Sasha Weiss

And we have avant-garde indie, you know, weirdness.

And we really wanted to show a range and to show that songwriting is not just one kind of songwriting.

So the list tells several stories about that.

Yes.

So that was sort of the third step in the process.

Once we went through the very difficult work of winnowing this list, and by the way, it wasn't just one session.

It was many, many sessions over weeks to get to where we got.

We wanted to go to these practitioners of song and say, how do you do what you do?

He got the last laugh.

Thanks so much for having me, Michael.

Thanks so much for having me, Michael.

I'm delighted to be here.

I'm delighted to be here.

Well, let's start with who it's about.

Well, let's start with who it's about.

The supernova genius Prince.

The supernova genius Prince.

You know, it's kind of a funny thing. I didn't come to this as a huge Prince fan. I came to it as a person who's deeply interested in him as a symbol. He was part of the wallpaper of my childhood. He is this kind of... Literally or figuratively? Figuratively. But, you know, you hear him, you see him.

You know, it's kind of a funny thing. I didn't come to this as a huge Prince fan. I came to it as a person who's deeply interested in him as a symbol. He was part of the wallpaper of my childhood. He is this kind of... Literally or figuratively? Figuratively. But, you know, you hear him, you see him.

He's kind of this, like, in the cultural imagination, he is an avatar of gender-bending dreaminess, boundary-pushingness, breaking categories. Sensuality personified. Sensuality, sexiness, but a kind of uncategorizable sexiness. And I think for a lot of people, you know, he's at the top of the cultural pantheon. He's the icon of American pop music.