The world woke to the sound of Prince on the radio last Friday morning. Sadly, his songs haven’t bothered a daytime playlist for a good 25 years, but there was Chris Moyles playing Alphabet Street and a Time Tunnel tribute on Heart FM.
BBC 6 Music’s Lauren Laverne devoted her entire show to Prince, which, in happier circumstances, would have been the perfect weekend warm-up. Just as she did with David Bowie’s death, Laverne struck exactly the right chord. She was warm and empathetic, but maintained a respectful distance. There was no preaching or claiming to be the world’s biggest Prince lover. Maybe she understands that special feeling that your favourite pop star is yours alone.
“It’s hard to get your head straight on a day like this,” she says, launching into a celebration that becomes what one listener, Leigh, calls “a fabulous grief disco”.
Her mission is fun, even if she knows it’ll be tinged with sadness. “We want to do the sexy ones, we want to do the funky ones,” she says, before playing Sometimes It Snows in April, a song so sad it would have many a Prince fan in tears even if their hero hadn’t just died. Of course there are playful songs, too. Who can stay sad when Prince is singing about taking a bubble bath with his pants on in The Ballad of Dorothy Parker?
“When someone you love dies, your friends and family get together,” says Laverne. “This is fans and music lovers getting together and being in the same place.” She’s right. Throwing the song choices over to listeners is a wise move, because choosing your favourite Prince song is impossible. Hearing Sheena Easton on 6 Music is pure joy, and U Got the Look hammers home what a genre-busting, perfect pop star Prince was. There’s also MC Hammer’s When Doves Cry-sampling Pray, proving that no one does it like the man himself. James Brown’s Get Up Offa That Thing shows how Prince took that influence and ran with it. In heels. And surpassed the standards set by his heroes.
Laverne hopes for “a beautiful thing in honour of a fabulous man” and she delivers. Bowing out with the wonky, gorgeous She’s Always in My Hair, it’s rapturous proof that Prince’s B-sides were better than other people’s As.
