I have always admired Prince as a musician but ever since I watched the Tavis Smiley interview, I became curious about who he really is. He seems even more fascinating than his art. It feels like I am hearing some of his songs for the first time. I love the feeling : )

YES!!!!!

nursev said:

Loved it when he talked about his childhood-nice interview and the outfit and shoes were banging

I am "rediscovering" Prince myself. I have vague childhood memories of PR being big, then he fell off my radar after about 1992. Never was a huge fan. I started rediscovering him since this April, the George Lopez show.

What's great is that I don't have strong personal feelings because of 80s or 90s nostalgia, I don't have feelings of "disappointment," I don't think he (or any artist) owes me anything - I can just enjoy the music, and there's a whole bunch to enjoy, especially if his entire catalog is pretty much new to you.

As for interesting interviews, here's one that someone posted in a thread that's no longer here (Why does Prince draw so much negativity) where he seems not at all like a demon or a weirdo. In fact, in most of the interviews I've seen & read he seems quite nice, hard-working, intelligent, and even charming & gracious.

http://princetext.tripod....one85.html

THANK YOU!!!! I will go read that interview now.

Wow WELL SAID. Never thought about it this way. "What's great is that I don't have strong personal feelings because of 80s or 90s nostalgia, I don't have feelings of "disappointment," I don't think he (or any artist) owes me anything - I can just enjoy the music, and there's a whole bunch to enjoy, especially if his entire catalog is pretty much new to you."

hls2000 said:

I am "rediscovering" Prince myself. I have vague childhood memories of PR being big, then he fell off my radar after about 1992. Never was a huge fan. I started rediscovering him since this April, the George Lopez show.

What's great is that I don't have strong personal feelings because of 80s or 90s nostalgia, I don't have feelings of "disappointment," I don't think he (or any artist) owes me anything - I can just enjoy the music, and there's a whole bunch to enjoy, especially if his entire catalog is pretty much new to you.

As for interesting interviews, here's one that someone posted in a thread that's no longer here (Why does Prince draw so much negativity) where he seems not at all like a demon or a weirdo. In fact, in most of the interviews I've seen & read he seems quite nice, hard-working, intelligent, and even charming & gracious.

http://princetext.tripod....one85.html

@hls2000 I just finished reading the great interview. "A lot of people have the idea that I'm a wild sexual person" Ooopss I DID too! LOL When I thought of Prince, I didnt have the image of a spiritual down to earth man walking around his normal house offering cookies to people. It is nice to be able to separate the man from the character. Thank you again for posting the link.

some (most?) of his work is DEEP. I think much of it is missed. in terms of that. heasphones is a must. Put yorseld in that time period. Such as 1987 and Sign O the times.... = mind blown. to this day....it is not so much discovering prince as your self or existance....

I am hooked on the song Sign "O" of the times tonight.

OnlyNDaUsa said:

some (most?) of his work is DEEP. I think much of it is missed. in terms of that. heasphones is a must. Put yorseld in that time period. Such as 1987 and Sign O the times.... = mind blown. to this day....it is not so much discovering prince as your self or existance....

A particularly intriguing thing about his music, lyrically, is the religious themes.

One of my earliest memory of his music is hearing "Erotic City" being played on a stereo outside the gym at a SDA youth gym night. I didn't understand the lyrics really, but I knew that probably SDA kids shouldn't be listening to it! They seemed to be kinda embarrassed when they saw me, a little girl, coming out and hearing it. Well, lo and behold, recently I found out that Prince attended SDA church too! (as well as others - I guess he got shuffled around a lot). My best friend was/is Catholic, and she was always amazed how much of the bible I'd actually read, b/c that's the focus for SDAs, very scriptural based, not so much rituals. Also, they are vegetarians. Anyway, I've contemplated the scriptures, faith, sexuality, death, the body as temple, etc. etc. all my life too, and I also have an unconventional (or at least, un-conservative) system of personal belief. So that part of the music speaks to me, I think it's an interesting journey if you follow the songs w/ religious allusions from early career to now. It's not my journey, but it's interesting.

In this article, a church youth leader who knew him as a kid says that Prince's "continuing religious odyssey is not a gimmick," that basically he's been searching all his life.

http://www.startribune.co...=2&c=y

hls2000 said:

I am "rediscovering" Prince myself. I have vague childhood memories of PR being big, then he fell off my radar after about 1992. Never was a huge fan. I started rediscovering him since this April, the George Lopez show.

What's great is that I don't have strong personal feelings because of 80s or 90s nostalgia, I don't have feelings of "disappointment," I don't think he (or any artist) owes me anything - I can just enjoy the music, and there's a whole bunch to enjoy, especially if his entire catalog is pretty much new to you.

As for interesting interviews, here's one that someone posted in a thread that's no longer here (Why does Prince draw so much negativity) where he seems not at all like a demon or a weirdo. In fact, in most of the interviews I've seen & read he seems quite nice, hard-working, intelligent, and even charming & gracious.

http://princetext.tripod....one85.html

I posted that link but I could not rememember where...thanks for reposting it since the mods seem to have taken down that other thread. That was a really great interview. I too am a recent 'rediscoverer' of Prince. I am not sure how I got on this little adventure...it may have been something I saw on youtube, or it might have been the Lopez show. At any rate, I have been exploring and having a blast with all the 'new' (old) information -- the interviews, both print and tele, and the videos and his films. He's a chill dude, who comes across (refreshingly, I might add) as a man of principles and maturity. And the voice. I am not a fan of all of his work (far from it), but when he creates a beautiful and memorable song, and delivers it in that voice, well, that's when you know why he is at the top of the heap. He can actually sing. A singer who can really sing. What a concept.

Ahhh! This is the nice little thread where people come who have no emotional baggage regarding prince, where no one jumps on you for discussing something already discussed 8 yrs ago, or for not knowing a song, peformance, interview that "everybody should" already know about. I like this one - it's not stressful!

It seems you and Prince have the same "journey". There is a connection there. You know, I was not allowed to watch Prince videos when I was a kid because "he worshipped the devil" lol Everybody had a different idea of who Prince was. Its fascinating isnt it? Who knew he was a religious guy. I used to be deeply religious...but now Im saved..I think..or just confused...saved and confused. I dont know lol

hls2000 said:

A particularly intriguing thing about his music, lyrically, is the religious themes.

One of my earliest memory of his music is hearing "Erotic City" being played on a stereo outside the gym at a SDA youth gym night. I didn't understand the lyrics really, but I knew that probably SDA kids shouldn't be listening to it! They seemed to be kinda embarrassed when they saw me, a little girl, coming out and hearing it. Well, lo and behold, recently I found out that Prince attended SDA church too! (as well as others - I guess he got shuffled around a lot). My best friend was/is Catholic, and she was always amazed how much of the bible I'd actually read, b/c that's the focus for SDAs, very scriptural based, not so much rituals. Also, they are vegetarians. Anyway, I've contemplated the scriptures, faith, sexuality, death, the body as temple, etc. etc. all my life too, and I also have an unconventional (or at least, un-conservative) system of personal belief. So that part of the music speaks to me, I think it's an interesting journey if you follow the songs w/ religious allusions from early career to now. It's not my journey, but it's interesting.

In this article, a church youth leader who knew him as a kid says that Prince's "continuing religious odyssey is not a gimmick," that basically he's been searching all his life.

http://www.startribune.co...=2&c=y

Well, people are going to jump on me a lot because I dont know jack about Prince. I just heard Sign "O" the times for the first time tonight hahaha WHAT A FEELING...I just love it.

hls2000 said:

Ahhh! This is the nice little thread where people come who have no emotional baggage regarding prince, where no one jumps on you for discussing something already discussed 8 yrs ago, or for not knowing a song, peformance, interview that "everybody should" already know about. I like this one - it's not stressful!

hls2000 said:

Ahhh! This is the nice little thread where people come who have no emotional baggage regarding prince, where no one jumps on you for discussing something already discussed 8 yrs ago, or for not knowing a song, peformance, interview that "everybody should" already know about. I like this one - it's not stressful!

^^^^^^

I've only been posting in this forum for about a week, and I've already been smacked upside the head a few times.

HAHAH r u serious?

NiceNBreezy said:

hls2000 said:

Ahhh! This is the nice little thread where people come who have no emotional baggage regarding prince, where no one jumps on you for discussing something already discussed 8 yrs ago, or for not knowing a song, peformance, interview that "everybody should" already know about. I like this one - it's not stressful!

^^^^^^

I've only been posting in this forum for about a week, and I've already been smacked upside the head a few times.

Oubah said:

HAHAH r u serious?

NiceNBreezy said:

Kinda sorta. LOL.

[Edited 9/16/11 23:38pm]

^^ Ohh, yes - you WILL get spanked, trust me. But you'll come back for more because you know you love it!

I have my own "here I am, I'm new" post here:

http://prince.org/msg/3/366380

and the 1st response was a comic book w/ the title "Welcome to the x-men, Hope you survive the experience!"

You might check out the thread "the Anger of the Org" too - gives you a feel for how to watch yourself around here. http://prince.org/msg/3/366881

pssst! Just enjoy your thread - the direction it's heading in now is an invitation for exactly what you're trying to avoid

As for me, I've been a fan since I heard "My Name Is Prince" on the radio as a teenager, although in a totally different way to how I am a fan today.

I'd most likely heard WDC and LRC, etc... early on, but his album came out just as I was taking a much bigger interest in music. Between that and D&P (along with the Black Album a couple of years later), I was hooked.

Then came a lull for the rest of the 90s for various reasons, and I rediscovered him through The Rainbow Children (quite a jump from The Black Album, lol!) and N.E.W.S. - they immediately became, and remain, my favourite albums

By 2004, I was more of an avid fan (at least to the point of getting each new album - as well as finally seeing Purple Rain and buying the album), but it wasn't until last year that I started to fill in my collection properly - many thanks to a number of folk on the org who have waxed lyrical about an album until I had to run out and buy it

I know there's so much more to discover in his early work, particularly because a lot of it is so layered that it takes time and many listens for it to all sink in properly (more org wisdom).

I love learning about it all - about the music, about the man and the myth (being that we can't really know him as much as we can know our perception of him through what we watch, read and listen to) - and, being a spiritually-inclined person myself, I love to explore those themes in his work as well.

btw, thanks for the interview HLS, I hadn't read that one and it stopped me in my tracks when I saw it this morning at work (oops!)

hls2000 said:

I have my own "here I am, I'm new" post here:

http://prince.org/msg/3/366380

You might check out the thread "the Anger of the Org" too - gives you a feel for how to watch yourself around here. http://prince.org/msg/3/366881

Fixed the links for you

Another org speciality - instead of just pasting the link in, you need to 'unlink' it (if HTML isn't your thing, the easiest way is by selecting the link and hitting the "unlink" button in the toolbar above) and then put [*URL*] [*/URL*] around the address (without the stars) - hope that makes sense!

^^Thanks for fixing. There's a lot of stuff to figure out. I'll try it next time. I still don't know how to make the YT videos accessible directly from my post.

I, as well, rediscovered P since the alarm-post of his German shows this spring. Between the last show Sign of the times I saw and today I didn't take big notice of him and his work. May be the reason why was his strange sales and communication strategy. I even didn't get any notice that he was in Berlin last year! (If I would have I would have gone there of course. So I really wonder what happened during the last decade in terms of P, because I saw other great acts during this period.)

I never was an enthusiast or obsessed fan of anyone but after the Cologne show, which leaves me unsatisfied and the following must have Zurich show I turned into something obsessed.

It's scary me in a certain way.

So I started to collect everything I got from and about him and still miss a lot as I realize by going through this fan site. I even signed up on a fan site! Really weird.
So all the released songs over the last ten years are new for me and nearly all of them I like to listen. I'm always surprised how his lyrics of the past fits into present as it would have written couple of days ago. This seems to make the difference between all the one-hit wonders compared to a real musician who lives for music. Honestly, I would give something to spent just a day with him to get an inside look of him as a human being. Even more weird!

Some of us have "rediscovered" Prince after years of being absent since the bigging of this trip in the early 80s until sometime in the 90s...

Oubah said:

Well, people are going to jump on me a lot because I dont know jack about Prince. I just heard Sign "O" the times for the first time tonight hahaha WHAT A FEELING...I just love it.

hls2000 said:

Ahhh! This is the nice little thread where people come who have no emotional baggage regarding prince, where no one jumps on you for discussing something already discussed 8 yrs ago, or for not knowing a song, peformance, interview that "everybody should" already know about. I like this one - it's not stressful!

Eye remember when eye 1st heard sott.........it was and still is very captivating....

Yeah. I had it on repeat all weekend. What a beautiful melody.

davetherave6767 said:

Oubah said:

Well, people are going to jump on me a lot because I dont know jack about Prince. I just heard Sign "O" the times for the first time tonight hahaha WHAT A FEELING...I just love it.

Eye remember when eye 1st heard sott.........it was and still is very captivating....