Dear Prince.org,

It is widely thought amongst those who study creativity, genius and madness, that within a leading artist's career trajectory, there will inevitably be a period where the various stressors affecting the artist's life, in context to the stages of psychosocial development the artist has yet to experience, result in the production of growth that can be thought of as GENIUS, or even, divined by God.

Firstly, do you believe the kind of artistry Prince explored and achieved is indicative of his being touched by a higher power during this time? It is curious that the end of this era, following the dark night of the soul experience, triggered the euphoric finale of God in Lovesexy: God is Love, Love is God, Everybody Love God Above.

I am conscious that God can evoke widely differing and often combative viewpoints, even amongst the politest of comrades. Therefore, irrespective of my first question i.e. if we can leave God aside, what do you feel were actually the "psycho-historio-biographical" stressors in Prince's life during the 1980-1988 era that resulted in such GENIUS work?

I look forward to hearing and responding to your ideas.

love,

Spirit

There is no god, so no, I don't believe Prince was divinely influenced.

Nope.

Prince is a creative cat. Far and away my favourite artist of all time. A talented mofo, no doubt. Where this talent comes from I would say a combination of his genes, his life experiences, and a healthy dose of hard work and practice. No God required.

.

[Edited 1/27/12 16:49pm]

i believe it starts off with a gift from God but the biggest contribution would be hard work......

its what u do with what u have that make u what u r!!!!!

TheEnglishGent said:

There is no god, so no, I don't believe Prince was divinely influenced.

TheEnglishGent,

Even if there is no God, do you believe Prince was influenced by another dimension musically? Given that no other period has produced the musical trajectory which occurred during 1980-1988, one must wonder what was influencing him, surely?

love,

Spirit

NeonCraxx said:

There is a God, so yes, he was divinely influenced.

NeonCraxx,

If he was divinely influenced during 1980-1988, then why hasn't God blessed Prince with significant further periods of prolonged artistic, genius-like, growth? Surely, there must be other factors aside from God, then, which occured during 1980-1988?

love,

Spirit

toejam said:

Nope.

Prince is a creative cat. Far and away my favourite artist of all time. A talented mofo, no doubt. Where this talent comes from I would say a combination of his genes, his life experiences, and a healthy dose of hard work and practice. No God required.

.

[Edited 1/27/12 16:49pm]

toejam,

If Prince has always had the same genes, maintained his work ethic and practiced music, by your explanation then that only leaves life experiences as the critical factor during 1980-1988 which inspired such acclaimed growth? However, Prince has continued to have life experiences after 1988, some might say, far more challenging as he grew older. Therefore, I struggle to see how your explanation is adequate, which surprises me as you can be quite the intellect.

love,

Spirit

ThisOne said:

i believe it starts off with a gift from God but the biggest contribution would be hard work......

its what u do with what u have that make u what u r!!!!!

ThisOne,

Are you saying then that Prince himself worked hardest between 1980-1988 and this is the reason why he produced such work of significance? It would seem a shame then, if that is the case, that the only factor preventing Prince from releasing such talented work is, as you allege, his own work ethic. I find that hard to believe, personally speaking; as far as we can conclude from afar, Prince has always worked hard. Therefore, there must be some other confluence of factors in the mix during 1980-1988 which brought forth such musical, psychological and spiritual growth.

love,

Spirit

errant said:

Let's cut it back to 1987 and I might overcome my atheism and agree.

errant,

It's an interesting point. The analysts I work with were also questioning whether we should include 1988 in the period of genius work for Prince; however, we felt that this period marked a significant enough stimulus in Prince's outlook towards God, resulting in marked introspection, giving rise to perhaps his final "innocent" peak of musical genius. Afterall, Lovesexy, if nothing else, is GENIUS, laid bare. Thereafter, one could argue that Prince has deliberately attempted to force genius; but, alas, other factors must be at play, for his resultant work to be what it has been (of course, aside from a few notable exceptions, such as The Gold Experience, The Rainbow Children and Lotus Flower).

love,

Spirit

SpiritOtter said:

toejam,

If Prince has always had the same genes, maintained his work ethic and practiced music, by your explanation then that only leaves life experiences as the critical factor during 1980-1988 which inspired such acclaimed growth? However, Prince has continued to have life experiences after 1988, some might say, far more challenging as he grew older. Therefore, I struggle to see how your explanation is adequate, which surprises me as you can be quite the intellect.

love,

Spirit

Exactly which part do you find inadequate?

To be honest I'm not really sold on the premise here that the 1980-88 was as excessively more "inspired" than the pre- or post- periods as you're implying. I would say it was a very creative and successful period from him, but it's not that much different from everything else. I think you're clutching at straws to find something that ultimately isn't there.

Prince is a talented dude. The 1980-88 period was a great period for him. So what? That means he was inspired by God or another dimension or something? Pfff... Maybe it was the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or Space Aliens for all we know...

Why don't you tell us what you think he was inspired by and why he isn't as inspired anymore...

.

[Edited 1/28/12 6:40am]

I don't agree with the given time frame and the focus on it.

Even when I do agree that those were the years Prince showed the most genius.

You are either a genius or you are not. You are not a genius sometimes, or for only a certain period of time.

I think it's more like it may not be possible for a human being to be a genius all the time.

But I like this question:

if we can leave God aside, what do you feel were actually the "psycho-historio-biographical" stressors in Prince's life during the 1980-1988 era that resulted in such GENIUS work?

We can't really leave "God aside"when we are talking about Prince, but Prince's genius I think, was formed by his genes and his life experiences. Primarily his youth, but also as a grown up, as an artist, a businessman and a person believing in God. There was always a lot of music and God in Prince's life, from early on already. From what I've gathered it provided a safe haven for him from the stress and pain his family and social life gave him...

[Edited 1/28/12 6:55am]

Tremolina,

If you like the question, then why don't you properly answer it?

Depth, please.

love,

Spirit

SpiritOtter said:

Tremolina,

If you like the question, then why don't you properly answer it?

Depth, please.

love,

Spirit

lol, I know and I'm trying. I actually gave it more depth now:

We can't really leave "God aside"when we are talking about Prince, but Prince's genius I think, was formed by his genes and his life experiences. Primarily his youth, but also as a grown up, as an artist, a businessman and a person believing in God. There was always a lot of music and God in Prince's life, from early on already. From what I've gathered it provided a safe haven for him from the stress and pain his family and social life gave him... This caused Prince, who was born already with all that musical talent in him, to almost exclusively be concerned with/ devote his life to music and God, from an early age already. This made it possible for him to grow into the God praising music loving genius he later became.

[Edited 1/28/12 7:07am]

Tremolina said:

SpiritOtter said:

Tremolina,

If you like the question, then why don't you properly answer it?

Depth, please.

love,

Spirit

lol, I know and I'm trying. I actually gave it more depth now:

We can't really leave "God aside"when we are talking about Prince, but Prince's genius I think, was formed by his genes and his life experiences. Primarily his youth, but also as a grown up, as an artist, a businessman and a person believing in God. There was always a lot of music and God in Prince's life, from early on already. From what I've gathered it provided a safe haven for him from the stress and pain his family and social life gave him... This caused Prince, who was born already with all that musical talent in him, to almost exclusively be concerned with/ devote his life to music and God, from an early age already. This made it possible for him to grow into the God praising genius he later became.

[Edited 1/28/12 7:00am]

Tremolina,

That was a nice response. I still think you've got more though.

Depth, that is.

love,

Spirit

^ Perhabs if you ask me something

Well, only Prince would know what psycho-historio-biographical factors were the main contributing factors in his periods of creative growth. And even he probably wouldn't be sure, or have thought about it in those terms.

We only see things from the outside and just see the results. So we can only ever offer theories and opinions.

Personally, I think it all boils down to motivation and innovation.

Prince was motivated by a desire to be the best, commerically and artistically. He had a fire back then to prove himself in both these respects and this resulted in a golden age with WB. He was surrounded by people who both challenged and respected him. Plus he was working with people that he respected and had an almost perfect balance of freedom, advice and grounding influences.

He was creating music to challenge, impress and compete. So to bullet point it, I think the main things that contributed to his artistic and commercial success at this time were the following...

1. Very good working relationship with his record company (WB). With both parties pulling in the same direction and both wanting critical, artistic and commercial success. As well as having people who could and would say 'no' if they thought it was for the best.

2. A desire to not only be commercially and artistically successful, but to break new musical ground and push boundaries.

3. Important and formative personal and professional relationships. Loves and losses that were at the emotional core of his music. Plus musicians and associates that he wanted to impress and challenge. Also, probably most importantly, he was still very much in the process of searching... Trying to reconcile the divine and the profane, love and lust, the heart and the brain.

BorisFishpaw,

As always, your answer is of brilliance.

I love your capacity for grounded analysis; even without education, your capacity for logic and reason is beyond outstanding.

When is the earliest you can come to my offices in London? We have significant work to complete together...now is the time.

Note Me.

love,

Spirit

SpiritOtter said:

if we can leave God aside, what do you feel were actually the "psycho-historio-biographical" stressors in Prince's life during the 1980-1988 era that resulted in such GENIUS work?

I think he was born like that, in other words whatever career path he would of taken I think he would have been just as sucessful in his life, and we probably would of still heard about him one way of another. I strongly believe we are all pre-programmed to a certain degree if not the majority of our make up as human creatures.

SpiritOtter said:

I look forward to hearing and responding to your ideas.

Do you really?

This whole strain of Prince fandom that sees him as some sort of divine messenger makes me want to puke blood through every orifice on my body.

Obviously, you are taking the piss - but there are plenty of other loons out there who aren't.

[Edited 1/28/12 8:49am]

http://prince.org/msg/105/62901

NouveauDance said:

SpiritOtter said:

I look forward to hearing and responding to your ideas.

Do you really?

This whole strain of Prince fandom that sees him as some sort of divine messenger makes me want to puke blood through every orifice on my body.

Obviously, you are taking the piss - but there are plenty of other loons out there who aren't.

[Edited 1/28/12 8:49am]

lol

NouveauDance said:

SpiritOtter said:

I look forward to hearing and responding to your ideas.

Do you really?

This whole strain of Prince fandom that sees him as some sort of divine messenger makes me want to puke blood through every orifice on my body.

Obviously, you are taking the piss - but there are plenty of other loons out there who aren't.

[Edited 1/28/12 8:49am]

lol

SpiritOtter said:

SpiritOtter said:

ThisOne said:

i believe it starts off with a gift from God but the biggest contribution would be hard work......

its what u do with what u have that make u what u r!!!!!

ThisOne,

Are you saying then that Prince himself worked hardest between 1980-1988 and this is the reason why he produced such work of significance? It would seem a shame then, if that is the case, that the only factor preventing Prince from releasing such talented work is, as you allege, his own work ethic. I find that hard to believe, personally speaking; as far as we can conclude from afar, Prince has always worked hard. Therefore, there must be some other confluence of factors in the mix during 1980-1988 which brought forth such musical, psychological and spiritual growth.

love,

Spirit

the thing is - u broke it down in years, for me i see it as a life time of hard work, and i still love what he does music wise.

what i'm saying is that he has always worked hard and will continue with his work ethics and with bringing out quality music for his fans to enjoy...... just cause u liked 1980 to 1988 most does not reflect on his career as a musician

its what u do with what u have that make u what u r!!!!!

Creativity comes from all sorts of places, but I'm sure anyone who writes words around their melodies, would say it was depending on where he was going with the music. It's something you do by feel and see where it takes you. Sometimes songwriters can't explain what they wrote because they were in the zone at the time. When you write that many songs, he's prob. dreaming even more up, and I'm sure lost half of them 10 minutes after he woke up. He'd prob. be the first to say he had a thousand songs for Purple Rain, and lost 900 of them when he woke up.

Maybe that's why he rarely slept.

I think Boris has pretty much nailed it.

catpark said:

SpiritOtter said:

if we can leave God aside, what do you feel were actually the "psycho-historio-biographical" stressors in Prince's life during the 1980-1988 era that resulted in such GENIUS work?

I think he was born like that, in other words whatever career path he would of taken I think he would have been just as sucessful in his life, and we probably would of still heard about him one way of another. I strongly believe we are all pre-programmed to a certain degree if not the majority of our make up as human creatures.

catpark,

Pre-programmed, as in destiny?

love,

Spirit