I guess we all know Prince is a musical omnivore.

But sometimes he really surprises me when telling in interviews what kind of music he likes.

I remember some interview in the mid-eighties were he told the interviewer he liked the music of both The Sundays (an all girl indie-rock group) and The Cocteau Twins (a semi-electronic, english duo). I mean, i dont really hear the influence on his music from both bands, and in way of musical styles these bands are far away from his own music.

The next surprise for me was his adoration of new-age harpist Andreas Vollenweider, around the release of Lovesexy he stated in interviews how much he liked the music of Vollenweider, he even played music of him before the start of his Lovesexy concerts.

Anyone else have read or heard him made these kind of surprising references?

prince has said good things about bjork in the past, which made me very happy. i also get a little giddy whenever he mentions bowie in interviews, though he's usually referencing bowie's business sense - i've never heard prince talk about his music.

I remember reading an interview where he mentioned he enjoyed Bill Evans. That was pretty cool. Doesn't he also have a lyric in which he mentions Mahler?

Alltough i have never read them myselve, i can understand his positive remarks about Björk.

I mean, conceptually, in ways of creating colourblind, 'borderless' music Björks attitude towards her own music doesn't seem very far removed from the way Prince was 'experimenting' between 1985 and 1988,

Good Love: 'Gustav Mahler, no 3, is jamming on the box'

I am not sure about this, but there are some weird, fast bridges on the long version of this song that could be transformed 'Mahler' samples.

Next to that, Jill Jones told a dutch magazine in 1987 that both her and Prince loved the music of classical composer Igor Stravinsky. IMO you can hear that influence in the arrangement of Mia Bocca: the way the orchestra 'meanders', the use of a jazzy trumpet in the last part.

I thought it was a little suprising when he put Tori Amos's video for "Sleeps with Butterflies" on his website. I love Tori, so I was glad, but she's got some spiritual/religious views that you wouldn't think Prince would appreciate.

He gave Tom Petty a lot of compliments too, which was cool. I loved that he did that, because Tom didn't seem like the type of artist Prince would listen much to, but I guess I was wrong.

i could see the cocteau twins influence, at least in the early 80's. His vocals on God sort of reminded me of them, as well as Condition Of The Heart.