On April 21, 2016, Prince died at the young age of 57 years old. Since Prince’s recent death last week, SNL has dedicated an hour-long episode to him, Aretha Franklin has released a new cover of “Purple Rain,” and the legendary artist has received recognition from other musicians, including Jim Morrissey, Madonna, and Pearl Jam. Often referred to as the ‘modern day Mozart,’ Prince was not only a huge impact on the music industry, but he was also a fashion icon, a role model for the LGBT community, and a talented actor.
Prince was born in Minneapolis, and he has influenced the world in more ways than anyone could have initially expected. He earned seven grammys and successfully learned to play over twenty instruments during his lifetime. Most significantly, he produced, arranged, composed, and performed his music all on his own most of the time. On his biggest hits album, he sang playfully about sex and seduction. His cunning smile, his flirty music, and his musical intelligence helped him become a generational sex symbol devoted to romance, pleasure, and passion, as opposed to power or masculinity.
Some of his most popular songs include “When Doves Cry,” “Purple Rain,” and “Little Red Corvette.” “When Doves Cry,” a well-regarded pop masterpiece, opens with a messy guitar solo. The solo is not in the same key as the rest of the song, and it is incredibly daring in that no other artist would open a song with it. The character Prince narrates, “Kid,” risks losing his girlfriend, his first music gig on First Avenue in New York, and his band because of his stubborn refusal to do or accept anything that differs from his narrow-minded belief of what is correct. The chorus of the song plays as a frustrating moment of clarity for “Kid” in that it serves as a harsh, tragic realization, ultimately representing an existential crisis for Prince in which he questions if he is actually just like his father. That aspect of the song results from witnessing the attempted suicide of his father.
There is an undeniable power to crafting pop hits so catchy that hundreds spontaneously gather in the streets to sing them in mourning their author. It is also overwhelming to think of a creative mind so rare, an artistry so authentic, that it is difficult to imagine a future in music without it. Searching out hidden treasures may help dull the pain temporarily; however, it never erases the fact that we are no longer graced with the next idea.
In one of my previous posts from last half of the semester, I talked about how African Americans have influenced modern music. The article I read mentioned Prince more than once, but it was not until his death that I realised just how important this music idol was. He was truly a pathfinder for African Americans to enter themselves into the mainstream of American music.
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