform it into something unique, from playing a version of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You” to playing his own versions of songs he wrote for others, like “Manic Monday.” Prince may be able to easily knock down any song, but he wasn’t happy when one band tried to play his song.
Then again, Prince always had problems when working on covers. He then performed a version of Radiohead’s “Creep” during a performance at Coachella, but got into legal trouble after trying to have that performance banned from the internet, after which the British rock band intervened to allow the song to be released to the public.
The fact that Prince played a Radiohead song in the first place showed how far he was willing to take his music. He may have gotten his start playing an odd combination of everything from soul to rock to R&B, but every part of his songs always sounded like him, culminating in the huge success of albums such as: purple rain.
That uncompromising attitude is part of what made Prince such a unique artist. He had no interest in preserving the songs in their original form or respectfully paying homage to them. If he touched something, it had to be transformed and bent into a new form that would justify its existence again.
It also explains why he held other artists to the same standards. For Prince, the cover was more than just a performance, it was also a statement of intent. Without new perspectives and new layers of meaning, there was no point in doing it at all. That’s exactly where his dissatisfaction with simpler interpretations began to surface.
After having a blockbuster movie alongside his blockbuster album, Prince came up with the idea of starting over with an album. parade, served as the soundtrack for the movie Under the cherry blossom moon. Although the film was panned at the time, the album was another standout in his discography, boasting the beautiful ballad “Sometimes It Snows in April” and the knockout single “Kiss.”
Embracing his funky roots, “Kiss” is one of the most iconic songs from this era of Prince’s career. Featuring his signature falsetto, the song is a workout for anyone trying to sing it correctly, as Prince sounds like an overly sexualized spirit itching for affection.
It wasn’t out of the question for Prince to make this kind of music, but that didn’t stop others from trying to make their own versions of the song. Decades after its release, pop rockers Maroon 5, who had already covered everything from the Beatles to Sly and the Family Stone on records, wanted to try their hand at recreating Prince’s classic song.
Prince heard the final version of the song, but was less than thrilled with Adam Levine and others’ work. I had an idea. Instead of giving his approval, Prince thought that the song deserved not to be recorded, believing that there was nothing unique about it that Maroon 5 had done to his song.
When asked about the song, signboard, Prince talked about how frustrated he was when he saw his songs played without any inflection, saying, “We pay performance royalties for other people’s songs that we play live, but we don’t record and sell these songs. Why would we listen to another cover of someone else’s song? Art is about building a new foundation, not just layering something on top of something that already exists.”
Listening back to his interpretations of Prince’s covers, it’s easy to see where he came from, warping songs like Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower” and Foo Fighters’ “Best of You” into his own artistic expression during the Super Bowl halftime show. Prince may have liked paying homage to the music he loved, but if you’re doing a quick cover, you’re doing it for the wrong reasons in his eyes.
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