'Dad Rock' remembers Prince, picks fave songs
It's been a week since we all heard the shocking news of Prince's death. Time has given us a chance to reflect on the man and his music. What elevated Prince above his peers, what separated him even from others whose albums sold many millions, was his all-around talent.
Songwriter. Singer. Multi-instrumentalist. Performer. Producer. Rock star. Prince was in a select group among the best in all categories. He could craft songs across genres, or blend genres into new sounds. And at the same time he impacted the culture — challenging listeners to expand their thoughts and feelings on not only music, but also relationships, sex, spirituality, drugs, violence, power, gender, life, humanity, existence.
Life lessons we learned from Prince lyrics
On this week's episode of USA TODAY's Dad Rock podcast, hosts Patrick Foster and Jim Lenahan (the dads) are joined by USA TODAY reporter Mike Snider. They reminisce about their experiences listening to Prince and pick some of their favorite songs. As difficult as it was to highlight any one song from such a vast catalogue, all agreed that Kiss is a particular gem.
"It's such a perfect pop song," Lenahan says. "You listen to it and you say, 'There's not a single thing that you could change to make this better.' ... To me it goes up there with songs like the Ronettes' Be My Baby or God Only Knows by the Beach Boys as those idealized pop music songs. It will last for the ages."
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Stream or download the Prince episode here:
Music featured in this episode is available to stream only on Tidal. Snider put together a playlist here. Only Tidal subscribers can hear full versions; non-subscribers can hear clips of each song.
How Prince reinvented the music industry
Watch a Facebook video for a behind-the-scenes look at the recording of this podcast.
Listen to a short episode of Dad Rock recorded shortly after the news of Prince's death on April 21 (video highlight clip at the top of this article):
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