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One of the most flamboyant, controversial,
influential, and popular artists of the 1980s, Prince is also one of the
least predictable and most mysterious. At a time when comparable megastars
such as Michael Jackson, Madonna, and Janet Jackson were delivering an
album every three years or so, Prince remained prolific to an almost
self-destructive degree — and was given to wayward, self-indulgent career
moves (even declaring in the 1990s a name change to an unpronounceable
symbol) that could alienate even his most ardent supporters. Yet his taut,
keyboard-dominated Minneapolis Sound — a hybrid of rock, pop, and funk,
with blatantly sexual lyrics — not only influenced his fellow Minneapolis
artists the Time and Janet Jackson's producers (and ex-Time members) Jimmy
Jam and Terry Lewis, but also impacted much of 1980s dance-pop music. And
Michael, Madonna, and Janet were comparable to Prince only in terms of
star power. None could match the formidable breadth of his talents, which
included not just singing and dancing but also composing, producing, and
playing instruments (not to mention directing videos and, however
ineffectively, movies). In fact, Prince played nearly all the instruments
on his first five albums, and has produced himself since signing with
Warner Bros. at age 21.
Under the name "Prince Rogers," Prince's
father John Nelson was the leader of a Minneapolis-area jazz band, in
which his mother was the vocalist. Prince started playing piano at age
seven, guitar at 13, and drums at 14, all self-taught. By age 14 he was in
a band called Grand Central, which later became Champagne. Four years
later, a demo tape he made with engineer Chris Moon reached local
businessman Owen Husney. In 1978 Husney negotiated Prince's contract with
Warner Bros.
"Soft and Wet" (Number 92, pop, Number 12 R&B,
1978) from For You introduced his erotic approach, while "I Wanna
Be Your Lover" (Number 11 pop, Number One R&B) and "Why You Wanna
Treat Me So Bad?" (Number 13 R&B) from Prince (Number 22, 1979)
suggested his musical range. Dirty Mind (Number 45, 1980)--a loose
concept album including songs such as "Head," about oral sex, and
"Sister," about incest — established Prince's libidinous image once and
for all. One of its few songs that wasn't too obscene for airplay,
"Uptown," went to Number Five R&B, while "When You Were Mine" became
Prince's most widely covered song and a minor comeback hit for Mitch Ryder
in 1983 (it was later covered by Cyndi Lauper, among others, as well.)
Controversy (Number 21, 1981) had two hits, the title cut
(Number 70 pop, Number Three R&B, 1981) and "Let's Work" (Number Nine,
1982). Prince, Dirty Mind, and Controversy all eventually
went platinum. For his second album, Prince had formed a racially and
sexually mixed touring band that included childhood friend Andre
(Anderson) Cymone on bass, Dez Dickerson on guitar, keyboardists Gayle
Chapman and Matt Fink, and drummer Bobby "Z" Rivkin. By the Dirty
Mind tour, Chapman had been replaced by Lisa Coleman. In concert
Prince frequently wore black bikini underpants underneath a trench coat.
A double album, 1999 (Number Nine, 1982), went platinum,
bolstered by the Top 10 singles "Little Red Corvette" (Number Six, 1983)
and "Delirious" (Number Eight, 1983), and the title track (Number 12,
1982). "Little Red Corvette" was also among the first videos by a black
performer to be played regularly on MTV.
Prince "discovered"
another Minneapolis band, the Time, whose members were cherry-picked from
extant local bands Prince had gone back with to high school. The Time's
first two albums went gold (the third went platinum); in turn, they
supplied in-concert backup for Vanity 6, a female trio that had a club hit
with "Nasty Girl" (Vanity would leave Prince's fold in 1983 to launch an
unsuccessful solo career). Prince denied that he was the "Jamie Starr" who
produced albums by the Time and Vanity 6. He did take both bands on tour
with him, however. After the tour, Dez Dickerson left Prince's band to
launch an abortive solo career; he was replaced by Wendy Melvoin.
Prince vaulted to superstardom in 1984 with Purple Rain, a
seemingly autobiographical movie set in the Minneapolis club scene and
co-starring the Time and Apollonia 6 (Patricia "Apollonia" Kotero having
replaced Vanity). It was an enormous hit, as was the soundtrack album,
which spent 24 weeks atop the chart and sold eventually sold over 13
million copies, yielding hit singles with "When Doves Cry" (Number One,
1984), "Let's Go Crazy" (Number one, 1984), "Purple Rain" (Number Two,
1984), "I Would Die 4 U" (Number Eight, 1984), and "Take Me With U"
(Number 25, 1985). The album marked the first time in his career that
Prince had recorded with, and credited, his backing band, which he named
the Revolution. The opening act on Prince's 1984 tour was another of his
female protégés, Latin percussionist Sheila E., the daughter of Santana
percussionist Pete Escovedo, who hailed from Oakland, California, and
whose album The Glamorous Life Prince had produced that year (as
Jamie Starr).
At the 1985 Grammy Awards, Prince won Best Group
Rock Vocal for "Purple Rain" and R&B Song of the Year for "I Feel For
You" (actually from Prince, and a hit cover for Chaka Khan in
1984). After the gala, Prince — who for all his sexual exhibitionism
onstage was painfully shy offstage — declined an offer to take part in the
all-star recording session for "We Are the World" (he later donated the
track "4 the Tears in Your Eyes" to the USA for Africa album).
That, and his fey demeanor at the 1985 Academy Awards show, where he won a
Best Original Score Oscar for Purple Rain, were the first signals
of Prince's personal eccentricities to his newfound mass audience. In 1985
Prince also wrote Sheena Easton's suggestive hit single "Sugar Walls,"
under the pseudonym "Alexander Nevermind." And Tipper Gore credited
allusions to masturbation in the Purple Rain track "Darling Nikki"
with inspiring her to form the Parents Music Resource Center and to launch
the Senate hearings on offensive rock lyrics, which led to the record
industry's "voluntary" album-stickering policy.
Prince followed up
Purple Rain with the psychedelic Around the World in a Day,
which topped the chart for three straight weeks but was considered a
critical and commercial disappointment. Prince reportedly had to be
persuaded to release singles from it, but the album did yield hits in the
Beatlesque "Raspberry Beret" (Number Two, 1985) and the funky "Pop Life"
(Number Seven, 1985). Upon the album's release Prince's management
announced his retirement from live performance (which lasted less than two
years), and the opening of his own studio and record label, both named
Paisley Park--after a track on the new album (which also included a
spiritual epic, "The Ladder," which Prince wrote with his previously
estranged father). Paisley Park recording acts included the Family
(fronted by Wendy Melvoin's twin sister, Susannah, a long-standing Prince
girlfriend), Mazarati (led by Cymone's replacement, Brown Mark), Madhouse
(a jazz-funk band led by Prince's sax player Eric Leeds), and Jill Jones
(who'd appeared, draped around Lisa Coleman, in the "1999" video and as a
waitress in Purple Rain). None of them ever had a hit, although the
Family's Prince-penned "Nothing Compares 2 U" would later be a massive hit
for Sinéad O'Connor.
In spring 1986 Prince was back atop the pop
chart with "Kiss," a stripped-down funk number. It would be heard
(briefly) in Prince's next movie, Under the Cherry Moon, a romantic
trifle shot on the French Riviera, with Prince replacing music video
auteur Mary Lambert (Madonna's "Like a Virgin," among others) as director
midway through production. The film bombed with critics and moviegoers;
its soundtrack album Parade (Number Three, 1986) yielded two minor
hit singles in "Mountains" (Number 23, 1986) and "Anotherloverholenyohead"
(Number 63, 1986). On July 1, 1986, Prince played an impromptu live set
following the world premiere of Cherry Moon in Sheridan, Wyoming
(where the winner of an MTV movie-premiere contest lived).
In 1987
Prince fired the Revolution (Wendy and Lisa would go on to record as a
duo, scoring a minor hit single with "Waterfall," before settling into
soundtrack work) and, retaining only Matt Fink, replaced them with a new,
unnamed band featuring Sheila E. on drums. Prince alone would be credited
on Sign 'O' the Times (Number Six, 1987), widely hailed by critics
as a return to form — and, as time passed, as Prince's pinnacle. It
yielded hit singles in the stark title track (Number Three, 1987), the
rocking Sheena Easton duet "U Got the Look" (Number Two, 1987), and the
poppy "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man" (Number Ten, 1987).
Prince toured Europe with his new band and a theatrically choreographed
show, but rather than touring the U.S. released a film of a concert shot
in Rotterdam, Holland (and extensively re-shot and overdubbed at Paisley
Park's soundstage).
In late 1987 rumors circulated of a new Prince
project, The Black Album, said to consist of musically and
lyrically raw funk tracks. A number of copies were pressed for a secret
release date (the album was unmarked apart from a serial number), but
Prince changed his mind at the last minute. Before its official release in
late 1994, The Black Album became one of the most bootlegged LPs in
pop history. Prince' next official release was the mild Lovesexy
(Number 11, 1988), which yielded only one hit, "Alphabet St." (Number
Eight, 1988), but did prompt Prince's first U.S. tour in four years,
performing on a rotating stage that Prince entered in a pink Cadillac. In
1989 Prince had his first chart-topping album in four years with his
soundtrack for director Tim Burton's big-budget film Batman;
"Batdance" was Prince's first Number One since "Kiss." His half-sister
Lorna Nelson lost a lawsuit claiming he'd stolen her lyrics for "U Got the
Look." A year later, Prince — who'd already written and produced an album
for Paisley Park signee Mavis Staples and undertaken productions for the
Time's Morris Day and Jerome Benton and Batman star Kim Basinger —
released Graffiti Bridge, a film that seemed to be a delayed sequel
to Purple Rain, again pitting Prince against the Time on the
Minneapolis club scene. Prince's love interest was played by Ingrid
Chavez, who would gain greater fame for helping Lenny Kravitz write
Madonna's hit "Justify My Love" (though she'd have to sue Kravitz to get a
composing credit). The movie was another critical and commercial disaster;
the soundtrack album (Number Six, 1990) yielded the hit "Thieves in the
Temple" (Number six, 1990) and Tevin Campbell's Prince-penned "Round and
Round" (Number 12, 1991).
In January 1991, at his recently opened
Glam Slam nightclub in Minneapolis, Prince unveiled a new band, the New
Power Generation, who would not tour the U.S. until 1993. The band
included a rapping dancer (Anthony "Tony M" Mosely), in Prince's first nod
to hip-hop, which had claimed a significant share of his black-pop
audience and with which he never seemed comfortable musically. The
following month Prince was sued for severance pay and punitive damages by
his ex-managers, Robert Cavallo, Joseph Ruffalo, and Steven Fargnoli, whom
Prince had fired in 1988. Eight months later he released his fifth album
in five years, Diamonds and Pearls (Number Three, 1991), which
spawned Top Ten hits in the lascivious "Gett Off" (Number 21, 1991),
"Cream" (Number One, 1991), and the title track (Number three, 1992).
Warner Bros. made Prince a vice president when he re-signed with the label
in 1992. His next album (Number Five, 1992) was titled after an
unpronounceable merger of the male and female gender symbols; its hit
singles included "7" (Number Eight, 1992), "My Name Is Prince" (Number 36,
1992), and the profane "Sexy M.F." (Number 66, 1992). Prince produced an
album for yet another female protégé, Carmen Electra, and New York's
Joffrey Ballet announced that it was choreographing a four-part ballet to
Prince's music, called Billboards (it would premiere at the
University of Iowa in October 1993).
In September 1993 Prince
pulled the most eccentric move of his career: he changed his name to the
unpronounceable symbol he had titled his last album. "Symbol Man,"
"Glyph," or "The Artist Formerly Known As Prince" — shortened to the
Artist — as he was now known, suffered widespread ridicule followed by a
business setback in February 1994 when Warner Bros. dropped its
distribution deal with Paisley Park Records, effectively putting the label
out of business. Two weeks later the Artist released a new single, "The
Most Beautiful Girl in the World" (Number Three pop, Number Two R&B),
not on Warners but on independent Bellmark Records, which had had a huge
hit the previous summer with Tag Team's "Whoomp! There It Is"; Warners
said it allowed this "experiment" at the Artist's request but would
release his future product.
Come (Number 15 pop, Number Two
R&B), released later that year, was credited to "Prince (1958-1993),"
and drawn from the Artist's backlog of studio recordings. It spawned two
singles, "Letitgo" (Number 31 pop, Number Ten R&B) and "Space" (Number
71 R&B). The legit Black Album (Number 47 pop, Number 18
R&B) was finally released two weeks before Christmas. As his
relationship with the label continued to wane, the Artist began appearing
with the word "Slave" scrawled on his cheek. Warners released four more
albums: The Gold Experience (Number Six pop, Number two R&B,
1995), which scored a hit in "I Hate U" (Number 12 pop, Number Three
R&B) but was more notorious for the racy track "P Control"; the
soundtrack to Spike Lee's movie Girl 6 (Number 75 pop, Number 15
R&B, 1996); Chaos & Disorder (Number 26 pop); and the
archival The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale (1999). Meanwhile, the
Artist issued the triple-CD set Emancipation (Number Two R&B,
1996) on his own New Power Generation (NPG) label, which was distributed
through Capitol/EMI. The album went double platinum, and a remake of the
Stylistics' 1972 hit "Betcha By Golly Wow" reached Number Ten on the
R&B chart. The Artist also wed Mayte Garcia, a 22-year-old dancer and
vocalist in his band. Their son died of a rare disorder called Pfeiffer's
Syndrome shortly after birth in November 1996. Culling tracks from his
archives, the Artist put out the four-CD compilation Crystal Ball
(Number 62 pop, Number 59 R&B) in 1998, which he packaged in a clear
plastic ball and marketed through his Web site by offering a fifth bonus
disc, the acoustically-based The Truth. It sold 250,000 copies.
Five months later came the more conventionally conceived single album
New Power Soul (Number 22 pop, Number 9 R&B).
As the
millennium loomed, so did the Warners rerelease of "1999" (Number 45
R&B, 1999) and the artist's own 1999 (The New Master) EP. That
fall, Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic (Number 18 pop, Number Eight
R&B) was released through a licensing arrangement with Arista.
(Stating his displeasure with Arista's marketing of the album, the Artist
would later declare his intention to release a new version through his Web
site called Rave In2 the Joy Fantastic.) The album, which was
produced by "Prince," featured guest appearances by folk-rock singer Ani
DiFranco and rapper Chuck D — among others — both performers whom the
Artist admired for distributing their music independently. With the
expiration of his Warner/Chappell publishing contract on December 31,
1999, the Artist announced the following May that he was reclaiming his
given name.
The first album the again-named Prince released was
2001's The Rainbow Children, a jazz-inflected recording with lyrics
heavily influenced by Prince's conversion to the Jehovah's Witness faith;
it was heavily panned, as was 2003's N.E.W.S., an instrumental
disc. Between them, he issued One Nite Alone . . . Live!, a
three-disc set that suggested a definitive Prince live disc would be
something else.
In February 2004, Prince appeared with Beyoncé at
the Grammy Awards, playing his own "Purple Rain," "Let's Go Crazy," and
"Baby I'm a Star," along with Beyoncé's "Crazy in Love." A month later, he
was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on his first try; during
the closing ceremony he played the song-ending solo on George Harrison's
"While My Guitar Gently Weeps." Together, these performances made Prince
the talk of pop music. (Something similar would occur when he played the
2007 Super Bowl halftime show.) He capped this newfound interest with the
pleasantly old-school Musicology (Number Three, 2004) and a
sold-out concert tour. 3121 (Number One, 2006) was a more polished,
bigger-sounding variation on the prior album, and along with Planet
Earth
(Number Three, 2007) suggested that Prince would
be capable of creating a string of comfortable, eclectic, well-turned albums for the
rest of his career. |
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