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Rest in Peace, Prince


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I'm expecting to hear this news about so many other music stars.  I won't name names for superstitious reasons, but there are a lot of musicians/celebrities who's probable near-future death won't surprise me in the least.  This is not one of them.  57 years old, never a user of drugs or alcohol, always seemed healthy and fit. It's shocking.

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This is very sad.  His death is certainly untimely. Once again, live every day....

 

LouieB

 

This may be morbid - but I wonder if he did a Steve Jobs. I say that as he was a Jehovah Witness - and I wonder if he refused treatment for whatever problem he had. 

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Another 1 of my idols, huge division. Him & Bowie this year are hitting hard. Both genius in their own way. This one hits hard, he was only 2 years older. Luckily, I got to see him several times. I was hoping to take my friend soon as she hasn't seen him. We'll just have to be satisfied with all of the fine Prince stuff out there. There will be plenty of "new" stuff from the vaults I'm sure. RIP Prince

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As a one-time Prince obsessive this one hits hard. He was such a huge influence on me as a musician, especially in my formative years. There are definitely a handful of funky, Prince inspired songs sitting on 4 and 8 track cassettes somewhere in my house.

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As a one-time Prince obsessive this one hits hard. He was such a huge influence on me as a musician, especially in my formative years. There are definitely a handful of funky, Prince inspired songs sitting on 4 and 8 track cassettes somewhere in my house.

 

He did make it hard to stay obsessed after a while, didn't he? My own obsession started with Sign O The Times, even though I was already a big fan before then (owned Purple Rain and Around The World In A Day). Sign O The Times hit when I was 14, as I was breaking free from my (4) elder siblings' (indispensable) influences. I feel like I matured from being a kid listening to that record (cassette, actually). It expanded my worldview and validated my more embarrassing thoughts and feelings. It's still my favorite of his. He remained my #1 over the next four years, through Graffiti Bridge (maybe his last all-killer/no-filler release). I became a Prince album completist in those years, and I loved nearly every tune. Diamonds & Pearls/The Glyph Album came out when I was busy in college emulating Jane's Addiction, mimicking the Beastie Boys, discovering Bob Dylan, so the early 90s took him down a notch. I still made my release day purchases throughout the decade, from the brilliant Come, the genius The Black Album (finally), the jaw-dropping b-sides collected on the Hits release, and the eventual unfurling gifts of the overstuffed Emancipation set (and Crystal Ball's collection of career insights via cutting floor nuggets), all the way to Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic (which reignited my obsession in 2000, when I was already knee deep in that golden age of neo-soul, where every black artist on the radio was bowing at his altar, and he showed up to tell them how it's done - check out Man'O'War for proof). After that came The Rainbow Children, the first Prince album I ended up out-and-out dismissing. After that bad taste, his ensuing releases, though mostly energetic and focused, still carried that unfortunate safe/familiar feel that comes with age, even though they had plenty of bright spots (like Call My Name on Musicology and Valentina on MPLS Sound). Eventually he overwhelmed me with sheer volume, and I've lost count of the Prince albums I don't own. I didn't give the last few much attention. Now that he's gone, I probably will give it all another shot (except The Rainbow Children, that shit is a straight-up mess - but I look forward to discovering those 2014 albums). I'm glad I have it all to keep listening to, and although I was hoping I'd get to catch one of his Piano & a Microphone shows (a 20-min cellphone video I watched a few weeks ago blew me away,  I still have my three Prince shows to look back on. And the Sign O The Times concert film, which is pure lightning in a bottle. Thanks for the music Prince! And the fun. U skinny motherfucka with the high voice.

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I was too young. My brothers and sisters all did. The next youngest to me, my brother, was initially told by my parents he couldn't see it. Then we were in our room, him sulking, when my father popped his head in: "Prince is still a pig, but you can go." It's funny to think of what a threat Prince was then. Dude nearly singlehandedly inspired parental warning stickers on records.

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That is correct. Supposedly - Tipper overheard one of her daughters listening to Darling Nikki and flipped out. 

 

I see people are posting Prince songs on YT now. I wonder if whoever controls his estate will leave them be, or take the songs down. 

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He did make it hard to stay obsessed after a while, didn't he?

 

My fandom sort of mirrors yours in ways Sir Stewart...

 

I think the video for 1999 was my introduction to Prince. I was 12 and into bands like Led Zeppelin, The Who and Iron Maiden, so Prince didn't really register with me just yet. Then Purple Rain came out, and I heard Let's Go Crazy, and I couldn't deny it, the dude could play guitar. Prince was now on my radar, but not enough for me to buy any albums yet. I was still too limited in my listening to take the chance. I'm not sure what happened, but being in a band and expanding my musical horizons seemed to finally lead me to finally checking out Prince properly. And boy did it hit me. I got Purple Rain and totally immersed myself in that record. It was so innovative, quirky, catchy, moving and genre-defying. It was like, finally a musician that's combining all the things I want to hear in music in one place (Sly Stone funk and soul, Hendrix-y guitar blasts...) After devouring Purple Rain I quickly bought everything else he'd released up to that point. Each record was consumed pretty heavily, well "For You" not so much--though Soft and Wet is pretty cool--but the rest of them for sure, especially "Sign 'o' the Times" (which was the first Prince record I reached for today to play in the car.) Over the next few years my fandom grew to the point where I was buying bootleg concert videos and buying The Black album on vinyl for something like $40 (a lot of money back then.) By this time I was buying his new releases the day they came out. This continued up to around the Rave Un2 record. Though by this point the past few releases had somewhat diminished my obsession. Nevertheless I always held out hope that each new release would be a return to the groundbreaking adventurous days of the past. Unfortunately that didn't happen and eventually I stopped buying the records when they came out, and sometimes skipped buying them completely. It was around this point that Prince stopped setting trends and breaking rules, and was now actually following current trends and covering modern hits even. Over the next two decades I still followed his career with interest, though the music didn't hit me as hard anymore. Nevertheless there were still some bright moments, and he was still Prince, the greatest all round musician/performer of his generation, so I always made sure to listen to any new releases. Even after all these years and career ups and downs, he's always going to be someone near the top of my all-time favorite list.

 

p.s. About 3 weeks back my girlfriend texted me, asking if I wanted to see Prince play a solo piano show. If it wasn't for the price of the tix, coupled with the fact we had some expenses we needed to take care of, I would've so pulled the trigger on that one. Of course now I'm wishing we'd just bit the bullet and did it. I remember seeing Prince on the "Love Symbol Album" tour. I think it was the first show I went to where people were standing and dancing for the whole show... a truly one-of-a-kind performer, still hard to believe we've lost him for good.

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