Rather you love the man or love the music, How did Prince get invovled with your life and what made you become a fan?
[This message was edited Fri Aug 8 1:15:30 PDT 2003 by DigitalLisa]

DigitalLisa said:

u go first

My older brother just taped PR from a local library Lp and put the tape on. I heard "let's go grazy" and was hooked. I turned up the volume, taped PR myself and fabricated my own cover with a purple pen and an image out of a youth-popmagazine ("joepie" for the belgians here" ). My first beginnings in graphic design at age 12

Been hooked ever since.

I don't really, maybe it was more fate then coindence, all know is when I heard 1999 for the first time in a long time, it was just something inside of me that clicked (can you relate) I already loved music from the start, but when I became a Prince fan it just put the icing on the cake . Princ music was like the last piece of the puzzle and when I finally got it, it all came together as one beautiful picture... sounds kinda corny, but it's the best way I can describe.

And I'm sticking with that answer

DigitalLisa said:

lovely

prince is an experience

either u get him

or u don't

i love his risk taking

on all levels

no one else comes close

Purple Rain did it for this then 13 year old boy. And I remember watching the Syracuse live concert on German television after midnight (time difference) with my parents - and from then on, I guess I was hooked.

Reinforcement came from the great Lovesexy live tour - he just rocked Hamburg

But the hook is slowly fading... I must be getting older...

the lovesexy cover...any doubt?

hazel said:

i'm with u

little red corvette was a catchy tune 4 me as a kid;
little did I know what the song was about back then...

when I was 9 PR made an impression...

then a few years later I heard the BlueAngel guitar at full roar...and I was hooked.

to this day, the BlueAngelGuitar is my fave member of the NPG...

"Lovesexy".

I never been in Prince's music before...
I liked "Alphabet St." on the radio and so I decided to buy the LP.
From the first listen I was hypnotized... what a gorgeous musical experience!
Strongly different from all I've listened before (and honestly also after...)

Radio, Management and Mtv.

Three things that Prince so stubbornly thought he didn't need. Just think of all the people in the world who won't be exposed to any of his "experiences" and will only hear his name when someone remakes one of his old songs.

Since I saw the live broadcast on TV of the Purple Rain Tour in Syracuse.

Also the dancing made a big impression! The way he moves, his sense of rhythm, the combination of male/female things was shocking in the nicest way.
Certainly on the parade tour: the yellow suit.. the black trousers and short hair... very cool!

My sister had been a fan for a year or so, and I started to absorb the music through her.

The songs that really grabbed me were America, Girls & Boys, Paisley Park, Thunder and If I Was Your Girlfriend - specifically those songs really reeled me.

UK tv competition. new year's eve 1983 - had to ring in to choose best performance/ song of the year. A live performance of Prince's 1999 was one of the choices. I watched 3 minutes of it and was simply blown away. Never heard anyone sound like that, look like that or dance like that. 1999 was the first prince album i bought - great times

DJ506 got me hooked...

Seeing Sign 'o' the Times live!!!

HOOOKED!!!

DigitalLisa said:

Little Red Corvette;

"I guess I shoulda known, by the way you parked you car sideways, that it wouldn't last"

My favourite opening line of all time.

all of this.

Shafty said:

Nononono... "Excuse me but I need a mouth like yours, to help forget the girl that just walked out my door"

That says it all...

Nononono... "Excuse me but I need a mouth like yours, to help forget the girl that just walked out my door"

That says it all...[/quote]

Funny u mention those lyrics because that's the song that did it 4 me. "1999" was the first song I heard, but "Let's Pretend We're Married" was the first song I got hooked on.

Soft and Wet. 1978. I was eight or nine when I heard it for the first time. It was so funky. I didn't find out what he was talking about until I was an adult. From then on, I listened to Prince's music kinda casually. I didn't own any of his music personally until 87, so I had to listen to his music at my uncle's place or at friends houses. What got me hook, line and sinker was discussing and listening to the 1999 album with my best friend over the phone. He knew all the words and got me with Lady Cab Driver and Let's Pretend We're Married.

This is a bit of an epic, hope you don't mind!

I was never really into music as a kid, which is kind of ironic considering how obsessed I am with 'music' in general now - always listening to my CDman, going to gigs, composing songs etc. But when I was 17 or 18, my uncle bought me and my bird at the time a pair of tickets to a concert for my birthday. I was quite excited for two reasons - firstly, I was going to London!!

Being brought up in the sticks made London seem like a wonderland Also, the was to be the FIRST EVER EXPERIENCE of a live GIG...let alone a concert. I had never seen a pub band before. Growing up in the stick we used to beat each other round the head with bits of wood for fun I do remember thinking that 'Prince' was a strange 'choice', because I for some reason thought he was too strange...just...too gay

Well, we sat down in the front right corner of Earls Court, right close to the stage as well, and they began to play a video on this massive screen. It was Sexy Mother Fucker. The first time I'd heard this song. I remember blushing in front of my girlfriend!

Now, I say I was never really into music. I mean, I never bought records, I never talked that much about music (compared to these days!). But I do remember watch the first televised screening of Thriller as a 9 year old during the early hours of the morning. I remember watching Live Aid live in TV. I remember watching The Tube (probably the greatest ever music show on TV), and when the word 'fuck' was said for the first time live

And then I remember hearing this song. And the concert hadn't even started! I wont go into detail there because I'll just go on for ever, but I'm sure everyone can relate to their 'first time'!

That day I descovered a few new things about life. Even though I used to like Word Up and Atomic Dog (for some unknown reason), it was that concert that allowed me to define Funk for the first time.
Also, I realised that my chick weren't funky - she was virtually motionless throughout the entire gig, while I descovered the art of dancing like a queen screaming halleluja.

After that gig I didn't go out immediately to check out this mans CD output. I was preoccupied with dumping my chick and going off to uni - i.e. moving away from home, and all the naughtiness that would come after that. But at uni I got to know guitar players and music lovers, I'd learn to play, and be introduced to various fantastic artists...I was becoming a music lover, but all the time I noticed how my CD collection was becoming dissproportionately favoured towards Prince albums - The Hits, DnP, PR... I had about 8 P albums, that was almost 50 percent of my entire collection! Ok, I had Prince posters and NME name-change articles stuck on my door as well... all this was much to the bewilderment of my bisexual house mates, who I had to explain to from the very onset that I weren't gay...I teased them and said I was just fooling myself obviously... Anyway, my friends knew how obsessed I had become, and for my 21st bday, the fuckers decided to complete my P-album collection! That's right, they all got together, went out, searched high and low, and gave me 12 Prince albums! Including the Black Album! I cried like a little girl, I was such a sissy. I would say that bday, together with the concert bday, were the best ever, since actually being born I would guess.

Thanks to those experiences, and the fantastic friends I (still to this day) have from uni, I now have an undescribeable affinity for anything related to music. This is the legacy I have to deal with since becoming TRULY overdosed with Prince. To be faced with 12 new Prince albums in one day. I'd suddenly completed all there was to know about Prince within such a short amount of time, that I needed to explore the outer reaches of the Funkiverse for other forms of life.

Thus now, I have a shit load more CD's, and a mighty mighty Funk collection. Amen Prince!

When I saw his performance in 'Purple Rain'.

When Soft & Wet came out. Then later when I saw him for the first time on American Bandstand, that sealed the deal. I thought what a pretty mf.

1999 in 1982 fan ever since.

after i bought the LP 1999...after that i went and bought everything he had released prior. but it was 1999 that did it 4 me

Alone in the house (the 3 kids at grandma's), back home from a restaurant, drinkin wine and seein' my wife shaking her ass and flashing her thong while "Gett Off" played.

Sorry guys but D+P did it for me!

Although P has been said (by Mick Jagger) to be a musical melting pot, I always thought he was more of a kaleidescope.

Bought the 1999 album after hearing LRC on the radio. Was hooked for life once I heard DMSR.