Journalists Can Be Idiots Too

I'm not much of a Prince fan. I think he's a great guitar player, but I just don't like his music that well, and I like his singing even less. He's just so freaking odd! I thought he was a strange choice for this year's Super Bowl halftime show, but I know he's very popular and sells a heck of a lot of CDs.

There's been some controversy about his shadow show. It seems pretty obvious that the only reason this was included was to make his weird symbol-guitar look like an oddly hooked penis. The whole section of the show was so out of place that this can be the only explanation for doing it. To me, if was the weakest part of the entire performance, but if little Prince needs to try and convince people he's got a huge barbed boner, so be it.

The story was covered today by MSN online in their Music News section. The story is titled: Prince's Halftime Imagery Questioned. Basically it says there haven't been many complaints. The story is uncredited, probably for a very good reason.

Near the end it says:

Prince's previously most talked-about performance came at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards, where he donned yellow, butt-baring pants, (a stunt later spoofed by Howard Stern). Always eccentric, he famously changed his name to The Artist Formerly Known as Prince, then to simply a symbol and finally back to Prince. He also became a Jehovah's Witness in the mid-`90s.

Why would MSN hire a writer to write about music and someone as famous as Prince, and be so completely ignorant?

Prince changed his name to a symbol that had no name. He justified it on some offbeat grounds about society putting labels on people and mixed in some sexually neutral philosophy. He thought he was being real cutting edge. The thing is, no one knew what to call him anymore, so the press adopted the name, "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince." He did NOT change his name to this and actually hated being called that! A music scene writer should know this - or at the very least look it up.

Because of pressure from the record label and the fact that he was now being called this stupid name every time anyone referred to him, "The Artist" decided to change his name back to Prince. The whole thing pretty much backfired on him and I'm sure he regrets ever making the switch in the first place.

One funny side note to this. I remember around the time Prince went back to using his name, a few sarcastic writers began referring to him as, "The Artist Formerly Known as an Unpronounceable Symbol." I love it! But I'm surprised the idiot writer from MSN didn't include this as one of the names Mr. Rogers chose for himself.

The original article can be found here.