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My introduction to both music, Prince' & Chaka's.

I think it was 1982 and I heard Do Me Baby. I could not believe anyone could sing such a sexual song LOL. I bought the cassette and I was hooked from then on.

Really introduced to Prince when a friend of mine snuck the entire "Purple Rain" album as the b-side to a cassette I requested of the "Dune" soundtrack. I skeptically checked it out. I liked "Let's Go Crazy" "Darling Niki" "The Beautiful Ones" "When Doves Cry" "I Would Die 4 U" and of course "Purple Rain"

Thought the rest was weak half assed crap!

1983. I was a Junior in High School. A mutual friend introduced the 1999 album to me and said it was a singer named Prince. I vaguely remembered I Wanna Be Your Lover playing on te radio, but didn't think much of it. I remember him pointing out the LP sleeve showing Prince lying in bed with his ass almost hanging out. He said "Look at that Ass!" I thought "Huh?", since Prince didn't do anything for me then, and he still doesn't now

runphilrun said:

1983. I was a Junior in High School. A mutual friend introduced the 1999 album to me and said it was a singer named Prince. I vaguely remembered I Wanna Be Your Lover playing on te radio, but didn't think much of it. I remember him pointing out the LP sleeve showing Prince lying in bed with his ass almost hanging out. He said "Look at that Ass!" I thought "Huh?", since Prince didn't do anything for me then, and he still doesn't now

But...you're still here...

purplethunder3121 said:

runphilrun said:

1983. I was a Junior in High School. A mutual friend introduced the 1999 album to me and said it was a singer named Prince. I vaguely remembered I Wanna Be Your Lover playing on te radio, but didn't think much of it. I remember him pointing out the LP sleeve showing Prince lying in bed with his ass almost hanging out. He said "Look at that Ass!" I thought "Huh?", since Prince didn't do anything for me then, and he still doesn't now

But...you're still here...

No no, I've always loved his music.. I don't find him interesting sexually

runphilrun said:

purplethunder3121 said:

But...you're still here...

No no, I've always loved his music.. I don't find him interesting sexually

Got it! Prince has always been an eargasm for me...

I was about 12 or 13 in '82-'83 and remember hearing 1999 on the radio and I liked the song. Eventually I got the double album, but don't think I really listened to it as a whole. Next thing I knew, I was seeing 'When Doves Cry' on MTV and that was IT. I was really just starting to get interested in girls and here is this guy singing about stuff I was only beginning to dream about doing with them

[Edited 1/12/12 18:28pm]

sulls said:

I was about 12 or 13 in '82-'83 and remember hearing 1999 on the radio and I liked the song. Eventually I got the double album, but don't think I really listened to it as a whole. Next thing I knew, I was seeing 'When Doves Cry' on MTV and that was IT. I was really just starting to get interested in girls and here is this guy singing about stuff I was only beginning to dream about doing with them

[Edited 1/12/12 18:28pm]

You were smart enough to know that Prince crawling on the floor and sitting in that steaming tub were turning girls on in the video of "When Doves Cry."

purplethunder3121 said:

sulls said:

I was about 12 or 13 in '82-'83 and remember hearing 1999 on the radio and I liked the song. Eventually I got the double album, but don't think I really listened to it as a whole. Next thing I knew, I was seeing 'When Doves Cry' on MTV and that was IT. I was really just starting to get interested in girls and here is this guy singing about stuff I was only beginning to dream about doing with them

[Edited 1/12/12 18:28pm]

You were smart enough to know that Prince crawling on the floor and sitting in that steaming tub were turning girls on in the video of "When Doves Cry."

Ha-ha! I got a pretty good, albeit warped, schoolin' of what to do with the ladies

In 1979 I was like 4 years old . my sister who is older than me , had a major crush on hin and my brothers and I would tease her about it. But then i started listening to his music and was blown away.

Mtv - Little Red Corvette, 1999, etc.

But I later realized that 'I Wanna Be Your Lover' had been played by family and friends a lot when I was too young to care about who I was listening to.

I actually got a pretty late introduction to Prince, although in my defense it seems like I'm a lot younger than most on here. I vaguely knew who he was all my life but it wasn't until I saw him preform on the Super Bowl half time show that really had me take notice. And I've been hooked ever since. Actually I'm a little embarrassed to say that Planet Earth was the first Prince album that I bought.

(I haven't told this story in a while - on the org, anyway.. if ever..

so I'll fondly break it out here..)

when "soft & wet" came out, I was 10 years old. I barely remember hearing it then..

but thinking, "not bad, for a 'girl' singing.."

(aahhh.. my youthful naiveté..)

"I wanna be your lover" - I definitely remember that song

(when I was, by then, some 11 years old..)

I remember that song being very popular, & understandably so - it was very catchy.

however..

it was in August of 1980

when our family made our annual "summer vacation trip"

to Virginia Beach..

in the car

(on the way down from Richmond - or on the way back??)

I heard :

"where I come from

we don't give a damn

we do whatever we please.."

& I said to myself.. "WHO IS THIS WHO IS 'CUSSING' IN THIS SONG?????"

I found out it was Prince, & that the song was UPTOWN.

then - 12 years old now - I saw the album cover for DIRTY MIND

& I said to myself (again)..

"WHO IS this.. guy..???"

Prince was SO OVERTLY SEXUAL then..

& I had just "hit puberty"..

& I was REALLY into girls..

(to the point it adversly affected my grades in school..)

coming from him - despite his "strange appearance" it was so "natural"

not at all contrived..

all the planets simply lined up.

& Prince had THE TALENT to back it up

make it happen

& then blow it up.

so we could EASILY say that

DIRTY MIND was the "soundtrack" - literally & figuratively - to my

HIGHLY CHARGED

HIGHLY DEMONSTRATIVE

RAGING HORMONAL

TEENAGE YEARS.

Prince was ABSOLUTELY THE SHIT then.

he ate meat.

he cussed worse than a sailor

he had the UNBELIEVABLE TALENT, NERVE & CREATIVITY to not only write

GREAT MUSIC FOR HIMSELF

but also for equally talented (The Time, Sheila E, etc.) & lesser talented (Vanity/Apollonia 6, etc)

musicians/singers/performers.

from "for you" through "sign 'o' the times"

EVERY

ALBUM

was

MARKEDLY BETTER

than the 1 that proceeded it.

aaahhh... THOSE were the "good old days..!"

Like a lot of other people in my age group I got introduced to Prince by my mother, she was a Prince fan.

Ed. Ed was into Iron Maiden and the Scorps and Halen, but when I visited his house he wanted to play me "Let's Pretend We're Married". He professed it was nastier than anything he'd ever heard, and while taking 1999 out of the translucent protective baggie, he proudly displayed the artistic touch of the eye-pupil being pierced on the record turntable. He wanted me to wait for it, wait for it - like I was really going to get the change of key Prince uses to let you know he's going to his dark side. All the while, Ed was explaining to me the obvious symbolism on the album cover.

I thought it was cool, but kinda cheesy. I'd grown up on whatever my dad served up - Beatles, Elton, Queen, Neil Young. And what my friends listened to - AC/DC, Zeppelin, bands already named - I had no context for this music. It was plastic. It was whatever disco turned into. I could see where fucking the taste out of your mouth could be a novelty, but jeez, really: there's two whole discs of this kind of droning?

Three seasons later at my 8th grade graduation (my school went up to 8th grade, so some kind of ceremony was required), When Doves Cry was on repeat on whatever radio station was in-tune at our field trip. I still hadn't heard Little Red Corvette. I still had never heard 1999. We didn't have cable. So this was my second experience with Prince. The song was so impressionable, I couldn't tell you what kind of music I was listening to at that time of life. I can only tell you that on that bleary Seattle day at Lincoln park, 8th graders in their mist-blocking yellowjackets and only the radio and the Puget competing for sound, I fell hard for that song and felt like I wanted to take music seriously. Because that shit was serious. That was all I remember: there was all this other crap on the radio, and this song was really trying to be something.

I asked my parents for Purple Rain. It turned up in my Easter Basket. By this time, Let's Go Crazy was on the radio, on a station I wouldn't have thought to listen to except thier was a better likelihood they might play Prince. Thus began my parents tendency to put music in my Easter basket because it was less sugary. I was diagnosed as a Type 1 diabetic 10 years later anyways.

sferdin said:

I actually got a pretty late introduction to Prince, although in my defense it seems like I'm a lot younger than most on here. I vaguely knew who he was all my life but it wasn't until I saw him preform on the Super Bowl half time show that really had me take notice. And I've been hooked ever since. Actually I'm a little embarrassed to say that Planet Earth was the first Prince album that I bought.

I became a fan just days after Planet Earth was released, and that was the album that made me a fan. I still love it, but I'm guessing you don't.

Harlepolis said:

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My introduction to both music, Prince' & Chaka's.

Interesting. Just comfirms what I've always thought.. every album Prince has ever made has won him new fans. Apparently, even the albums he made for others.

I've been listening to this, and the other 1998 NPG albums a lot recently. I actually really like all of them.

I ADORED MJ and his music then i saw 1999 on MAX I ran 2 my aunty and said listen 2 this MJ song its AWESOME!!!!!!! then she said thats not MJ thats PRINCE anyway thats how it all began.

I think the very first time I encountered Prince was the first time I saw "Purple Rain" as a kid, in like 1989? After my grandmother's funeral the family was at the house and I think one of my uncles put the movie on...I really didn't give it or him a second thought other than being shocked when I saw Apollonia's tits.

I think it wasn't until years later when I saw it again that I first started to kind of 'get' it. But then I went ahead and bought the soundtrack and the song "Darling Nikki" scared me off for a few more years until I was about 20 and tried it again and instead of being shocked and finding him creepy, I started giggling like mad and just found it funny and cool. I listened to that to death and from there bought more of his music and the rest was history.

Harlepolis said:

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My introduction to both music, Prince' & Chaka's.

Nice!

I took one of my friends to see Chaka for her birthday last year because she loves her.

As I was driving, I popped in "Come 2 My House" because she had never heard of it. She did not like it at all... She called it a Prince album with Chaka singing.

I can see how that album would turn you on to both artists.

chocolate1 said:

Harlepolis said:

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My introduction to both music, Prince' & Chaka's.

Nice!

I took one of my friends to see Chaka for her birthday last year because she loves her.

As I was driving, I popped in "Come 2 My House" because she had never heard of it. She did not like it at all... She called it a Prince album with Chaka singing.

I can see how that album would turn you on to both artists.

Momma kept her copy because it was signed, she only listened to it once and threw the thing on the living room's mantle. Yeah, she felt the same way as your friend

The album cover intrigued me the minute I saw it though, I've always been casually familiar with Chaka because my mother is addicted to her music, to say the least. So, I listened and I was taken aback by the quirkiness of it, little did I know that this would be a consistent element I'll came across to in Prince' music.

The minute it hit me was when Chaka sang this line in "Drama" - You must be busier than a one-legged man in a kick fight. DAMMIT what a line! was all I thought and given that I've always been fascinated with reading other people's name in credit liner notes, just so if I could spot somebody I recognise, I loved the girl in the background who sang Was you gettin' busy?, it took me just a short minute to figure out that it was somebody by the name of O+>, who to my amazement, handled the WHOLE thing in the album. Def wasn't no girl, and here I thought MJ was the best falsetto of them all.

Next day, bought my Rave Unt2 The Joy Fantastic copy, which I loved even more - still to this day actually. And the rest as the cliche goes, history.

[Edited 1/15/12 10:48am]

i was vaguely aware of prince from some tv appearances during his 2004-ish comeback, and I someone on a message board was pretty enthusiastic. At some point I checked out his page at allmusic and downloaded parade, sott, and prince. I didn't really dig all the music immediately, but there were a few songs that I thought were great. Mostly Prince stuck out in my mind as being something different, and a good mix of serious and silly, poppy and weird, etc.

I dunno, I liked him enough to buy SOTT, but at this point I wasn't addicted. He was more like a hidden-in-plain-sight wacky, goofy, genius character and that was really novel to me. I appreciated the music academically, which isn't really being a full-on fan of the music, but it's certainly intriguing.

Then at some point I downloaded 1999, which I bought soon after and it ended up being the first Prince album I played out completely, and it started a long and unhealthy bout of musical tunnel vision focusing on Prince.

The guy has a lot of hooks (some more gimmicky than others) to draw you into his cult, and some of them caught me and made prince stick with me until i stumbled upon the music that really resonated with me.

Harlepolis said:

chocolate1 said:

Nice!

I took one of my friends to see Chaka for her birthday last year because she loves her.

As I was driving, I popped in "Come 2 My House" because she had never heard of it. She did not like it at all... She called it a Prince album with Chaka singing.

I can see how that album would turn you on to both artists.

Momma kept her copy because it was signed, she only listened to it once and threw the thing on the living room's mantle. Yeah, she felt the same way as your friend

The album cover intrigued me the minute I saw it though, I've always been casually familiar with Chaka because my mother is addicted to her music, to say the least. So, I listened and I was taken aback by the quirkiness of it, little did I know that this would be a consistent element I'll came across to in Prince' music.

The minute it hit me was when Chaka sang this line in "Drama" - You must be busier than a one-legged man in a kick fight. DAMMIT what a line! was all I thought and given that I've always been fascinated with reading other people's name in credit liner notes, just so if I could spot somebody I recognise, I loved the girl in the background who sang Was you gettin' busy?, it took me just a short minute to figure out that it was somebody by the name of O+>, who to my amazement, handled the WHOLE thing in the album. Def wasn't no girl, and here I thought MJ was the best falsetto of them all.

Next day, bought my Rave Unt2 The Joy Fantastic copy, which I loved even more - still to this day actually. And the rest as the cliche goes, history.

[Edited 1/15/12 10:48am]

"Drama" is my favorite song on the album!

CrabalockerFishwife said:

sferdin said:

I actually got a pretty late introduction to Prince, although in my defense it seems like I'm a lot younger than most on here. I vaguely knew who he was all my life but it wasn't until I saw him preform on the Super Bowl half time show that really had me take notice. And I've been hooked ever since. Actually I'm a little embarrassed to say that Planet Earth was the first Prince album that I bought.

I became a fan just days after Planet Earth was released, and that was the album that made me a fan. I still love it, but I'm guessing you don't.

I actually enjoy Planet Earth a lot. I dont think its his best work by far, nor do I think its his worse either. To me its a very enjoyable album and I can't understand why it gets so much critisism.

It was in 1987. I heard Prince song You Got the Look on radio in my house I was seven years old. At first I didnt not know that Prince song that song until like several years later around the early 90s after I became a Prince fan.

it was 1991 and i was 13 years old. during the 1980's i really never paid any attention to prince's music, although i do remember really liking "i could never take the place of your man". i was more into tina turner, lionel richie, cyndi lauper, etc. i just never thought about prince's music. until that day in 1991 when i came into the living room and saw my dad watching purple rain, it had already been on TV for about 20 mins., i felt shy to watch the movie with my dad, so i ran to the hallway, and peeked around the corner watching it from there. i was like why on earth haven't i seen this movie before? and how did i ignore these songs for all of these years. that movie just sucked me in, i couldn't stop watching it. and i thought prince was the most handsome man i had ever seen.

i went from loving new kids on the block, to ripping all my new kids posters off my wall, and going to the local drug store and buying "black beat", and "right on" magazines with prince posters in them. then i saw the "get off" video on MTV & snuck out to the mall to buy his "diamonds and pearls" cassette tape, i had to hide it from parents, because they didn't think a christian girl should listen to prince.