The name change is a clear winner I should think. Just think about hearing the announcement without any of the context or explanations. What was our initial reaction?

Playing for Abramovich.

Wearing the same green turtleneck/ green pants/ white emancipation jacket on the Rosie Show, Muppets Show, philly, Boston, DC shows, chris rock interview & who knows where else he wore it? maybe ALL the Emancipation Celebration shows??....Thats a ongoing WTF moment...oh forgot worn again on the betcha by golly wow video filling up the ol' gas tank.....maybe that collection wins the award for the outfit worn most often???

Just gotta love all the " he never wore the same outfit twice" comments.

jimmy3121 said:

Wearing the same green turtleneck/ green pants/ white emancipation jacket on the Rosie Show, Muppets Show, philly, Boston, DC shows, chris rock interview & who knows where else he wore it? maybe ALL the Emancipation Celebration shows??....Thats a ongoing WTF moment...oh forgot worn again on the betcha by golly wow video filling up the ol' gas tank.....maybe that collection wins the award for the outfit worn most often???

Just gotta love all the " he never wore the same outfit twice" comments.

He also wore it on the dual-disk release of "The Holy River". And yeah, that "same outfit twice" thing is bullshit, because the PR tour and the Hit N Run Tour definitely had the same outfits over and over. The first 3 or 4 songs of the Parade tour were just him in pants, then he put on a suit for a while. He sometimes wore a polka dot vest that was recycled for the SOTT & Lovesexy tour (remember there was a lot of polka dot early on w/ SOTT). There was also that lacy halter top/sports bra thing he wore from 1988-1990-ish. In the Slave years of the mid-90s, he was wearing a lot of the same stuff.

jimmy3121 said:

Wearing the same green turtleneck/ green pants/ white emancipation jacket on the Rosie Show, Muppets Show, philly, Boston, DC shows, chris rock interview & who knows where else he wore it? maybe ALL the Emancipation Celebration shows??....Thats a ongoing WTF moment...oh forgot worn again on the betcha by golly wow video filling up the ol' gas tank.....maybe that collection wins the award for the outfit worn most often???

.

Or maybe your memories are hazy. He's not wearing the green turtleneck in the BBGW video, he didn't wear it on the Rosie Show and I can't be bothered to look up the others you mentioned.

TheEnglishGent said:

The name change is a clear winner I should think. Just think about hearing the announcement without any of the context or explanations. What was our initial reaction?

I agree. When he passed away and it was explained why he did it, a lot of my friends and family said they never knew that he actually had a method to his madness. Everything started to make sense as to why he did the things he did. He wasn't that "weird" guy they always thought he was, he was just creative and bold, and had a I don't give a F what you think attitude.

MiceElfAgin said:

jimmy3121 said:

Wearing the same green turtleneck/ green pants/ white emancipation jacket on the Rosie Show, Muppets Show, philly, Boston, DC shows, chris rock interview & who knows where else he wore it? maybe ALL the Emancipation Celebration shows??....Thats a ongoing WTF moment...oh forgot worn again on the betcha by golly wow video filling up the ol' gas tank.....maybe that collection wins the award for the outfit worn most often???

.

Or maybe your memories are hazy. He's not wearing the green turtleneck in the BBGW video, he didn't wear it on the Rosie Show and I can't be bothered to look up the others you mentioned.

That's true. He wore black on Rosie. He did wear the Brrr jacket a lot, with a simple turtleneck & pants under it. That silhouette was familiar, but the clothes themselves were different. He did have the green for the Chris Rock interview. He had the Brrr on for Muppets, but he had a red turtleneck with an M sweater on under it at the beginning. He did wear the green for "Starfish and Coffee" (no Brrr) in parts, but had plenty of others throughout the rest of the show.

The biggest WTF moment is, hands down, the name change. We're used to it, we can see his logic in it, but if someone came into Prince's music, and started to go through his career, that'd be a "What the fuck?!" moment in 1993-2000. Double down on Rave Un2 since it was a album but produced by Prince.

For fans-come-latelys, ATWIAD is probably a WTF moment, because they were most likely expecting another Purple Rain (and it is in a lot of ways, just not how they expected).

From the management side, not touring the US for SOTT, "When Doves Cry" and "Kiss" as lead singles (thin, no bass, etc arguments).

The Rainbow Children was a WTF moment.

There are other big or defining moments in his career, but a WTF moment is a real big shocker and game changer. For me, the above are those moments.

Back in 1986 while filming UTCM, Prince told a french magazine that purple was no longer his favorite color. He said it would be BANANA YELLOW. Nobody paid him any attention.

[Edited 4/25/17 10:23am]

RJOrion said:

Wlcm2thdwn3 said:

Back in 1986 while filming UTCM, Prince told a french magazine that purple was no longer his favorite color. He said it would be BANANA YELLOW. Nobody paid him any attention.

It was 1985 when he filmed UTCM, btw.

But the banana comment is interesting because he did wear a lot of yellow in that time. Then fast forward to 1991, and he mentioned "Chiquita yellow" in the "Gett Off" remixes, and it's a prominent color for a couple of years.

I remember when I first saw him with the huge fro on SNL back in 2014 (I hadn't been paying attention enough to him during that time to know he'd been growing it out since 2012), it caught me off-guard.

That said, the Love Symbol period is the one that will go down as the most baffling moment to those not well versed as to why he did it.

fourletterwords said:

Digging a bit deeper One can also make a case for: the "about-face" he made with regard to the merits of hip hop between 1987-1991, and the subsequent sort of disavowal in the early 2000s. I remember the We Are the World refusal to be a pretty huge WTF from the media perspective Returning to extreme androgyny in the Gold era after normalizing his image greatly in the late 80s-D&P... odd that he was most androgynous as a "married man"... Literally doing every interview for several years with Larry G by his side almost answering questions in his stead (the Larry King interview comes to MInd) Extremely tense appearance on TRL in 99 when he was trying to "promote" Rave... have not seen him quite as abrasive/passive aggressive as that Whispering his Answers to Mayte with the veiled face in British TV The extreme right turn in '04 becoming Mr Showbiz to promote Musicology (Leno appearance with Mel Gibson)... the only time in his career he appeared unauthentic to me... [Edited 4/25/17 10:24am]

Normalizing his image in the late 80's?

paulludvig said:

The name change is the hands-down winner.

Everything he did was a WTF moment. It's what made him such an interesting artist.

NorthC said:

His entire carreer was one big "wtf" moment.

kingricefan said:

Everything he did was a WTF moment. It's what made him such an interesting artist.

Yup. And I enjoyed every bit of it...except the final WTF of 4/21.

paulludvig said:

Normalizing his image in the late 80's?

And let's not forget:

Thank God that never became normalized. HAHAHAHA

fourletterwords said:

Whispering his Answers to Mayte with the veiled face in British TV.

Yes, I remember that one. It was one of those abrasive, irreverent youth programs that were everywhere in the 90s. When they cut back to the main studio one of the female presenters was wearing a bucket over her head with the word “twat” (or “prat”) scrawled across it, slave style . My friends gave me no end of grief at school the following day.

LBrent said:

soladeo1 said:

RJOrion said:

#1...having Big Chick carry him onstage either high, drunk, or scared (pick one, or all), at the James Brown show and fucking up left and right, finally tearing down stage props on his way out...right in front of his career rival.. #2...Gameboys simulating dry-humping P underneath and between their legs on national TV #3...the day he died

LOL!!!!! The Big Chick Entrance, LOL!!! What was he thinking??? I bet he went home after that an bit his big purple pillow he was so mad.

I love the Big Chick entrance! It’s the kind of surreal, odd-ball behaviour that first attracted me to Prince. I think that I like the “exit” even more. It’s a shame that he froze on stage though, he could have brought the house down. At the very least, he introduced some danger and unpredictability to proceedings.

[Edited 4/25/17 14:22pm]

Welton producing the HIT N RUN PHASE I album (and it's direction...although not all bad)

"PURPLE AND GOLD" - MINNESOTA VIKINGS "cheer song".... THAT takes the goddamn cake!....and your wife, and your car!....

fourletterwords said:

Digging a bit deeper One can also make a case for: the "about-face" he made with regard to the merits of hip hop between 1987-1991, and the subsequent sort of disavowal in the early 2000s. I remember the We Are the World refusal to be a pretty huge WTF from the media perspective Returning to extreme androgyny in the Gold era after normalizing his image greatly in the late 80s-D&P... odd that he was most androgynous as a "married man"... Literally doing every interview for several years with Larry G by his side almost answering questions in his stead (the Larry King interview comes to MInd) Extremely tense appearance on TRL in 99 when he was trying to "promote" Rave... have not seen him quite as abrasive/passive aggressive as that Whispering his Answers to Mayte with the veiled face in British TV The extreme right turn in '04 becoming Mr Showbiz to promote Musicology (Leno appearance with Mel Gibson)... the only time in his career he appeared unauthentic to me... [Edited 4/25/17 10:24am]

Now that was annoying...

His "bare" buttocks on the live show must have been quite a WTF moment for some viewers. lol

MMJas said:

His "bare" buttocks on the live show must have been quite a WTF moment for some viewers. lol

Except they weren't bare at all. The designer recently stated how it was flesh colored translucent fabric that covered his butt. People thought they saw his ass, but they didn't.

And where are those pants on display at Paisley?! Where is the damn Diamonds and Pearls room?! LOL Pulll them muthuafukkas out.

By the way, y'all think he farted when he was on MTV and turned around like that? Like, I wonder if he had some beans & rice before hand, with a nice spinach salad, and got all robust and gassy, then just cracked one off during "Gett Off".