I know his first few albums came out around the time of punk but has he ever mentioned it as a influence do you know?

Not that I remember. But he was obviously influenced by a lot of things that were going on in England back then, from the new romantics style outfits to the Adam Ant-like jackets, or that Rudeboy button, or songs like Gotta Stop Messin´About. But I don´t think that he was really into any of those movements, he was too busy creating his own movement.

Have you ever heard the punk version of When Doves Cry that he did during a rehearsal? When Doves Scream?

That is probably the closest that he came to Punk, musically speaking. At least the way he screams that song.

It´s quite funny, check it out if you can find it.

KoolEaze said:

Not that I remember. But he was obviously influenced by a lot of things that were going on in England back then, from the new romantics style outfits to the Adam Ant-like jackets, or that Rudeboy button, or songs like Gotta Stop Messin´About. But I don´t think that he was really into any of those movements, he was too busy creating his own movement.

Have you ever heard the punk version of When Doves Cry that he did during a rehearsal? When Doves Scream?

That is probably the closest that he came to Punk, musically speaking. At least the way he screams that song.

It´s quite funny, check it out if you can find it.

I always thought he was influenced by glam rock when it came to his style particulary bolan.

According to Jill Jones he was really into The Clash.

P wrote "erotic city" after night out seeing George Clinton. GC was on PP label as well. P covered some Pfunk music as well.. My vote yes.

SuperFurryAnimal said:

P wrote "erotic city" after night out seeing George Clinton. GC was on PP label as well. P covered some Pfunk music as well.. My vote yes.

Punk, not Pfunk.

Not sure, but he was always into white rock music. I mean he did listen to some of the white rock groups in his teens and always wanted rock and rollers in his group too. Dez was bought into the group mostly as he was heavily into rock (Apparently he was a huge Led Zeppelin fan) and played rock guitar rather than pure funk. I don't think Prince became interested into punk until the Rick James tour when he wrote songs for Dirty Mind. His hair cut then and the leopard skin pants, legwarmers had a slightly punk feel. Also Matt and Lisa along with Bobby would have bought white influences into the group and these would have rubbed off on Prince.

Plus he probably had access to a lot of other Warner Albums and no doubt would have listened to albums by punk and rock groups.

These are just theories, so incase a certain troll from New Zealand comes along and tears me to shreds.

The whole Dirty Mind era was pure Punk. Definitely inspired by Punk and I think he blended Punk and Funk together so well that it gave birth to MPLSound we know Prince for.

I'm sure he was, hell the whole music industry was,even those who hated and/or disrepected punk were influenced by it.

Remember the punk movement as a whole wasn't just ripped clothes, eyeliner and mohawks. In many ways punk was (among other things, of course) a reaction to what many saw was a bloated, exclusive, corporate dominated industry. Yeah there was plenty of opportunists and garbage within the punk scene, but overall it preached a DIY ethic that had been lost, and emphasized a freedom to not restrict yourself musically -- in other words just do it, don't worry about explaining or justifying it.

There were exceptions but if you look at the mainstream R&B, rock and pop music of the late seventies you can see how the punk ideal spoke to what Prince was trying to accomplish as he moved from his highly polished and produced debut & sophomore albums to the stripped-down albums he created through 1982

Listen to the original of Tick, Tick, Bang. That'll answer your question.

And I will contend to my dying breath that Get the Knack (released in 1979) was an influence for Dirty Mind.

Not that The Knack were punk, per se. But they were certainly punk influenced.

sure about as "influenced" as Avril Lavigne was. Mostly the style and a bit of the attitude with a sort of tongue and cheeck reproduction of some of the lighter sonic motifs.

While I do believe Prince spent a lot of time studying Zeppelin, I doubt he really listened to Clash or the Pistols.

joyinrepetition said:

The whole Dirty Mind era was pure Punk. Definitely inspired by Punk and I think he blended Punk and Funk together so well that it gave birth to MPLSound we know Prince for.

Agreed... he was pushing his raw demo like femme sound in your face in the same way more common punk pushed masculine raw demo sound.

Genesia said:

Listen to the original of Tick, Tick, Bang. That'll answer your question.

And I will contend to my dying breath that Get the Knack (released in 1979) was an influence for Dirty Mind.

Not that The Knack were punk, per se. But they were certainly punk influenced.

I was thinking the same thing

joyinrepetition said:

The whole Dirty Mind era was pure Punk. Definitely inspired by Punk and I think he blended Punk and Funk together so well that it gave birth to MPLSound we know Prince for.

Is New Wave connected with Punk?

OldFriends4Sale said:

joyinrepetition said:

The whole Dirty Mind era was pure Punk. Definitely inspired by Punk and I think he blended Punk and Funk together so well that it gave birth to MPLSound we know Prince for.

Is New Wave connected with Punk?

Yes. New Wave is basically punk music, but more pop-y and dance influenced.

http://www.allmusic.com/e...-wave-d381.

His DIY attitude in the 90s was more punk like, some of the early stuff he did had a punk stance in terms of rebeliiousness. But he doesn't really fit in one box very easily as we all know, he's omnivorous musically speaking. He probably could find a lot in common with the punk movement, but he wasn't influenced to the degree of, say, Fishbone or Living Colour. But if you told Prince he was a punk, I doubt he would take it as a compliment

joyinrepetition said:

The whole Dirty Mind era was pure Punk. Definitely inspired by Punk and I think he blended Punk and Funk together so well that it gave birth to MPLSound we know Prince for.

Thank you. The DM/Controversy era owed a lot to punk in terms of style and substance, to varying degrees.

CrabalockerFishwife said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

Is New Wave connected with Punk?

Yes. New Wave is basically punk music, but more pop-y and dance influenced.

http://www.allmusic.com/e...-wave-d381.

Exactly! New Wave came from Punk beginnings. Punk started out as raw, in your face, then it got all glammed up which became New Wave. Just look at how Billy Idol started out and how glammed up he became in the mid 80's. Same with Prince, 1980 Dirty Mind(Punk), 1981 Controversy(Punk/Glam) 1982-84 1999-Purple Rain(all Glam).

kenkamken said:

His DIY attitude in the 90s was more punk like, some of the early stuff he did had a punk stance in terms of rebeliiousness. But he doesn't really fit in one box very easily as we all know, he's omnivorous musically speaking. He probably could find a lot in common with the punk movement, but he wasn't influenced to the degree of, say, Fishbone or Living Colour. But if you told Prince he was a punk, I doubt he would take it as a compliment

Well said. I think he did owe a little something to the Punk Ethic (an oxymoron, I know) in terms of sprinting off the R&B wunderkind track (featured in your avatar) and taking his provocative sound and style to the next level.

DM defines him as an artist, arguably moreso than his most successful albums, and that's when he went off message and blended even more new wave, punk and rock into his Minneapolis Sound.

The rest of his career changed as a result. He always wanted to be a star, it seems, but by taking a page out of the Punk playbook, he did it on his own terms.

smoothcriminal12 said:

SuperFurryAnimal said:

P wrote "erotic city" after night out seeing George Clinton. GC was on PP label as well. P covered some Pfunk music as well.. My vote yes.

Punk, not Pfunk.

never known those two ever to be confused

mzsadii said:

smoothcriminal12 said:

Punk, not Pfunk.

never known those two ever to be confused

Take a listen to The Clash's "Radio Clash" for the obvious answer.

Lyrical themes from the Buzzcocks like "Orgasm Addict" are pretty obvious.

Gary Numan, and probably to a lesser extent, someone like Fad Gadget ... for obvious reasons.

As an indirect influence, if you went out to cool clubs in 1981 you had to have heard ESG, Liquid Liquid, Dinosaur L, etc. which were already combining dance music with punk.

+

[Edited 7/5/12 0:45am]

First Avenue/7th St Entry were very punk in the early 80s. Prince reportedly went to a lot of those shows.

Local bands such as The Replacements, Husker DU, Sould Asylum, etc. got attention from Prince as well as from members of REM, Smashing Pumkins, and even Kurt Cobain; all reportedly would check out these shows.

What is the Jill Jones quote about Prince and the Clash? I think it would have done him wonders to listen to the Clash, but I have a hard time believing he was a fan. Like everyone else, he probably knows Rock the Casbah and that's it. After all, Wendy or Lisa stated he knew nothing about the Beatles when they met him, nor was he overly familiar with jazz music, which still astounds me.

Prince was a fan of what was on the radio in the 1970s. He didn't have torrents and itunes to download music. He was limited to am radio. People on this board love projecting their tastes onto Prince, but reading sources on his youth, you find he was into things like Fleetwood Mac, not Oranj Juice or the Buzzcocks.

I'd also like to read a quote where Prince went to a Husker Du or Replacements show. Simm0061, hit me with a quote, you claim he went to "lots of those shows." Bullshit. He knew who the acts were, but he didn't get that music nor did he get into it.

Wall said:

What is the Jill Jones quote about Prince and the Clash? I think it would have done him wonders to listen to the Clash, but I have a hard time believing he was a fan. Like everyone else, he probably knows Rock the Casbah and that's it. After all, Wendy or Lisa stated he knew nothing about the Beatles when they met him, nor was he overly familiar with jazz music, which still astounds me.

Prince was a fan of what was on the radio in the 1970s. He didn't have torrents and itunes to download music. He was limited to am radio. People on this board love projecting their tastes onto Prince, but reading sources on his youth, you find he was into things like Fleetwood Mac, not Oranj Juice or the Buzzcocks.

I'd also like to read a quote where Prince went to a Husker Du or Replacements show. Simm0061, hit me with a quote, you claim he went to "lots of those shows." Bullshit. He knew who the acts were, but he didn't get that music nor did he get into it.

Fair enough.but "influence" is relative. He didn't have to "know" the bands very well to have co-opted some of what he heard -- and saw -- in punk as he knew it. I recall reading interviews where he would cite pretty obscure bands like Wedding Present. I think his radar wasn't finely tuned to punk -- just as it wasn't when he attempted to co-opt hip-hop (mostly unsuccessfully) in the decades to follow. But he may have been a little more than a casual listener.

Wall said:

What is the Jill Jones quote about Prince and the Clash? I think it would have done him wonders to listen to the Clash, but I have a hard time believing he was a fan. Like everyone else, he probably knows Rock the Casbah and that's it. After all, Wendy or Lisa stated he knew nothing about the Beatles when they met him, nor was he overly familiar with jazz music, which still astounds me.

Prince was a fan of what was on the radio in the 1970s. He didn't have torrents and itunes to download music. He was limited to am radio. People on this board love projecting their tastes onto Prince, but reading sources on his youth, you find he was into things like Fleetwood Mac, not Oranj Juice or the Buzzcocks.

I'd also like to read a quote where Prince went to a Husker Du or Replacements show. Simm0061, hit me with a quote, you claim he went to "lots of those shows." Bullshit. He knew who the acts were, but he didn't get that music nor did he get into it.

Paul Westerberg of The Replacements mentioned in an interview, one night during one of their early gigs at 7Th St Entry, Prince wandered in, checked them out for a few minutes, then promplty walked out

That sounds more like it runphilirun. And I seem to recall reading that quote, I think it was in an old Spin. Like I said, people love to project their taste, or what they think is now critically popular, onto Prince when he was younger.

Good thoughts, namepeace, where did you read the Wedding Present quote? The only British act I've ever heard him lend vocal support to was Kate Bush, but I'm sure there's others.

As I stated earlier, Jill Jones (in one of the BBC interviews) said P would play music by The Clash, Gary Numan, Kraftwerk, etc everyday on the one of the earleir tours. She said that every morning the band would be woken up by him cranking those records. He may not have been a diehard but I'm sure he wanted to try something new and different.

Being the musical sponge that he was, he probably absorbed a lot of the punk/new wave vibe (from those records) and combined it with funk (like Rick) and did his thing from 1980 to 1981.

He was MOST DEFINITELY inspired by Gary Numan, that is an undeniable fact. Listen to "cars" and then "automatic" if you don't believe me.