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What's your "how I discovered Prince" story? What's your "how I discovered Prince" story? How old were you, what happened etc. If you're interested here's mine...
In around 1983/84 I know I was "aware" of Prince as I can remember being in art class with the radio on joining in with my friends laughing at how many times Prince repeated "Purple Rain" in the chorus of PR. However, around autumn 1984 when I was 15 years old, I was in my Dad's car driving across blackheath in London (amazing I can remember that) and Let's Go Crazy came on the radio. It completely blew me away and captured my attention in a way nothing I had heard before. Part of the reason was that the year before I had bought Michael Jackson's album Thriller and loved "Beat It". I remember thinking, why couldn't there have been more tracks like that on the album, kind of funky rock! I went out and bought Purple Rain the album that week and became an instant Prince fan. By the time ATWIAD came out in the spring 1985 I had bought all of the previous albums (working backwards 1999 -> Controversy -> Dirty Mind (that one surprised me but soon became one of my favs) -> Prince -> For U). ATWIAD became the first album I bought on the day of release (was actually at the record shop before it opened and they hadn't even unpacked the boxes they had been delivered in) and since then I have bought every album on the day of release. Having also rented the Purple Rain video over xmas 84 I realised that Prince's involvement was not restricted to his own albums! I was soon also buying albums by The Time and Appolonia 6, "discovered" Sheila E, then The Family, Jesse Johnson, Morris Day etc. Catching up on all the back catalogue (Prince and associated artists) just became such a ride from late 84 through to around 88, it completely changed my music listening habits. Pocket money permitting I was probably up-to-date with all back releases by around 87 and was then buying the Assoc artists first week of release, ie Jill Jones, Taja Seville, Brownmark, Wendy & Lisa. I'm sure a lot of people had similar experiences and this is why the 80's holds so much nostalgia for people. When you combine that with the fact that I was a teenager, the whole period was magical. No matter how much I have enjoyed Prince releases since then (and I love D&P, TGE, TRC and really enjoy the majority of tracks on all other albums), nothing can match that voyage of discovery. Anybody care to share their experiences? [Edited 3/2/07 3:54am] 'I loved him then, I love him now and will love him eternally. He's with our son now.' Mayte 21st April 2016 = the saddest quote I have ever read! RIP Prince and thanks for everything. | |
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I bought "Soft and Wet" on 45 RPM single when it came out, because it was kind of a disco song and I still liked disco. I remember buying the 12-inch of "Let's Work" and digging it.
But the moment I realized how good Prince was came when I was running a proof machine at a bank in 1983, and I was listening to a cassette of the "1999" album through headphones. I distinctly remember being blown away by "Automatic" and thinking, "Wow! This guy is the black Bruce Springsteen!" And so it began... | |
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When Prince first came 2 my attention, it was through my mother. She'd heard of this, as the radio said, "Little fella from the US". The song was Controversy. I HATED HIM. When Purple Rain hit the media, I was sick of the site of this 'bunch of wierdos. Then one day something happened... channel 4 used to have a show called 'The Tube', and they aired Parade Live in Detroit. I was blown away. Not just at the image change, but just how slick and fine tuned both Prince and the Reveolution had become. The song that did it 4 me was Mutiny. If U've seen that routine, where they kind of skip from side 2 side, U'll know what I mean. From then on I was hooked. Such class. And, as time went on, I learned 2 appreciate his back catalogue. I think, at the time I was 2 young to 'get' Purple Rain. Now - love it. Still have 2 say though, that my favourite era of Prince has 2 B Lovesexy. Such a happy time, happy music, happy style and a happy concert. Sometimes, the world's a storm... | |
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In 6th grade....1982, I was listening to the R&B station in the bay area, can't remember the call letters anymore. I heard The Time's "COOL", and I was hooked!
Not long after that, I heard Controversy, and that was it. | |
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Well, it happened in 1989, i was 12.
I knew Prince existed but didn't care about him, then he released the Batman soundtrack. Back then i was what was called a "batmaniac", i.e. a kid who collects everything related to the movie so i bought the soundtrack as soon as it was released in the beginning of july. Then i listened 2 it. 1st i didn't realise, i just liked it OK, but month after month it grew up on me & one year later i wanted 2 hear more so i bought Purple Rain which was an immediate shock. Then i bought Grafitti Bridge & so on... 1 more year later i had every Prince album released at the time. Then i heard about the side-projects, b-sides, bootlegs, etc... U know the rest of the story  | |
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My aunt would babysit me as a child (8yrs old) at the time she was in love with Prince and every time she came over to watch me she would go out and rent Purple Rain and I would sit there and watch it with her. Ever since then I have been hooked on the guy and she unfortunately has moved on to another singer  Rhythm floods my heart♥The melody it feeds my soul | |
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my mom told me prince is my dad. that was back in 1987.
i've been following his carreer ever since  and true love lives on lollipops and crisps | |
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gemini13 said: In 6th grade....1982, I was listening to the R&B station in the bay area, can't remember the call letters anymore. I heard The Time's "COOL", and I was hooked!
Not long after that, I heard Controversy, and that was it. Very similialr to my experience. I heard "Get It Up" by the time on the radio and used my allowance money to buy the album. When the secret came out that Jamie Starr was Prince I bought the Controversy album and have been hooked ever since..... |
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on VH1 in June 2005  | |
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I feel like I've told this story SO MANY TIMES, but I don't repeating it once more.
I have my dad to thank because he exposed to me to his music, at least a little at first. He taped a bunch of MTV videos from the mid 80's and one of them was "1999". I think when I saw that the first time, I knew him as "The Artist Formely Known as Prince", not know what that was all about. Then he made a mix CD with his favorite songs, the last two being the two-parter "I Would Die 4 U"/"Baby I'm A Star". I just heard the songs with no explanation, but I thought the first one was really good. Then if I remember correctly, VH1 showed "Purple Rain" either last year or the year before. We were flipping through the channels, my dad recognized it and even though it was half over, he told me to keep it on because it's a good movie. At the end, after watching him do the songs back to back as my dad showed me on his mix CD, he said "I think she's in love with Prince." And that's basically it. I checked him out when he was available to me, but I didn't read too much into him until 4 weeks ago after giving the biggest performance of his life. had 2 run away... pride was 2 strong. It started raining, baby, the birds were gone | |
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The Purple Rain era completely passed me by and it wasn't until the spring of 1985 when my brother bought ATWIAD and played it through that I thought 'Wow!'
He hated the album, but it was Condition Of The Heart that blew my mind. I sneaked into his room whenever he wasn't about to play that one song over and over again. And so began my love affair. | |
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My mom wanted to know if I wanted to see Prince live on his big comeback tour. I passed initially, but she bought the 3cd best of Prince collection and I listened to it. Track 1 BLEW ME AWAY. I kept listening to that one song.
I remember I liked other songs "I Feel For You", "1999", "Let's Go Crazy", and a few others. But I kept repeating When Doves Cry. I became obsessed with that song. Then when he played it at the Musicology show and only did a cruel tease... I was mad. 
The show is what made me listen to his other stuff. | |
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cool stories. would be really sweet to hear a few more from the ORG? 'I loved him then, I love him now and will love him eternally. He's with our son now.' Mayte 21st April 2016 = the saddest quote I have ever read! RIP Prince and thanks for everything. | |
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jaypotton said: cool stories. would be really sweet to hear a few more from the ORG?
googling Prince
Googling Prince's official website... then I realised it wasn't that  so I ran in2 the org...  And I loved it
Is that what U meant? 
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theodore said: jaypotton said: cool stories. would be really sweet to hear a few more from the ORG?
googling Prince
Googling Prince's official website... then I realised it wasn't that so I ran in2 the org... And I loved it
Is that what U meant?
It's so hard to google Prince, though, but his name is so ambigious (that's my fav. word lately, for those who don't know its defintion is a word with multiple meanings) that I get all kinds of results that aren't even relevent. That's why it's so hard to find pics of him on there. AT least this org. is good for that and I found this org. by googling, and I'm glad I did. It's good to have someone to talk to about the man who has so many names that I could call him, but for now, I'll just call him Prince. had 2 run away... pride was 2 strong. It started raining, baby, the birds were gone | |
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DreamyPopRoyalty said: theodore said: googling Prince
Googling Prince's official website... then I realised it wasn't that so I ran in2 the org... And I loved it
Is that what U meant?
It's so hard to google Prince, though, but his name is so ambigious (that's my fav. word lately, for those who don't know its defintion is a word with multiple meanings) that I get all kinds of results that aren't even relevent. That's why it's so hard to find pics of him on there. AT least this org. is good for that and I found this org. by googling, and I'm glad I did. It's good to have someone to talk to about the man who has so many names that I could call him, but for now, I'll just call him Prince. I think U meant ambiguous | |
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theodore said: jaypotton said: cool stories. would be really sweet to hear a few more from the ORG?
googling Prince
Googling Prince's official website... then I realised it wasn't that so I ran in2 the org... And I loved it
Is that what U meant?
nope I meant let's hear more "how I got into prince" stories from people ON the ORG. 'I loved him then, I love him now and will love him eternally. He's with our son now.' Mayte 21st April 2016 = the saddest quote I have ever read! RIP Prince and thanks for everything. | |
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Way back in 1982, before the internet, ipod, and Sirius they had this thing called MTV and terrestrial radio.
BTW: I realize some fans like to bastardize some of the newbies. Kind of hard to make a point you have liked Prince longer than a 14yo!!! when the 14yo wasn't even BORN when you got into Prince. Damn, did I just show my age.. | |
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jaypotton said: What's your "how I discovered Prince" story? How old were you, what happened etc. If you're interested here's mine...
In around 1983/84 I know I was "aware" of Prince as I can remember being in art class with the radio on joining in with my friends laughing at how many times Prince repeated "Purple Rain" in the chorus of PR. However, around autumn 1984 when I was 15 years old, I was in my Dad's car driving across blackheath in London (amazing I can remember that) and Let's Go Crazy came on the radio. It completely blew me away and captured my attention in a way nothing I had heard before. Part of the reason was that the year before I had bought Michael Jackson's album Thriller and loved "Beat It". I remember thinking, why couldn't there have been more tracks like that on the album, kind of funky rock! I went out and bought Purple Rain the album that week and became an instant Prince fan. By the time ATWIAD came out in the spring 1985 I had bought all of the previous albums (working backwards 1999 -> Controversy -> Dirty Mind (that one surprised me but soon became one of my favs) -> Prince -> For U). ATWIAD became the first album I bought on the day of release (was actually at the record shop before it opened and they hadn't even unpacked the boxes they had been delivered in) and since then I have bought every album on the day of release. Having also rented the Purple Rain video over xmas 84 I realised that Prince's involvement was not restricted to his own albums! I was soon also buying albums by The Time and Appolonia 6, "discovered" Sheila E, then The Family, Jesse Johnson, Morris Day etc. Catching up on all the back catalogue (Prince and associated artists) just became such a ride from late 84 through to around 88, it completely changed my music listening habits. Pocket money permitting I was probably up-to-date with all back releases by around 87 and was then buying the Assoc artists first week of release, ie Jill Jones, Taja Seville, Brownmark, Wendy & Lisa. I'm sure a lot of people had similar experiences and this is why the 80's holds so much nostalgia for people. When you combine that with the fact that I was a teenager, the whole period was magical. No matter how much I have enjoyed Prince releases since then (and I love D&P, TGE, TRC and really enjoy the majority of tracks on all other albums), nothing can match that voyage of discovery. Anybody care to share their experiences? [Edited 3/2/07 3:54am] i first really listened to his music in 1983.i knew of dirty mind as my mother used to say how interesting he is. i just could not see that so i remained blind. plus as you know in europe he was little known. anyway i remember going to our local disco and the dj put on 1999 which i hated. (the fool) he said he will play the b side for the end of the night (slow dance)as soon as he put it on i was totally utterly completely bowled over to how good it sounded. (hairs on the back of the neck stuff!!)i was only 13 but that moment changed everything. my girlfriend dumped me on the dancefloor as i was just listening not dancing.lol. i have only experienced that feeling once more since then and that was with becks music.after that i bought everything of prince . my fave era being atwiad. moonlightmile | |
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A friend of mine popped in the betmax tape of Purple Rain and I really liked it. Then when Around The WOrld came out, he let me listen and I read the lyrics on the album sleeve.
Wasn't till Black Album that I really went nuts and started buying everything in 1988. My art book: http://www.lulu.com/spotl...ecomicskid
VIDEO WORK: http://sharadkantpatel.com MUSIC: https://soundcloud.com/ufoclub1977 |
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jaypotton said: theodore said: googling Prince
Googling Prince's official website... then I realised it wasn't that so I ran in2 the org... And I loved it
Is that what U meant?
nope I meant let's hear more "how I got into prince" stories from people ON the ORG.  | |
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I had some hand me down Prince & The Time 45s
from my sister (which I had to sneak to play) I was always crazy about the intro to Morris Day's "Oak Tree" "not right nooooowwwww!" 
BTW... did Prince have anything to do with that Morris Day solo album? [Edited 3/3/07 20:03pm] because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." | |
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I used to dislike Prince in the early 80's.
The heels and the attitude turned me off. THEN I found out that he produced my love...Sheila E. So I started giving him more attention. I bought Sign 'O' The Times and was impressed. THEN I went to the LOVESEXY concert in 1988 and I was HOOKED! Been hooked ever since. By St. Boogar and all the saints at the backside door of Purgatory! |
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I think I've told the story a few times too. I heard Soft & Wet on the radio. I was 17. Thought it was a female vocalist. Went to see Rick James on his Fire It Up tour. Prince opened. When I saw him, it was all over. I looked into his eyes, saw the legwarmers, heard his voice....forgot about Rick, AND my boyfriend beside me.
From then on, it was all about Prince. His songs changed my reality. Changed my religion. Changed my male/female perceptions. Changed my mind. I'm still changing and growing because of him to this day. "Let love be your perfect weapon..." ~~Andy Biersack | |
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DirtyChris said: I had some hand me down Prince & The Time 45s
from my sister (which I had to sneak to play) I was always crazy about the intro to Morris Day's "Oak Tree" "not right nooooowwwww!"
BTW... did Prince have anything to do with that Morris Day solo album? [Edited 3/3/07 20:03pm] To the best of my knowledge Prince was not involved in Morris' solo albums (especially the first one as they were not even talking at that stage. They kissed and made up later though) 'I loved him then, I love him now and will love him eternally. He's with our son now.' Mayte 21st April 2016 = the saddest quote I have ever read! RIP Prince and thanks for everything. | |
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Well I saw him before I heard him I said if he sounded as good as he looked... He did and when For You came out I bought it on 8trak mind you then I bought it again on cassette I played the first one to death.Then I got every song he put out on cassette then had to upgrade my collection to cd and still doing that so... | |
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jaypotton said: DirtyChris said: I had some hand me down Prince & The Time 45s
from my sister (which I had to sneak to play) I was always crazy about the intro to Morris Day's "Oak Tree" "not right nooooowwwww!"
BTW... did Prince have anything to do with that Morris Day solo album? [Edited 3/3/07 20:03pm] To the best of my knowledge Prince was not involved in Morris' solo albums (especially the first one as they were not even talking at that stage. They kissed and made up later though) merci because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." | |
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I became aware of Prince when I was 12. I heard Soft & Wet on the radio and thought it was a female singer. It was one of my favorite songs at that time. I was sitting in the playground with some friends and we were looking at a Right On! magazine and lo and behold we see a picture of this guy with a big afro and gorgeous eyes. Back then the bigger the afro, the cuter you were. We went crazy!!! We were screaming and carrying on like true teenage girls do. We all wanted to know who he was. After reading the article we found out his name was Prince and he was from Minneapolis. I was in love. Since then I bought everything that he put out including affiliated bands like The Time, Sheila E., Jesse Johnson, etc. I have followed his career ever since, from '78 to the present. | |
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Happened for me not that long ago really! I was really into New Romantic stuff in the 80's (I'm 34) & didn't really know who Prince was!! Then in 1989, my new boyfriend & his friend were well into Prince, so I sort of listened to it by default. I even went to two of his concerts in the 90's, but I just went along cos my boyfriend was going, not cos I liked Prince! Sort of stood there yawning, how I could kick myself now!!! I had a couple of CDs of his at home, but no major interest & then last year I had this urge to listen to 'Continental' & searched everywhere to find out what album this was on (had split with boyfriend by now) & its just gone from bad to worse since then! Now quite obsessive, got most of his stuff, except really hard to find 'stuff' & internet downloads, as I didn't join NPG!!!! | |
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I actually remembered him on American Band Stand. I was very young but remembering saying, is that my daddy? And why do we look alike? I thought he was related to me some how...My uncle was a big fan of his back in the day and when "Purple Rain" came out, aw Lawrd!!! Everybody and they mama went to see it...And when it came out on VHS...I wanted to see it sooo bad...but they didn't want me to see it...I did get the 8 track of it though. I loved it but I still wanted to see the movie...I finally did see it when I was like 10 years old and loved it...I am now 29 and still love his music...I just wished that when I met him 10 years ago, I would've been more bold...It was my first concert, I could've died when he picked me to dance with him on stage but I wasn't scared, I just did my thing and walked off after 3 or 4 songs...Loved it though... [Edited 3/5/07 15:24pm] Um... let me warm up my vocals
Me ME ME ME ME...U U U U U! | |
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