Last week, the music world - correction, the entire world - was stunned by news of the sudden passing of Prince Rogers Nelson, better known by just his first name (and, at times, as "The Artist Formerly Known As His First Name") - the Minneapolis-raised musical genius who recorded hits such as “Raspberry Beret,” “1999,” and “When Doves Cry.”
In response, the globe went from Purple Rain to Purple Lighting faster than His Royal Badness could take a Corvette from zero to 60, as a number of significant structures were lit up in various shades of lavender - including the Eiffel Tower, Target Field in Minneapolis, and Detroit’s Renaissance Center. A multitude of tributes were expressed online and on air. Even the U.S. Senate, which has managed not to do its job in at least considering a ninth Supreme Court justice (among other things it has managed not to achieve), approved a resolution honoring Prince for his achievements as a musician, composter, innovator, and cultural icon.
Prince was, indeed, a musical icon. It could be argued, even before his death, that he was part of a Contemporary American Musician Mt. Rushmore, up in the stratosphere with Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, and Bruce Springsteen.
He might even be the first face carved into the mountain.
There's a number of reasons for this consideration. First, the man was a musical genius. For example, on his debut record, For You, he's credited with playing 27 different instruments. This is extremely difficult; when I was in 11th grade, I took up the viola, having been playing the violin for six years and the kazoo for a few more. Playing two instruments was hard; mastering double-digit instruments is light years more stressful. And Prince - a teen at the time - did it.
And the dude was good. Really good.
There's not a ton of video clips online showing off Prince's prowess, so it's kind of slim pickings; but what is out there is breathtaking. The most widely circulated I've seen is from when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, when Prince jams with Tom Petty, Steve Winwood, Jeff Lynne, and Dhani Harrison during the all-star performance of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." Prince pops in about midway into the song and absolutely takes over:
He also took center stage for the February 2007 Super Bowl XLI Halftime Show in Miami, and what transpired was 12 minutes of sheer ecstasy. The setlist for Prince's performance was a short rendition of "We Will Rock You" by Queen, his hit "Let's Go Crazy," "Baby, I'm a Star," cover versions of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Proud Mary," the Dylan composition "All Along the Watchtower," and the Foo Fighters song "Best of You," before finishing the performance with another signature song, "Purple Rain" while in a downpour. In 2015, Billboard ranked the performance as the greatest Super Bowl performance ever, and while I'm partial to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' halftime show the following year, it's difficult to argue Prince's show wasn't spectacular; it was.
It gets better. Not only was Prince a prolific musician, he was a prolific song writer. He released nearly 40 albums, or roughly one a year, and rumor has it there are thousands - possibly tens of thousands - of unreleased tracks stored in his Paisley Park studios. These don't even include the numerous songs and albums he wrote, performed on, produced and released by entourage bands like Morris Day & The Time.
And unlike many artists, who release album after album that sound virtually the same, Prince chose to take different paths. Some sounded funky or dove into the blues; others were laced with jazz and fusion. He rocked, he rapped, he hip hopped, he jammed, he went hippie, he went political. Above all else, he experimented, and didn't play the game by rules set up by the establishment. He may very well have been the most diverse performer in music history (and if he's not, I'm not sure who would be at the top of the list).
Speaking of which ... he demanded - and retained - complete control over his work. When he was offered his first record deal (and, again, he wasn't even 18 yet; when I was in high school, I was happy landing a freaking part-time job at McDonald's), he shot it down in flames, because he wanted a total say in what went into the recording. That, my friends, takes some serious chutzpah. But it paid off, and the same attitude of his not being controlled by the man upstairs in corporate headquarters was a standard the next 40 years.
A few years later, having scored a few hits, Prince ordered management to obtain a deal for him to star in a major motion picture. This resulted in the 1984 hit film Purple Rain, which starred Prince and was loosely based on his own life, and the studio album of the same name, which was also the soundtrack to the film. The fact he was able to pull off the movie, given his still somewhat-limited commercial success, is a tribute to perseverance, dedication, and confidence. He not only talked the talk, he walked the walk, and the results were mind-boggling. The Purple Rain album sold more than 13 million copies in the United States, and spent 24 consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200 chart. At one point in 1984, Prince simultaneously had the Number 1 album, single, and film in the nation.
Not too shabby.
He wasn't too shabby with his professional advancement of female musicians, either. When he did start recording songs with an actual band (as opposed to playing every instrument on every track), there were women everywhere. His first band, The Revolution, featured Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman. Later bands were also represented extremely well proportionally by female musicians. He created female-fronted (and in some cases, all-female) bands, such as Sheila E., Wendy & Lisa, TaMara and The Seen, Vanity 6, and Apollonia 6.
I heard about Prince's passing last Thursday afternoon, while in my English classroom, and the assignment we were working on - a reading and discussion of Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture - quickly dissolved into a discussion of Prince, his music, and his impact on pop culture and society. It even included me playing a few of his songs off the Internet. I joked with friends afterward that I could only play a few of his songs, because most of his material would get me fired if I played it.
The past week has been an interesting whirlwind. My car stereo has been tuned in almost exclusively to SiriusXM Channel 50, which has been playing Prince 24/7. There have been the drug rumors, and the revelation Prince died without a will to designate how his $300 million (or more) estate will be divided up among heirs.
Since his death, record stores have been sold out of his CDs and DVDs; according to Billboard, his April 21 death triggered a swell in digital song sales for the icon. Notably, 20 tracks of his have hit Billboard's 25-position R&B Digital Songs chart, marking the most simultaneously charting tracks ever on the chart. Additionally, The Very Best of Prince and the Purple Rain soundtrack hold the top two album spots. According to Billboard, Prince died the final day of Billboard's sales and streaming charts tracking week, meaning fans rushed to purchase his music in the roughly half-day left in the tracking week.
On a more personal level, Prince's death brought me back to my freshman year at Central Michigan University (1982-83), where five college friends (Ron Snead, Dean Sinclair, Randy Hanna, Cindy Stevens, and Kayla Smith) and I dressed up and performed at several "Mock Rock" air band competitions as Prince and The Revolution. It was a blast, with me playing the role of drummer Bobby Z as we jammed to "1999" and "Automatic" from the 1999 album before hundreds of somewhat inebriated students at Mt. Pleasant's Wayside Central bar.
Ah, memories.
When I first posted on Facebook about Prince's death (after first confirming it through multiple online sources, to ensure it wasn't another celebrity hoax death announcement), I included lines from the Prince song "Sometimes It Snows In April." The chorus expressed, I believe, a deep realization of both the sanctity and frailty of life:
Sometimes it snows in AprilPrince died at 57. Baby, that was much too fast.
Sometimes I feel so bad, so bad
Sometimes I wish life was never ending,
And all good things, they say, never last
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