It was 1979, a little bit before my 9th birthday. My family was in the middle of a long road trip from Conneticut to South Carolina. It was late at night. A song plays on the radio that I'd never heard before. When it goes off, the DJ says, "That was 'Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?' from Prince." I'd never heard of Prince but was thinking to myself, "That's a pretty catchy song. I kinda like it."

So I remembered Prince because of that song and would continue to 'kinda' like his songs for the next few years. Then, "When Doves Cry" came out in 1984. Prince went from being "Pretty Good" to being "THE MAN!"

I've been hooked ever since.


How about your first time hearing a Prince song?

Almost identical threads here today: http://prince.org/msg/7/309075

And 3 weeks ago here: http://prince.org/msg/7/307288

Go to the first one. It's good over there.

it was 2002 and i heard 1999 which is the first track of the first prince album i bought

I heard Raspberry Beret on a radio in July 1985 and saw the video on TV, and my brother who was 11 at the time said "Dosen't Michael Jackson look funny now" and I said (aged 9), "no thats Prince you drongo, hes another weird black singer who looks like Boy George". Don't u wish u were a kid again sometimes

I saw Little Red Corvette being performed on Solid Gold in 1983. I saw the 1999 video the same week.

I liked him, but wasn't overly impressed. A year later, after Purple Rain dropped, everything would change.

I am fairly sure that I had heard, "Soft and Wet," before I heard, "I wanna be your lover," and that I didn't know it was Prince at the time.

I knew, "I wanna be your lover," was Prince in 1979.

Gett Off on TV 7 years ago (I was 14)

1989--SCAAAAANDALOUS!

The melody sort of creeped me out but I couldn't get over that chorus. I started singing it in pre-school and got in big big trouble.

i nearly creamed my jeans...i needed him right then...damn. i may need counseling.

For me, I was in 7th grade waiting for the bus listening to the radio when I heard "Little Red Corvette." I loved it and got on the bus so excited to ask my best friend if she got to hear on the bus. She hadn't and I was so bummed because I didn't know who sang it and I was hoping she knew.

I heard it again a day or two later, thank heaven. I have been hooked ever since. I can't imagine my life any other way. I have loved the journey!

i was seven years old in 1991 and they played 'diamonds & pearls on t.v and i was like 'who is this guy'? older cousins of mine told me that his name was prince and the following week a music show in south africa paid tribute to him by playing almost all his videos from the 70's to the 80's and i hav been hooked since.

I can't say definitively that "Batdance" was the very first Prince song that I heard but it's certainly the first Prince song that stuck with me in any meaningful way. That probably had more to do with the fact that at the time I was a huge Batman fan. The video was in insanely heavy rotation and I remember wondering who that other guy was in the video. I didn't realise that it was Prince who was dressed in black at the keyboards!

A couple of years later "Cream" was pretty huge and I remember hearing that song a lot.

It wasn't until Chaos and Disorder that I became an avid fan.

i felt like an idiot...