The Poisoned Well: Your Most Disappointing Favorite Artist

I saw Prince play live for the first time in 1981 at a small club in NYC called The Ritz. It was soon after I discovered what is still my favorite of his records, "Dirty Mind," and only a short time before I saw him again at Radio City Music Hall touring behind his first real success, 1983's "1999."
Then came "Purple Rain," and the rest, as they say, is history.

Between 1984 and 1997, Prince Rogers Nelson became a personal obsession. Some of it had to do with the quality and diversity of his output, obviously. During that time, Prince was convincingly covering genres from dirty funk, psychedelic pop, jazz fusion, heavy metal, electronica and rhythm and blues. But it was the bottomless pit of unreleased music that sealed the deal for me. It was an endless supply of more of the same, and so much of it was good. In many cases, it was better than what was commercially available.

I couldn't get enough.

Here was an artist, arguably the only artist, who could sing freely about sex, and somehow still please the masses. Prince held nothing back. He'd perform in a jockstrap and grind on a stage prop bed. He'd use words like motherf**ker and p*ssy liberally.  No one seemed to mind. We were captured by the sounds, the whole package probably. There was no time to be shocked or offended by a few nasty words.

Plus, this little motherf**ker could play the guitar.
 
But then, between 1989 and 1997, the road got a bit rocky.

Batman. Jehovah. The name change to a symbol. Larry Graham. A wedding. Lawsuits. Jehovah.

 There is still a wealth of fantastic music to be found during those years, and as a matter of fact, "Graffiti Bridge," "The Gold Experience" and "Emancipation" remain favorites, if a bit dated. But something happened inside the man that no jockstrap or James Brown groove could fix.

It began to fall apart.

The music Prince has released since 1999...the year, not the album... is some of the most tossed off and soulless music of not only his career, but in the history of music.

"New Power Soul"
"Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic"
"The Rainbow Children" (THE RAINBOW CHILDREN!!)
"N.E.W.S"
"Musicology"
"3121"
"Planet Earth"
"LotusFlow3r"
"MPLSound"
"20Ten"

What the hell happened? That is one impressive line of crap.

Here's his new track.



Meh.

The streak of unlistenable Prince music has gone on for so long, it has made me less of a fan of all the music I had once loved.

The well has officially been poisoned.

So, all that said--

Who is the one artist who you once loved but now can no longer tolerate? The one artist who has poisoned your well.

I only ask that you follow one guideline.

This artist must be someone you've consistently given the benefit of the doubt. In other words, if you loved Joe Jackson's first three records and then were appalled by his forays into latin pop and jazz and haven't listened to a record since 1982's "Night & Day," Joe is not who I am looking for. It must be someone who you've welcomed into your musical life through thick and thin, and then finally woke up and smelled nothing but the thin. Someone you still listen to, though you know the bloom was off the rose many albums ago.