First Kal Penn of Harold and Kumar fame joins Obama’s Office of Public Liaison, and now Prince is rumored to be knocking at the door of the White House, looking for a job. The White House’s Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Van Jones, told Jet magazine that celebrities including Prince and Russell Simmons have contacted him in an effort to partner with Obama’s team.

While celebrity enthusiasm for and involvement in the White House is nothing new these days, it is interesting that Prince has chosen to align himself with Obama after he refrained from voting in the last presidential election. He justified his abstention from voting by saying, “The reason why is because I’m one of Jehovah’s Witnesses and we’ve never voted. That’s not to say that I don’t think Barack Obama—President Obama—is a very smart individual and he seems like he means well. Prophecy is what we all have to go by now.”

Dedicated to those songs that I can’t stop playing, humming, or thinking about; the 4+ minutes you fall head-over-heels in love with. Past instances have included The Ramones’ “Indian Giver,” R.E.M.’s “Me In Honey,” and Van Halen’s “Beautiful Girls.”

I have to stop being dumb about lyrics. Or I need to stop paying attention to old songs I thought I knew well, only to discover I don’t understand a thing. I wish I could say that I came to obsess over “7″ by way of a spiritual awakening, but that’s not the case. My wife and I were walking a dog named Seven, and a small debate was held over whether she was named after the song or George Costanza’s potential son. The answer was never learned, and another mystery was borne unto the world. But I spent the whole hike humming what I remembered of the song, and upon returning home I played it again for the first time in years.

I like Prince. I think he’s incredibly talented. And by this point in the paragraph, you must realize I’m qualifying a lot to cushion an upcoming blow, so here it is: Prince is a weird dude. Weirdness generated out of contradiction. He’s a strange walking dichotomy of overtly over-sex and Jehova’s witness, if rumors are to be believed in the latter case. He signed a roughly 500 billion dollar recording deal only to immediately complain about it, thereby changing his name to a symbol, which is the official title of the album in containing the song in question. And on that album, Prince kicks things off with “My Name is Prince” — ironic since soon after, his name would actually not be Prince — and then “Sexy M.F.” containing the lamest lyrics in the world because they’re so one-dimentionally “sexy” only to eventually land on the religious intonations of “7″. I didn’t even get into the whole completely straight gay guy wearing ass-less pants and quirky up-do’s who slept with Kim Bassinger and wrote songs for Sinead O’Connor, or that he was the only pre-texting adult to actively use “U” when writing “you.”

I don’t think I’m ever as conscious of the writer’s relationship with God as I am when Prince deals with it, mostly because it seems foreign to me in a rock ‘n’ roll connotation. I tend to believe that fiction writers and book writers must believe in God by the very nature of their profession. They themselves create worlds and inhabitants and lay out “a plan” for every move in that world, so it seems like a natural fit that they would envision themselves as the characters in someone else’s story. This ties more to the ego of the writer than anything else (”I am God of my world, so there must be a God of his own world in order to validate my world”). Obviously music has been closely related to religion, but often times my favorite “religious” rock songs are ones which create spiritual feelings, not the songs which, say, predict the end of the world in great detail.

As I’ve lamented both here and in other cases, Prince’s strong suit is not his lyrics. He’s lucky that his musical strengths are so far beyond most mortal humans that his lyrical sins gain absolution. So maybe I’m not dumb about lyrics; I just get more easily suckered in to the great musical elements that I don’t pay as much attention to the words. I’ve always had a good grip on the chorus, which out of context with the rest of the song just seems like more non-sequitur rock BS, throwing in “savoir-faire” for rhyming purposes alone. But in the context of the verses, it doesn’t explain too much, except that he mentions other “7″ things. After inspecting the lyric sheets more closely, I’m happy to discover he doesn’t actually say “giant spider” but “surely die in spite of” as in “And every evil soul will surely die in spite of their 7 tears.”

More comforting, right? Immediately before that line he speaks of the plague and a river of blood with the kind of casual speech even Dethklok would notice.

I suppose it could be commended that someone as popular and prolific as Prince can so boldly stand up for his beliefs and preach to legions of his fans in the context of a pop song, but doesn’t his message get a little muddy with the spooky cackle under the first instrumental stanza? And at the same time, I would argue that a song like “Raspberry Beret” is more “Heavenly” simply because it does not invite any direct comparisons to Heaven. Maybe I’m holding too much against the artist for infusing an otherwise catchy, innovative and fantastic pop song with ideas beyond boy wants girl, but that’s what I can relate to. The best sermons are those that make the unfathomable relate to our daily lives. In some regard, Prince has done that with “7″, because I’m now considering these ideas. When they’re taken out of the context of the music — as I did by cold quoting them earlier — they seem weird and kind of crazy. When they’re combined with great music, they become something else.

Inevitable Video Note: I can’t find a video for this song. I can think of many reasons why…

1. Prince guards his music like a Swiss bank. Remember that video of him at Cochella doing “Creep?” It’s like he’s the Memory police–What video of him doing “Creep?” It was never there…”;
2. Prince has weird song titles, so looking for something called “7″ gets a lot of random crap;
3. Prince’s name is sort of weird, so looking for something with “Prince” in the title gets a lot of random crap;
4. Prince hates the internet and all its glory.

Some or all of these is true. Whatever the case, look it up yourself, then realize you can’t find it, then go to iTunes and support the guy’s mansion castle.

In the world of downloadable music, the 40-minute album is obsolete. It took six years and the latest Illinois release to make me realize this, but here I am. In fact, with the deterioration of radio along with the eradication of physical properties entirely, pop music’s ties to tradition are the demons of the art itself to slay. Simply said, if you make a 3+ minute pop tune nowadays, you only did it because everyone else did so before you. By this logic, the sans-time music world should allow unstoppable song-making machines like Prince to release an album (or whatever could be quantified as an “album” now) every week. It also makes me question the motives of artists today: Why do they wait until they have 40 minutes of material to release a “full” record any more? Can they only fill 40 minutes? Or were those just the best 40 minutes of 80? Are they happy for the resurgence of vinyl, so they can have a physical limiter of their material? The whole system is in flux and it’s freaking me out.

All of these thoughts swam through my mind while enjoying The Adventures of Kid Catastrophe, a mix of Moby-style hip-hop and power pop that offers many a delicate tune. The true realization moment arrived when I came to “Are You Coming With Me?” and my world stopped. Preceded by the kinds of wonderful songs normally reserved for Wes Anderson movies (that would be emo-pop based on 60s mod rock that you could score a wrist-slitting scene to), things came to a head on this song. Sonic grandeur arose in my ears as the song soared to the heavens, carrying everyone along with it. It’s a heartbreaker, but with realistic optimism one has to fool himself into believing he can turn a bad relationship around. It feels climactic. There’s something about pianos, harmoniums and acoustic guitars surrounded by full-volume choruses that feel like the end of prom night, and I was ready to stand and applaud.

And then the album kept going.

And going. And going. That might sound like a bad situation if the following songs weren’t so good, but the real point is that my experience opened my eyes to the sans-time capabilities of today’s music world, and it’s a capability Illinois must be aware of as well. Kid Catastrophe won’t receive a CD release until June 9, yet the album’s been available on iTunes since early May as a “Deluxe Edition,” implying there is a “Standard Edition” forthcoming. That means cuts, and that would be a shame, because the true luxury of the sans-time album — for all my pseudo-complaining earlier — means flexibility and freedom. With no time constraints, Illinois can feel free to include instrumental tracks like the lovely “Church”. A hit-seeking, time-sensitive producer would spy those one hundred seconds and see a trim target. Limited by time and the physical realm of CDs, we might also lose gems like “Old Saloon” or “Broken String” (a.k.a. “The Big Finale, Part 2″). An expansive and inviting album would near dangerously close to becoming either repetitive or unambitious.

In March, the editors over at Nerve posted their picks for the Forty Sexiest Frontwomen in Rock History, and after receiving a bit of flack for their picks, the editors have struck again; only this time (more importantly) with the Forty Sexiest Frontmen in Rock History.

Unlike most ‘hottest whatever in rock’ lists, Nerve has managed to avoid sticking to the ties of classic cliches, keeping Sting away from the number one position, and instead making the tantric Police frontman stay put at number 26. Sure, Sting is sexy, but we don’t think he’s the sexiest frontman that has ever walked on a stage, but we have to say we think he is far sexier than Bono, (can we please think back to the Joshua Tree-era when he had a mullet?), who landed at 24. We are calling Nerve out on their Bono pick as a major league strike.

Also on the list, Red Hot Chili Pepper’s frontman, Anthony Kiedis at number 21, Jeff Buckley and Kurt Cobain helped round out the top 15, while Bruce Springsteen landed himself at lucky number 7 on the Sexy Man list. We will keep any bias we might feel towards Bruce out of the way, only to say that still after the days of his prime, the New Jersey boy is still looking quite nice (though he’s old enough to be some of our fathers).

Finally, to top off the list the Nerve editors chose Morrissey as their number three, David Bowie as their number two and Prince as their ultimate hot man. Personally, we would have much rather seen Mr. Glenn Danzig at number one (opinions of the writer do not reflect those of The Tripwire) than a man who has referred to himself as a symbol. At least they didn’t throw Michael Jackson onto the list.

To see the full list, click here.

In the grand tradition of telling your record label where to stick it, Amanda Palmer (of The Dresden Dolls) has foregone the subtlety of a temporary face tattoo (a la Prince) and gone for something a little more, shall we say, blunt. She wrote a little ditty for RoadRunner Records that is probably not safe for work. Unless, of course, you work for RoadRunner.

The Daily Swarm posted a video of the song taken by an audience member at Palmer’s March 28 gig at The Culture Room in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Head over to the Swarm’s post to see the full transcript of the lyrics, but we especially like the sequence:

Please just let me go
I swear you won’t miss me
You don’t love me
I’m not making you any money
Plus you’ll still have Slipknot

You may be wondering why “Oooo boy your drive is affecting me, ohh as you’re taking the wheel” is the first lyric you hear Awesome New Republic front man, Michael John Hancock sing out in a sensual, Britney Spears-y undertone. The poppy and perfect-for-jogging-jam “Birthday” was originally written for the debut album from the queen of texting, Gossip Girls‘ Leighton Meester. After comparing the high notes, the boys of ANR knew what they had to do. They took it upon themselves to adopt “Birthday”. It is now their duty to soulfully sing about other dudes and basically transform into the love child of the Scissor Sisters and Justin Timberlake for this dance-worthy track that is now their lead single.

ANR is a 3-piece indie band out of Miami, FL comprised of Michael John Hancock and Brian Robertson with featured touring drummer, Jorge Rubiera. Hancock and Robertson both graduated from the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami and have been polishing their sound for the past 3 years. They just finished Rational Geographic Volume 1, which is the first in a series of 3 discs to be released this year. The trilogy of 6 song cycles is said to be inspired by the parallels between the Star Wars trilogy and the past 30+ years of American government. Sounds both ambitious and a bit on the nerdy side, but with lyrics like, “This is not a game I play, with just any other guy,” you got to respect the David Bowie/Prince vibe these guys are throwing out there with their high vocal squeals backed with synth rhythm. Not to mention the appropriated guy-on-guy lyrics. hot.

Awesome New Republic – “Birthday”