Real Life Rock Top 10: January 3, 2024

1-4. A visit to Paisley Park, Chanhassen, MN (November 24). “I always thought it was the most depressing place,” said the friend I was with, who at Prince’s invitation often visited for listening sessions in the complex of low white buildings that could make you think of something thought up after a long night with a modernist LEGO set. In our all-white tour group of thirty, led by a friendly, open guide, perhaps ten were about twenty or younger, half a dozen over sixty. Prince would have been sixty-five. Would he already be a greeter at his own museum, or would he have started a whole new musical life off of that closing solo in “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame George Harrison tribute? Or was he the guitar he threw into the air that never came down?