I saw a signature from one of my favorite orgers that indicated that Prince fans only knew about Prince music. He was dead wrong, but it caused me to think about probably the main reason I appreciate Prince now. It's not just that he's the greatest artist of his era. It's that by learning to love his music, I learned to love all music.

I became a Prince fan when I heard and saw Purple Rain the first time. I became a Prince fan for life after Around The World In A Day. I grew up listening to Motown, Stax, disco, funk and pop music, and at the time I became a Prince fan, I was into hip-hop, The Police and radio pop music. But over the next few years, I soaked up everything Prince did before and after Purple Rain.

As the years progressed, and my fascination with Prince's new music began to wane, I became curious about Prince's influences. So I checked out Jimi Hendrix and re-examined Stevie Wonder, Sly Stone, Curtis Mayfield, Joni Mitchell and Al Green. and discovered that, like Prince, their legacy went far beyond a few popular singles. I began to hear the "influences," and learned to appreciate the uniqueness of their own sounds. Of course, in my teens, the world revolved around Prince, but I discovered otherwise as I got older.

When my grandfather introduced me to jazz, it took me years to "get" it, but when I did, it became my favorite form of music. It was Prince's complex and experimental styles of pop, funk and rock that "prepared" my ears to be more receptive of the jazz sound.

Now, my musical tastes are all over the place. I like a lot of old and new stuff, and am getting around to a lot of other music I missed. But I attribute my wide-ranging taste in music to Prince. That's why he will always be my favorite artist.

I realize this is a long thread, but how often do we actually say nice things about the man these days?

Namepeace, I am so in awe of you! You have no idea. At at time when I should have been playing with dolls and doing dress up, I was diggin' in the crates with my uncles who listened to a broad variety of artists, including Prince. I was immersed in Prince's influences and didn't even know it: JB, Sly, etc. I have definately gained a broader appreciation for those artists as a result of Prince and I am eternally grateful. I remember reading on the NPGMC boards about Donnie. I slept on him til Groovement brought him up one day. Now that is one of my favorite albums. I guess I should have been listening when Prince brought him up because I would have been happier sooner.

There is something to be said for Prince music "preparing" our ears for other music. Prince's amazing style and all over the map music making helped me to be open to different artists. I grew up one one side of the family listening to Funk/R&B/Old School/Disco and the other listening to 60s & 70s classic rock/Bluegrass/country. Prince's ability to switch from one sound to another, album after album really did help me accept different musical experiences.

I shudder to think what my life would have turned out to be without Prince, his music and the way in which it opened my mind.

namepeace said:

One good thing I've learned about Prince fans; you cannot accurately generalize them from Prince.org alone. The ones I've known personally are different from the ones here, at least how many here project themselves.

But about the main subject of the thread... I can't say that Prince made me love all music. I was listening to a very wide variety of music years before Prince's first album was released. For me his work, skill, and defiant vision just made the music world a much, much better place. It would have been worse off without him, because he represented so much of what I knew I loved, but never heard embodied in one person.

I'm wondering about something.....

A lot of Prince fans jumped ship when ATWIAD was released. Many people didn't feel that album and I never even once thought about how non Purple Rain like the album was. I just went for the ride and loved every second of it. Do you think that Prince fans who didn't accept the different sound of ATWIAD are also not accepting of various musical styles in general? It would be interesting to find out if there was a correlation between the two.

.
[This message was edited Mon Mar 15 11:22:29 2004 by SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy]

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

I get the feeling that those were the bandwagon(shallow) fans. I never once compared PR with ATWIAD, either.

Supernova said:

Okay. But a cursory search of the "Non-Prince Music" forum is proof that many if not most orgers have a vast array of musical tastes.

The difference I think, may be not only personal, but generational. I was in my early teens when Purple Rain first came out, and I enjoyed a lot of music before that, but Prince's music was a good foundation for me to appreciate the complexity and artistry of other musicians and forms of music later on, both of artists I knew and artists I didn't. I was a little kid when Prince's first LP came out. I listen to music differently in large part because I am a Prince fan.
[This message was edited Mon Mar 15 12:50:36 2004 by namepeace]

me, i was already into music and appreciated it waaaaay before i got into p....mostly thanx to the college radio station and the lone black radio station in my hometown.

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

Which begs the ?: When did you first "get into" Prince?

namepeace said:

As was I.


As was I.

I was a child of the '70s, and a teen of the '80s, but I acknowledge that I'm an anomaly among many Prince fans, because in general I don't regard the '80s as the be all end all of musical decades. Although I'm not saying you do. Stevie Wonder was the first (but not only)artist I remember being cognizant of the "WOW, this is where music can take you!" reaction. It's not that Prince never did that for me, quite the contrary. But my musical expectations developed before he was around because of my unconventional listening habits. And he was the one person that embodied what came to be my expectations. I think it all depends on the disparate influences you're exposed to at your formative stages.

namepeace said:

back when i was about 15--found my sister's copy of dirty mind when i was over at her house and listenin to some of her albums....listened to it outta curiosity, and love-ded it.

Supernova said:[quote]

namepeace said:

I think our experiences are a lot alike and a little different. I loved all the music I listened to in the 70's and I listened to so many different kinds of music, as I am sure you did: from Parliament to The Young Rascals, from Isaac Hayes to KISS, from KC and the Sunshine Band to Stevie Wonder, etc. etc. but as a kid in the 70's, I had a lot of stuff I developed an attachment to, but I never had one artist that was "my" artist.

In my preteens and early teens, I had a fixation on The Police and rap. But when 1984 came around, and Purple Rain dropped, I had your "Stevie" experience, albeit at a presumably later age. I was completely enthralled by the LP and I hung on everything Prince did thereafter for the the next 4 years.

namepeace said:

You know, the funny thing about the PR album...I was sort of perplexed by it when I first listened to it. When "Doves" was released prior to the album I didn't know what to think of it, it was so left field, and didn't sound like anything I'd heard before. It's not that I disliked it, but it's not that I loved it either (till some weeks later), but I couldn't stop listening to it to try and figure out why it sounded so odd. It grew on me, and eventually the PR album grew on me.

What I did figure out is that freshness and/or innovation might not always grab you immediately simply because it's not comfortable until we're used to it. Nowadays I think most true Prince fans are too familiar with it, and because of that some of us tend to dismiss it. Familiarity sometimes does breed contempt.

I had followed Prince's career since his debut, and he always held my attention in terms of what he would come up with next because he was so different than everybody else. But I think the first album that cemented my "for life" interest was the 1999 album. Since then there have been some years in the 90s that my interest waned (along with his, it seems), definitely. But for me he has a habit of redeeming himself.

Supernova and namepeace

Supernova said:[quote]

namepeace said:

Wanker.

You're going for the "Quotable Member" section, aren't you!?

Abba, Boney M. and Kiss made me a music lover all the way back in the mid-seventies when I was about seven years old. I discovered Prince much later, when I was a teen.

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

That is so hot that you checked out Dirty Mind out of curiosity! Hell who wouldn't be
curious as to what tunes lie beneath that sexy little imp posing in front of a stripped down matress?

bkw said:

Kirby!

2the9s said:

Supernova said:

I can dig it. Great posts.

bkw said:



Thanks!

I guess that's what Prince did for me too. I remember hearing When Doves Cry on the radio and it hit me bigtime, what a cool track! From that moment on I was a fan and I have followed his carreer al the way through, although he lost me a bit in the early 90's until 2000. I was too busy hitting the dance scene at that time...

A few years after Purple Rain I started to check out some of Prince's influences. I started out with Parliament/ Funkadelic, James Brown and Jimi Hendrix and became big fans of these artists as well. Later I got into Stevie Wonder and Sly and all the other funk bands like The Ohio Players, Slave etc. So yeah, Prince's influences basically have become my favorite artists!

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

Co-Sign.....

I heard my first Prince song in 1983, I was 6 years old. The influence of my older siblings played a big part because my older brother & cousins loved P's music so it was always broadcasted somewhere during my childhood.

scififilmnerd said:

You're the only person I've ever seen mention Boney M. I loved them!

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

oddly enough, my sister must've lost the cassette case cuz she just had the tape...i didn't see the album cover till a few months later.

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

LOL

Nothinbutjoy said:

They were good, weren't they?

I love their first three albums in particular, Take The Heat Off Me, Love For Sale and Nightflight To Venus. Those were very, very good.

It got a little too disco for me on Oceans Of Fantasy, though. Just like Abba got a little too disco for me on Voulez-Vous. Coincidentally, both of those were released in 1979. Coincidence or a sign of the times?

PanthaGirl said:

Yeah. My sister was six in '84 when I had Purple Rain in "heavy ro." Prince hadn't even recorded anything when I was six. The first time I heard him, I was 8 years old. I heard "I Wanna Be Your Lover" on the radio and for years I thought it was The Emotions!

namepeace said:

Prince was my introduction to music itself. He was one of the first people that I had listened to as a baby. There was also the contemporaries like Michael, Madonna, The Boss, Duran, Cyndi, etc. But Prince was probably the first that I really got into. I was in my huggies dancing around to 1999 and Little Red Corevette along with my Mother. She played a big part in my intorduction of Prince too. She always had his music playing around the house and I couldn't help but love it. Even then I knew that his music was something special. It had meaning, it had feeling, it had something important. Sure, it was pop music, but it was more than just typical run-of-the-mill pop music. This was the real deal, and that was something that my Mother showed me at a very early age. It was then I had learned that this musician I had found out about would be someone very special and every great. I am very glad to be a Prince fan. Prince is music!




































You can quote me on that one too, mods.

PanthaGirl said:

I love the li' fella, with his bikini-draws and buttless-pants wearin', eyeliner-applyin', butt-nekkid-on-a-flower and/or unicorn-for-an-album cover-posin' self.

As Eric Leeds once said in Down Beat, beneath the veneer lies a great musician.

I have Been into music since i can remember...i grew up with older cousins cummin in the 80's with Prince everywhere...so i sorta grew up with that music, alongside Techno and the early trance movement. I think that I appreciated his music cos its from the heart...not commercial...and because He makes u Feel wat his feeling (which funnily sumtimes is exatcly what your feeling!!) but the best thing is it is because of him that i met my beautiful Christina, @ the concert in melbourne!! (awww how sweet) so thanks 2 him 4 giving us a songs 2 make love 2, 2 listen 2 wen were 2getha, and the chance 2 have crossed paths. =)~ jb