Like everyone here, I have been struggling to find a way forward, except to reflect on and mourn the life of the greatest popular musician we’ve ever had. Unlike so many others who have been lost, Prince seemed to be neither at the beginning nor toward the end of his career; he was smack in the middle of it. Playing through the nearly four decades of music we have, it hit me: The man started recording music as a teenager, and there is a vast catalog to study, but he was only 57 - he had likely another 20-25 years to contribute musically before his voice would possibly weaken and lose emotional power. Actually, I imagined his older voice in comparison to Dylan’s, and like Dylan how powerful it would have been to witness the gradual surrender of his acrobatic vocals and the reinvention of his singing and playing and themes. But I’ll never know what Prince sounds like as an old man or even a late middle aged man, even though I bet at times it would’ve been quite beautiful to hear. And what’s harder, and what the mainstream media mostly doesn’t understand, is that Prince has continued to evolve and struggle with his identity all these years, way past the mid 90s, when so many wrote him off. Even after his conversion, Prince had continued to reconcile his faith with his classic musical themes. One sensed he was just now coming out of a period where he needed to take an offensive stance against “the old Prince” by defending his new identity, and was beginning to merge the youthful libertine and middle-aged ascetic together. I wasn’t sure he was going to create another great, cohesive work for a while given his recent output, but I was certain he’d reach a point where he once again achieved the balance between all his different sides, only now with the wisdom of added years of life lived. AOA and HitNRun Phase Two, while a little generic for me, were steps in the right direction. Ultimately, I am beyond saddened that he did not get to continue his evolution. I truly believed we would get an even fuller picture that spanned another three decades. His life has been inspiring and instructive - as witnessed tonight when we played “Crystal Ball’ and my girlfriend could not believe how musically adventurous and scary it was, considering we’d started by dancing to ’Soft and Wet’ two hours earlier. His musical journey opens your ears. I’m gonna make it my mission to share the trajectory of his ouerve with everyone I know, because, while the whole goes not as far as it could have, it is still farther than basically anyone has ever reached.

[Edited 4/22/16 20:45pm]

[Edited 4/22/16 21:01pm]

[Edited 4/22/16 21:37pm]

[Edited 4/22/16 21:44pm]

[Edited 4/22/16 22:16pm]

[Edited 4/22/16 22:19pm]

[Edited 4/22/16 23:23pm]

paraded said:

Like everyone here, I have been struggling to find a way forward, except to reflect on and mourn the life of the greatest popular musician we’ve ever had. Unlike so many others who have been lost, Prince seemed to be neither at the beginning nor toward the end of his career; he was smack in the middle of it. Playing through the nearly four decades of music we have, it hit me: The man started recording music as a teenager, and there is a vast catalog to study, but he was only 57 - he had likely another 20-25 years to contribute musically before his voice would possibly weaken and lose emotional power. Actually, I imagined his older voice in comparison to Dylan’s, and like Dylan how powerful it would have been to witness the gradual surrender of his acrobatic vocals and the reinvention of his singing and playing and themes. But I’ll never know what Prince sounds like as an old man or even a late middle aged man, even though I bet at times it would’ve been quite beautiful to hear. And what’s harder, and what the mainstream media mostly doesn’t understand, is that Prince has continued to evolve and struggle with his identity all these years, way past the mid 90s, when so many wrote him off. Even after his conversion, Prince had continued to reconcile his faith with his classic musical themes. One sensed he was just now coming out of a period where he needed to take an offensive stance against “the old Prince” by defending his new identity, and was beginning to merge the youthful libertine and middle-aged ascetic together. I wasn’t sure he was going to create another great, cohesive work for a while given his recent output, but I was certain he’d reach a point where he once again achieved the balance between all his different sides, only now with the wisdom of added years of life lived. AOA and HitNRun Phase Two, while a little generic for me, were steps in the right direction. Ultimately, I am beyond saddened that he did not get to continue his evolution. I truly believed we would get an even fuller picture that spanned another three decades. His life has been inspiring and instructive - as witnessed tonight when we played “Crystal Ball’ and my girlfriend could not believe how musically adventurous and scary it was, considering we’d started by dancing to ’Soft and Wet’ two hours earlier. His musical journey opens your ears. I’m gonna make it my mission to share the trajectory of his ouerve with everyone I know, because, while the whole goes not as far as it could have, it is still farther than basically anyone has ever reached.

[Edited 4/22/16 20:45pm]

[Edited 4/22/16 21:01pm]

[Edited 4/22/16 21:37pm]

[Edited 4/22/16 21:44pm]

[Edited 4/22/16 22:16pm]

[Edited 4/22/16 22:19pm]

[Edited 4/22/16 23:23pm]

To me the loss of those 20-25 more years of music to come is worse than if nothing from the vault was ever released.

[Edited 4/22/16 23:47pm]