i went to a fair with a girlfriend, and played
a game to win her a stuffed animal, she had given
me the money to win it for her but i had told her
i couldnt with that particular game. i lost and
she wanted the money back, i then played another one
and won. as her prize she chose a prince mirror.
it was the purple rain cover (just the head and shoulders)
painted in just purple overlaping black.
i then played and won again, the only prize i liked
was that same mirror. and at the time i didn't even
know who he was, but i like it and still have it to
this day. anyway, that year for christmas, she got
the 1999 album and purple rain and played them for
me - instantly i was hooked.
i have been a fam-atic ever since.

I guess I was about 11 years old. My older cousin had the 1999 album. Strangely enough, I don't even remember my first time hearing the songs on this album, but I just remember being fascinated by the picture of him on the bed with the paints and all that. The first song that hooked me was Erotic City. And at that age, all I knew that existed was the radio version. You can imagine my delight a few years later when I heard the "real" version, and how much more pleased I was when I heard my ultimate, favorite version (The Work Vol. 1, CD 4--especially the point at 3:05--gets me every time)!

Close Encounter of the First Kind: Seeing "I Wanna Be Your Lover" on Don Kirschner's Rock Show in 1980 and not remembering the guy's name but thinking he was weird and cool.

Close Encounter of the Second Kind: Seeing a cool-ass pic of Prince circa '1999' in Rolling Stone's 1983 'year in pictures' issue and really wishing I had a copy of that album.

Close Encounter of the Third Kind: Hearing "Let's Go Crazy" on TV for the first time and deciding my purchase of 'Purple Rain' was a matter of life-and-death.

1st time - (Age 2) Hearing "Trust," "Partyman" and "Scandalous" throughout the Batman film as a kid. Never knowing who actually sang them.

2nd time - (Age 3) Watching the "Cream" video as a kid in '91, not knowing who sang the song.

3rd time - (Age 7) Liking "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World," but not knowing who actually sang it, yet again.

4th time - (Age 16) Watching the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction and Grammy performance from 2004. Knowing who he was, this time.
[Edited 1/3/06 10:06am]

When Doves Cry Video

I was watching VH1 Classic, waiting for Rock With You vid, but P came on first, after that I was pretty much hooked...

I discovered that my brother had the Hits (1& 2) in his cd collection
and I insisted that he made me a copy cause I "liked Prince too".
I found out that Prince had much more great stuff than what I had heard and well
the rest is history.

6 years later my brother still blames himself for "the monster he created"

1984. One Thursday night I was watching "Top of the Pops" on the TV. A section of the show was called the "breakers" and covered songs which had entered the top 40 but usually somewhere in the 20-40 range. One of the songs they played a clip from was "When Doves Cry." I'd never heard anything like it and it blew me away. That was when it started for me.

at age 7 hearing and seeing when doves cry,

watching purple rain the movie, one of my friends was a Prince-o-holic, he hooked me up with casette copies of albums he bought.

Then the grandest of all, in "1998" he came to the Cajun Dome which was about 20 miles from where I lived at the time "Louisiana", me a a girl I was dating...she also being a Prince nut went....fucked me up for good after that.
What was so cool was he was an unpronouncable symbol at the time and the lighted sign outside simply read " in concert. "

I now live in Houston, Texas and he always stops here on tour, yes I will be there once he starts the 2006 tour.

When I was 4, I heard 1999, When Doves Cry, and Purple Rain on the Radio. My mom tells people that my reaction was priceless, becuz I proceeded to walk over to the speaker and press my poor little ear to it. She was horrified, and tried to pull me away and ended up being slapped(for the first and only time)! After that whenever I heardPrince, I got excited, but if I saw him anywhere, I would scream bloody murder and run from the room. So, I always liked Prince, but I wasn't allowed to buy any albums becuz my parents thought he was the devil. So, when the Gold Experience came out, I went to the store with my sorry allowance and my beautiful Aunt Dale, and bought the I Hate U single, After that, my parents figured if I was going to listen, I might as well have everything, so my Mom went on a mission 2 find the Cd's that held 1999, WDC, and PR, and my Dad has said ever since that I'm Prince's bitch, becuz I've been supporting him since 1995!

back when 1999 came out that was in 82'. but when purplerain came out that sealed the deal!

I became a fan when I saw "The One" video...I knew who Prince was, but that moment made me curious enough 2 get his stuff!

When I was 12 -- seeing the videos for "1999" and "Little Red Corvette"
I liked what I saw and heard
When I got the 1999 cassette as a Christmas Eve gift
I was hooked.

tripp said:

oh-really ... a prince mirror? where was this fair?

i got turned onto prince with the come album, without that experience prince wouldn't be the same

They used to play Soft and Wet on all gentleman's skate at Skateland in Columbia Md.. It was our cut. Thought it was a girl's group. Girls would hold their hands out and we'd slap em as we rolled by w/ afros blown out, bell bottoms flowing. Too cool. I think I got the 45 that winter.

Prince had been around for some time. I wasn't impressed or unimpressed. However in my late 17th year I spent much time renting videos. I got a hold of Prince's Sign of the times tour. I was a major stoner and thought it might be intresing to watch, and I had been into watching all types of music documentrarys and films. It was fun to watch, but I got really turnedon when I came across the song "the christ" aka the cross. At that moment...

well I guess you will have to wait for my books to come out.

I got turned on 2 Prince when I was 10, in '84.
We moved to LA from Sweden and I remember I was outside playing in our garden when me and my brother found a cassette.
We were all excited and went inside to listen to it, and it turned out to be a mix of the hits at the time, but my most favorite was the one by Prince, Erotic City and that is when I got totally hooked and have been since.
By weird and utter coincidence, with no relation to this matter at all, there was also the song by Eddie Murphy (I think) on that casette, which is about putting everything "in your butt".....anyone remember that song?

I liked what I heard, I guess.

chunky said:

it was the stark county fair in canton ohio back in 1984