As you might know, Prince and the internet don’t exactly get along. He recently took down his music from every streaming service except Tidal, and once tried to sue 22 fans for $1 million each just for linking to bootlegs of his songs (yeah, that was pretty confusing). And to boot, his songs are also pretty tough to find on YouTube. In the simplest terms, Prince and the internet are not friends.
That’s why this latest development is so stunning, as Prince’s cover of Radiohead’s “Creep” has emerged online. The video appeared with permission from Thom Yorke, and it remains to be seen if Prince will be cool with it (and what he could do about it if he isn’t). Prince naturally gives the song plenty of his own flourishes. At eight minutes long, it’s far lengthier than the original, and the song features a hypnotic groove before exploding into the chorus.
He also makes a few subtle adjustments to the lyrics; now it’s the unnamed person on the other end who wishes they were special. This, of course, makes perfect sense — it is, after all, Prince who we’re talking about. We would never believe him if he presented himself as an awkward dude who couldn’t talk to a girl, so, naturally, he flipped the script.
Anyway, the whole video is awesome, and hopefully the positive reaction to it will make Prince a little less combative about people enjoying his music online. There’s probably hundreds of awesome Prince live covers out there just waiting to be heard. Maybe this will open the floodgates.
