Legend.
Prince wasn’t just a legend because he made great hits; he crossed barriers in the music industry that paved way for other artists to be more creative and original.
Prince made being different okay, he made being unique something artists now crave to be. He didn’t define his music in one genre, he often combined genres of music. He created a new sound and people all over the world fell in love with his inventiveness.
Artists look up to him like his fans do and many have tried to emulate his iconic style and sound.
Prince Rogers Nelson.
Prince, a household pop icon and one of the biggest artists in history, hailed from a musical family with both parents in the music industry. His father was a pianist and songwriter, and Prince’s mother was a jazz singer. He was born in Minneapolis on June 7th, 1958 and passed today (April 21st).
After cracking through in the 70s, Prince became known for melding pop, funk, R&B, rock, funk and other styles, with raunchy lyrics and ribald showmanship signature elements of his style.
Music Career & Success.
Like most musical legends, Prince started at a very young age. He developed an early interest in music, writing his first song called ‘Funk Machine’ on his father’s piano at age 7. Before recording his first debut album, he made music with his cousin’s band ’94 East,’ writing the songs for the band and playing guitar.
In 1976, at age 17, he made a demo tape with Chris Moon, who took the tape to a Minneapolis businessman named Husney. Husney then signed Prince, which led to a now-famous recording contract with Warner Bros. Records.
He then moved to Los Angeles and recorded his first debut album, titled For You in 1978. But it was Prince’s second album, Prince, that hit it big, going platinum in 1979. The two main songs that drove that album’s success were ‘Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?’ and ‘I Wanna Be Your Lover’.
Prince: one of the best-selling artists of all-time.
In 1984, the now-sensation gained major success with song ‘Purple Rain,’ which sold more than 13 million copies in the US and spent 24 consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. ‘Purple Rain’ also served as the soundtrack to his movie, which was titled the same as the song. Other songs from the film such as ‘When Doves Cry,’ also gained massive success, reaching number 1 worldwide.
It was in 1984 that he also became the second artist (after the Beatles) to have a number one album, movie and song in the USA all at the same time. A year later, he released an album called Around The World In a Day, and the year after he released another album titled Parade. Both were very successful.
In 1987, Prince de-banded from his band The Revolution and went on to release his first solo album, titled Sign o’ The Times. This album was followed by several other successful releases. In 1993, he changed his name to an unpronounced love symbol, but as people still widely referred to him as Prince, he later changed his name back in 2000 (with ‘The Artist Formerly Known as Prince’ stuck in between for kicks).
Since that point, he’s released a further 15 albums, part of a prolific creative life. Throughout his long-standing career in the music industry, Prince sold over 100 million records worldwide.
(Image by Peter Tea, Creative Commons, Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic, cc by-nd 2.0)