Today I was shocked to learn about the death of one of the most prolific artists the world learned to know since his first album release in 1978. Prince has been a huge influence to me and his career somewhat coincided with my aspirations to create music. I already been digging Prince’s music long before his big 1984 break through with the movie Purple Rain.
I loved “I Feel For You” so much that I recorded my own version to understand how he could make such perfect music. Prince knew like no other to blend a mix of funk, soul, pop, rock and electronic music in a way that almost always resulted in pleasant, adventurous music. There was the 1981 album Controversy that to me truly was the eye opener of Prince’s mega talents. It resulted in a string of such great albums like “1999”, “Parade” but without any doubt 1987’s “Sign o’ the Times” was the crown on his career. I am glad that I could watch Prince in a live show in Rotterdam around that time (although his guitar was so loudly mixed, I felt like it would made me deaf instantly). Besides the great music Prince had also a knack to create superb videos like ‘Alphabet Street’ and ‘Batman’.
In the early 90s I was still a fan and buying all his releases, but somewhere around “Diamonds and Pearls” I felt that Prince started to follow the currents trends in stead of creating them. Of course the music was still top notch: Prince was music and music was Prince. He simply continued to create great music that may have been not so influential as his 80s work but still was very enjoyable to listen to. Until his final album (HITNRUN Phase 2) he did what he would do best.
I now can say I was extremely happy to witness his 2011 concert in Rotterdam (already 5 years ago) that started somewhere around midnight and was finished when the sun was about to rise. It was the best concert I witnessed: a superb band and wild funky jams.
It has been a pretty rough year so far with some many pillars that your youth was founded on, now falling away.