When I first heard "Soft and Wet" back in the late '70's. I was totally hooked. Then came "I Wanna Be Your Lover", and "Controversy", and "Jack U Off" and "1999"...(Get the picture?" )
I saw Prince,Vanity 6 and the Time in my town in the early '80's and the ticket price was $7.00!!!! I kid U not.
Through the years I remain an avid fan and still can't get enough of that purple stuff. I just bought "Come" the other day, and although a little obsure, it is still great. My fave song of all time is "I Could Never Take The Place of Your Man." What hooked you guys and guyettes?

greedygreg said:

the parentals... most definately. they totally introduced me early to Prince them being P fans themselves. In my baby book, the first song i sang and danced to in my living room was "Little Red Corvette"

that's why it remains my favorite song today

Well, my mom wasn't an avid fan; but she had many tapes and one cd; 1999. It was love at first listen for me, and the track "Free" single-handidly made me obsessed with Prince.

wendy and lisa's waterfall video...i loved the song.....then remembered them from prince's videos and sought out all their work together...

then, i discovered the wonders outside of the work he did with them and i was hooked....

A friend of mine loves him. After we watched last years Grammys
she made me a CD full of tracks from his different albums(Mp3s)
and told me to listen to the whole thing and tell her what I thought.

Now I think Im a bigger fan than she is

I was in Junior high and one Thursday visiting my best friend. I tell her I've never seen much videos since we don't have MTV, and she tells how she's always seen lots. So she puts on a videotape with her favourite videos, and one of them was Betcha By Golly Wow. It was like a dream, the romantic (some might say sappy, but not me!) lyrics, the big beautiful eyes, the fairy dust, the clarinette ballerina, it was just oo much! My little heart trembled.
After that I've always liked that song and that video, and just last year I was skimming my MP3's and thought: "Would Prince have other good songd besides BBGW....well, When Doves Cry of course. I went to look for it, remembered Little Red Corvette and Purple Rain, and 1999. Then I started downloading anything by prince and stumbled over If I Was Your Girlfriend. Right then and there I swore if Prince can do that and BBGW, he is my new favourite artist, besides Lenny Kravitz and BSB. And there it started. Symbol was my first album and after that there was no stopping me.
-S-

Older sisters, they started with 1999 and then picked up all the oldies. By 3rd grade I knew all the words to Dirty Mind. My mom HATED that!

Don't ask me how some of the big hits passed me by, but it was when I was in a record shop and heard the funky drum beat intro to Alphabet Street. I had to get Lovesexy there and then - and did! The rest is history and results in a phat collection

I got in to The Time before Prince, then I found out P was behind The Time

hearing Little Red Corvette on the radio, I thought this song was dope! Who is this Prince guy? Then saw the video for When Doves Cry on Top of the Pops. and the rest is history

I used to be one of those typicals who only knew the real commercial stuff. I used to dance in high school and my instructor was a Prince fanatic so through her I got exposed to more of his music...and I've been hooked ever since. I'm still wet behind the ears; that was only six/seven years ago...but my collection is rapidly expanding.

The Electrifying Mojo..but that story has been told..

I was watchin TV with the babysitter and VH1 advertised they would be playing Purple Rain next week as part of their "Movies that Rock" thing when I was in 4-5th grade. She was all excited and said we had to go and get blank tapes at the store to record it. I had no idea who Prince was of course, being so young. BUt she said that I would really like it, and that I should watch it. So they played it again some months later, and I watched it, and loved it. Purple Rain was the first CD that I bought with my own money. I say CD because I had bought tapes with my own money before that LOL. I wish I still had that original one.. I got a replacement now of course!

That was like 10 years ago... I started exploring a little more bout 3 years ago, bought 3 of his other cds... that's how I got into Prince!

the first song that caught my eye was 'theives in the temple'. i was around 8 years old and remember my eyes just stuck to the tv when some singer appeared doing these swirling hand moves in the shadows..this guy looked bad (the black clothes,the facial hair & long hair) yet so damn cool

copied and pasted from my profile

I first heard of Prince when I was eleven or twelve...Little Red Corvette was on the German version of Solid Gold and I liked it . Then came 1984 and Purple Rain and I was hooked even though at that time, I was a bit too young to appreciate his music to the fullest, plus I was way too deep into HipHop.
I remember me and a friend of mine going to the recordstore to get the 45 of When Doves Cry and playing 17 Days all day for weeks. Some people, including my basketball trainer, would ridicule me for liking Prince, saying he was gay and I should rather listen to Billy Idol .
In 1985 an older friend of mine returned from the USA where he was playing basketball for Wake Forest ( College) , and he would give me the latest music from the states, a weird mix of FatBoys, Prince, Run DMC, Midnight Star and early Beastie Boys. I really dug the music from Around the World In A Day, especially Raspberry Beret and Paisley Park.
But I was too much of a HipHop and RnB head to really become Prince obsessed.
Parade and Lovesexy were cool, but here in Europe it was a bit like typical mainstream pop music and quite the opposite of my other music interests.
Then my homie Bert hooked me up with a mixtape I still have to this day, and I saw him live in concert, and then came the nineties, D&P, the Symbol album, the name change ( one of the boldest and coolest moves in showbiz, IMHO ) , the Gold era, SonnyT, MichaelB, Mr.Hayes....the friction years...etc.
And lots of concerts, trips to MN and Paisley Park...
IT AIN`T OVER....

KoolEaze said:

sorry, couldnt resist.

I did by my dad. He had a lot of Prince albums back in the early 80s and I was only about 6 or 7. All I heard up in the house was Prince. And to this day thats all I play up in the house.

Well when I was a kid becuase I wasn't allowed to watch that much televison I listened to the radio alot. I would hear songs like "DMSR" "I would die 4 U" "When doves cry" "U got the look" "Theives in the Temple" (my favorite) "Take me with u" and other Prince songs all the time. I never really knew it was Prince but I just liked the songs and would go crazy dancing when they came on.

Then I figured out it was Prince who sung all thease songs when I was like eight and I was like I love Prince! It was even cooler when my dad told me he lived in the Twin Cities just like me! I just thought it was so cool that a fellow Minnesotan could live here and make all this great music and actually get it on the radio!

I think I was twelve when I first bought Purple rain and the music was so cool. Some songs I recognized from the radio but the other songs were mind blowing as well.

Then I saw the movie and I was in love with him! He was the coolest person ever in my mind. And he was HOT! He was the sexiest man I had ever seen, I wanted to be Apollonia and ride on his bike with him around town!

He has been my favorite artist ever since! He is awsome! One day I hope to meet him and tell him how happy his music has made me!

I used to hear "I Wanna Be Your Lover" during the disco era. Then I saw him later on that year on "American Bandstand". I totally admired his feminine, but strong, "fuck you" attitude. He may have been feminine but he was far from a weak sissie, he was a total "bitch".

On "Dirty Mind", he was even stronger with an even harder "fuck you" attitude. By then, I was hooked.

sosgemini said:

Seriously!
It takes balls to do what Prince did at that point in his career and come out sane and alive and as the winner who gets the last laugh.
Mad respect .

when i heard Sexy Motherfucker.. i thought that was just one of the funkiest shit i heard, well i was 13 at the time, so i thought it was soo Bad!

vainandy said:

Ok I have to ask you something, Did you think Prince was gay when you first saw him, honestly? I never thought he was gay because we all knew he wasn't by the time I was old enough to know who he was. but back before anyone ever knew who he was did you think "I like that gay guy's song"

i got turned on2 prince thru purple rain.
i used to play the cd ALL the time!
come in from school, even if i'm on the phone, pr would be BLASTING!
especially computer blue & darling nikki

it would have to be 1999 and purple rain that made think wow this great music

greedygreg said:

I was at an all night house party, Soft and Wet came up a few times, and I've been hanging ever since

PurpleKnight said:

ask Edna.

Yes, I thought he was gay the first time I saw him. That's the reason I was hooked. The hardness about him broke all the "weak" gay stereotypes.