I'm in the UK and when Prince mania hit he really came across as a phenomena> Here was an arrogant, boundlessly talented artist who was being hyped - rightly so IMHO as THE next best artist; he already ever growing fanbase in America and his appeal was just spiralling globally..

Purple Rain was massive and, I was 16yrs old at the time, THE movie to take your date on. I remember being blown away by the movie, The Revolution, the theatrics, the performances, the outrage, the awards, the diversity and excitement as each new album dropped.

A Prince release was an event!Press cuttings were saved, posters traded...and the associated artist releases were exciting and satisfied the thirst for more, more, more!

Don't even get me started with the search for bootlegs...

Glorious times. Ahhh, the golden age
[Edited 9/7/09 8:43am]

The 80's were amazing!

I loved so many artists, but my two favorite male artists were Prince and Michael Jackson. My two favorite female artists were Janet Jackson and Whitney Houston.

I remember the excitement of Michael's Thriller.

I remember the excitement of Prince's Purple Rain and going to see the movie Purple Rain with my family.

Both the Thriller album and the Purple Rain album masterpieces and classics. My Mother, Aunt, Uncle, and my Father went to see Prince in concert, and I remember my mother telling me that Prince had really smooth, clear and gorgeous skin. I really wanted to go, but my parents thought that I was too young.

I remember how I would love to see the Jackson camp: Michael, Janet, Latoya, Jermaine, Rebbie, and the Jackson brothers.

I remember how I would love to see the Prince camp: Prince, Morris day & the Time, Sheila E., Vanity, Vanity 6 and Appollonia 6.

No awards show was complete without the Prince camp or the Jackson camp. I loved seeing these guys on interviews and videos.

Also, I remember hoping that Prince and Vanity would get back together. I thought they made a great romantic couple, not to mention a very good-looking couple. I remember there being a kinda rivalry between Vanity and Appollonia because of Prince and the fact that they were both so gorgeous.
[Edited 9/8/09 10:25am]
[Edited 9/8/09 10:28am]

It was like being a meth addict.

The merest hint of Prince was enough to send me ga-ga. Just hearing his name being spoken on the television or radio - let alone hearing his music or watching a video.

I remember seeing a print ad for "the new single" 'Alphabet St.' in Smash Hits magazine and being mezmerised by the possibilities. It was just a plain black rectangle with the name of the song in pink, in the Lovesexy-era font. I carefully cut it out and stuck it on my bedroom wall - a fucking black rectangle!!!

There was an indie record store in town too. They were like drug dealers - actually they used to sell poppers on the counter, next to the till, so I guess they really were like drug dealers!... But if you asked the smelly hippies nicely enough, they'd show you their bootlegs. Really badly-designed LPs with names like When Doves Cry, It's A Sign Of The Times!, but you'd be so eager for any kind of Prince rush, you'd hand over your cash.

For some weird reason, all the bootlegs seemed to be printed in The Netherlands, Belgium or (West) Germany.

It just all seemed seedy and dangerous and adult. There was something about Prince that parents didn't like - and being the teenager I was at the time, I wanted Prince even more.

When the Batman album was released in 1989, he didn't seem so "underground" anymore. I still loved the album though - even if it was unrelentingly "safe".

By 1990, my affair with Prince was over. Graffiti Bridge was the last nail in the coffin. I turned 18, discovered bars and no longer cut pictures of Prince out of magazines. I still love him though - in the way you still have a fondness for an ex.

just the best time ever, it was the decade of musical development and freedom and he simply led the way, NOBOBY could keep up with him.
I have to say it but there is no reason with his talent that he couldn't continue to build on his artistic legacy instead of producing CDs now that are prely tp promote tours or make $£. Back then it was all about art driven by the hunger to prove himself.

jcurley said:

Why sure(:

this is my top 10!

1. Bob Dylan
2. Bruce Springsteen
3. Prince
4. Frank Zappa
5. Eric Clapton
6, Jonnie Mitchell
7. Jimi Hendrix
8. Patti Smith
9. Marvin Gaye
10. David Bowie

funkyhead said:

So true.

It was wonderful!!!!! I first got into Prince when Little Red Corvette came out, but I realllly got into his music when Purple Rain hit the scene. The 80's was a glorious time to be a teenager. I loved it! He was innovative,hungry and insane!!! nowadays, meh. The reason why I am so down on him right now is because I experienced the highlight of his career, so I expect more of him than what he is doing now, which is putting on parties for his A list friends and making mediocre music.....

It was great fun. Nobody I knew liked him and I got a lot of stick for it, but the excitement just before new albums and tours was immense and I was conistently amazed.

The first concert I saw was in 1986. I very much liked Controversy that had played on the radio some years earlier. But I got married in 1984 and I was so busy with the wedding that I noticed 1999 and Purple Rain but paid no special attention to it. I did see the movie and liked it very much. Then a few years later I heard he was doing a concert in Belgium and I went very early to the record store to get a ticket and just got there in time for the last ones. That's when I realised he was getting very popular.

The day of the concert I decided to get there early too - I'm quite petite and I wanted to get a good place near the stage. Again I was amazed at the amount of people already waiting there in the afternoon. When I entered the venue, I saw a dozen rows of chairs in front of the stage. There was an entrance with a bodyguard to that section. I assumed it was a VIP area and was disappointed that these people got the best seats. But then I saw a couple of very young girls enter the section and I couldn't imagine they were VIPs. So I went to check it out and to my amazement the bodyguard gave me entrance to the section while handing over a note that said : "Prince considers each and every fan a VIP. Please enjoy the concert !" I got a seat at the 3rd row.

A soon as the show started, I was completely blown of my feet. If I remember well he started with "Around The World In A Day". The stage was dressed in black and white. I was complete mesmerized, it felt although he was singing directly to me and me alone. I could swear he was looking me directly in the eyes, and I bet everybody present thought the same. He had this talent of making an immediate connection with your soul.

When it was over the world seemed unreal. I realised I had witnessed a genius at work.

From then on, I was hooked. Always looking for my Prince fix, buying everything, going to every concert, seeing every movie. It reached its climax in the mid nineties when I travelled all around Europe to see him perform. It got a bit out of hand, I must confess. Prince was my guru.

Later he alienated me with some very unsympathetic actions towards his biggest fans. I still like his music and his performances, but he has let me down on a personal level.

I can't really say. I've never been someone who goes overboard as a fan to anyone. So I don't remember anything special, except that at a certain moment, training Europe, in 1990, Poplife had been played so much on my walkman the tape was buggered

It was all about the 3's for me: Michael Jackson,Prince and Madonna. I was Madonna, Michael was my boyfriend and Prince.....took it to a different level - stirring it all up from the inside out. But then again i was 13. I grew up in the northwest and his sound was just soooo different and cool. The best on those big muffin headphones!

Gunsnhalen said:

Didn't we just cover this last week?

It was fun and exciting. His videos were on MTV and BET regularly and he was on the news quite a bit. I was glad to have a mom so liberal enough to buy the albums for me before I was 10 and I enjoyed them all, even if I didn't understand a lot of what he was saying. It was the beginning of this lifelong ride that I'm not getting off of.

the 80's were the best, next 2 the 70's but for Prince the 80's was his time

If there wasn't so much change into the late 80's and 90's Prince could have still be very prominent as an artist on the mid 80's scale

RECORD stores with lps 12 Inches & 45s going to your record store and searching thru a sea of albums, and depending on how new a fan you most likely were going to buy everything available that came before

There was still a lot of mystery especially being pre cyberspace
Magazines of all genre feature Prince or the Time or Vanity6 A6 Sheila E
Prince's music and the Minneapolis sound was being heard more and more... Erotic City was coming alive and everybody was going Uptown

a lot of fusion going on in music so things were very open to experimentation
Prince's camp was ready to take the world, I wish I could go back in time and help manage the groups so they all stayed

Jamie Starr, Alexaner Nevermind no one really knew
Prince had created a world that was reality yet fantasy and it was and still is addictive, it's why the real fans of the 80's Prince have such high expectations. We can help it, for 11 albums +11 protege albums we were constantly pulled into another part of town and wanted more

From a purely artistic standpoint, I would say the closest parallel to the Prince experience would be how fans felt about Bowie(and his many artistic changes) in the 1970s. The only difference is Prince went into the stratosphere after Purple Rain and decided not to rest on his laurels, which made him a facinating artist.

Although I was fairly young at the time, MJ, Prince, and Madonna dominated the airwaves as solo artists. MTV actually was worthwhile so any release by these three was big. I remembered 1999, Purple Rain, and Around the World and although I was too young to comprehend the deeper meaning of some of the material, I always marveled at his diversity musically.

OldFriends4Sale said:

This post says it all...I couldn't wait for the next issue of Right On! to come out to see if he had anything to say. He was mysterious, sexy, and no artist could touch him. Those days made you a Prince fan forever. A stand in line for tickets, buy every album, go to every concert fan and that will never end for us. I have his symbol on my car - and young and old, white and black, approach me and talk to me about him. Although he doesn't have a new song on the radio anymore, I will always be an adoring fan.

Gunsnhalen said:

It was an insane time.

I had become a Prince fan just prior to Purple Rain being released, and when I head computer blue for the first time, it solidified my interest in Prince.


You have to remember, Purple Rain spent AGES in the top spot , had multiple to 10 singles, and was timed perfectly with a massively popular music tour (not to mention a very popular movie).

It was like a Tsumani. You sort of saw it coming, but had no clue how much it was going to impact you.

Everyone started to sound like Prince, dress like Prince, etc. etc.
Nobody, and I mean NOBODY ushured a negative word about him in the beginning.

It changed a bit when Prince skipped the tapping of "we Are the World' and his body guard attacked a reporter for pursuing him. That set off a storm of controversy.

But Prince was really big news all the way up until Parade, at which point his popularity started to lose some luster--the failure of UTCM and luckwarm sales of Parade sort of solidified this.

But even so, when Prince recorded an album, released a video, or announced a tour/concert, it was an event. It was always reported in the media.


He also never really gave interviews so it made folks even more curious about it. Some of the crazy ass rumors I used to hear back then!


It was an amazing time to be a Prince fan. Music had become so important to people (thanks to MJ and Thriller), and there was this sense that musicians were on the verge of reinventing music itself--so much was new and fresh and exciting back then--and of course, Prince was championing much of this 'innovation'.


I do miss it somewhat.

Imago said:

! plus not to mention around 1984 the great albums being released

Purple Rain
Born In The U.S.A By Bruce Springsteen
The Thriller Music Video Witch boosted Thriller sales!
1984 by Van Halen
Like A Virgin By Madonna
Rebel Yell By Billy Idol
Run DMC Debut
Love At First Sting By The Scorpions
Learning To Crawl By The Pretenders
Welcome To The Pleasure Dome By Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Some Greatr Reward By Depeche Mode
Can't Slow Down By Lionel Ritchie
for the hair metal fans:d

Bon Jovi Debut Album!
There was Tooth & Nail Dokken
Invasion Of Your Privacy Ratt
Shout At The Devil Motley Crue




JUST A GREAT YEAR IN MUSIC HISTORY!

his mystique and the sheer talent and sex of what he did - it still blows me away now. Putting on 17 Days is just transcendent.

Sorry young people but back then the music was truly ALIVE!

Regarding: "What Was It Like In The 80's When Prince was getting to the height of his fame "

Here's a different perspective that I rarely hear mentioned on The Org. Aside from the music of Prince, and all the other really wonderful memories many have shared in this thread, the 80's were also a very scary, and very dark, period in our history, as many young & creative people, friends & relatives, fellow party-goers and the like, were strangely dropping like flies... weekly, and in the earliest part of the decade; no one knew exactly why or how it was happening. But for too often during The 80's, for every new album Prince would release, you found yourself with a handful of friends LESS to share those good times with, and it was palpable. In retrospect and in my opinion, the earliest fans of Prince, and the largest community of Purple Heads that supported Prince during that time (that are still with us today), are all veterans of a very specific and devastating war. The 80's were not all Sunshine & Lollypops, lol.

And for those too young to remember, or to have been "active" during that time, consider yourselves very fortunate and appreciate that you were born in a time of greater understanding (and pharmaceutical advancement).

"In France a skinny man died of a big disease with a little name,
By chance his girlfriend came across a needle, and soon she did the same..."

In a word....AMAZING!!!!

i remember my best friend at school who had an older brother who was really into music as we were, and he influenced us both by making mixtapes of artists that we wouldn't otherwise heard, as radio was playing duran duran, wham! and stuff like that, and we were listening to dylan, PIL, sex pistols, lou reed, roxy music and artists more popular from the decade before, we also got hip to bands and artists like the The, big audio dynamite etc, and this guy called prince

we used to save our lunch money to buy records, we had all the coolest music. i remember one day we got purple rain on betamax video and watched it at my house as my mate didn't have a video player back then. i was knocked out by it, that's what got me hooked on prince. i bought all the albums, then singles, then related artists stuff

as time went on you would hear a new song on the radio before the lead single from the album was released. i remember hearing alphabet street, and thinking it was so different to SOTT. i remember hearing batdance for the first time and wondering what the fuck had happened to prince, it was a record that sounded more like bomb da bass, i thought prince had started to do house music

i also remember being given a tape of the black album in 88, i think it might have been before lovesexy came out. to get that at the time when everyone was talking about it was something else. then i got a tape of the first avenue gig from 21st march 87, a soundboard recording of an amazing gig, and then the infamous trojan horse small club gig on tape, that was just so fucking amazing to get at the time. then tapes of outtakes, and finding the bootlegs at record fairs, all those cool unreleased tracks from the 80s. we used to wonder what it was like at paisley park, we just heard the music, we didn't see what it was like

and a few years later i was getting to meet prince, and get onstage with him, and go to paisley park and hang out and see him play. we used to hear about the infamous parties and wonder what they were like, and now we were there. we saw round the studio, i even ended up in the studio with prince and the time, talking for 2 hours

the 90s was also a great time too, especially around 95/95/96 with the slave era and emancipation. all the great new songs getting leaked out, the arguments with warners, talk of the vaults being opened. some amazing bootlegs

back then collecting bootlegs and stuff was completely different to today, you needed real contacts, you went to record fairs, and shops who dared sell the stuff. you couldn't just log onto the internet from home on a computer and download stuff, and you didn't have the internet for news either, it was all rumours and whispers, which kept up the mystery. nowadays the mystery is all gone for me, i know and have seen too much, but it's still all good

The 80's.....
A Fashion Nightmare
But
Music Heaven!

unique said:

Great stuff! Thanks for sharing!

PDogz said:

I like the way you said this

so I'll come right out and say it: AIDS

and to add onto it the scare of Nuclear war was very present for us back then
There were movies/tv movies made then to show the possibility: the Day After and a lot of early 80's movies reflected that via Terminator, Mad Max and a lot of others

OldFriends4Sale said:

...and I like the way you're able to so effectively read between the lines, lol. And you're dead on! There was no shortage of issues to keep you busy with the tissues in the 80's.

Thank you for the story(;

I Wish i could have lived in that time but like PDogz said i do understand it was a scary time with Nuclear war fears the discovery of A.I.D.S

I Imagine was like the ''Bird Flu''

But ALOT worse WAY worse

Sadly there was the fear of terroisim that has over shadowed us over the years and the rumors that the world will end in 2012 lol

But even though the 80's were a dark time like Sign ''O'' The Times taught me througha ll the darkness and evil there's light it will be a beautiful nights o dance your problems away

And that's also why Sign is my favorite Prince album(: and why it's regarded as his best album(:

unique said:

i wouldn't really say the 80s were that scary due to AIDS and nuclear bombs, and personally i'd say most of the music in the 80s was utter shite, especially if you compare it to the previous decade. the 80s was the first decade where it wasn't important for artists to be able to play instruments or sing properly. even in the 70s the boy/girl bands could sing and play instruments, in the 80s it was about studio recordings instead of live performance. and live gigs were shit in the 80s with the addition of extra musicians on stage to try and emulate the studio sound. pink floyd had about 90 people onstage in the 80s and only the four of them in the 70s for example. even prince had more people onstage during his later 80s gigs than previously or afterwards

and 80s fashion was also pretty shite. it's the first decade where label names rather than the style was more important. sure there were plenty of cheesy pop hits in the 80s, but no more than any other decade. music and fashion became much better from the 90s onwards, and was much better in the 70s. the 80s was the decade that taste forgot

unique said:

Well i love every decade 30's-90's and even older

I Love the 80's fun sense there were some shitty stuff no doubt but even the crappy stuff is still relevant of a fun time [Or what looked like] A Fun time then but since i didn't live it sadly ill never know):

Like i have told many people i wish i was born 66 or 67(: go through late sixties seventies and be a teen in the 80's....

And yes some of the fashions were.... um... scary? lol to say the least


Even nowadays there's dumb fashions

T-Pain glasses everyone?