knows how close this is to me. It still hasn’t even hit me yet, so I’m gonna gonna let it rip and send it off into the wind before it all sinks in...
There are many one-named artists, from past and present, but how many artists who upon the mentioning of his name supplants the very meaning of the word itself? Michael could be identified through varying silhouetted poses; Prince by a color. How many artists can name themselves after an unpronounceable symbol? Prince has. And he did just fine, considering; still had hits that you could count on at least two full hands. How many artists could don a leopard print thong, high heels and a perm and still look better than the girl you brought with you to see him perform? And then leave with said girl? Lemme stop. Y’all don’t hear me.
I’m a huge Michael Jackson fan, as well as a huge a Prince fan. Growing up in the late 80s, that’s pretty much all there was; a rivalry between two transcendent, visionary artists. Of course, you had Bobby Brown and George Michael heating up the newly-emancipated solo artist scene. You had Terrence Tre-... I’m sorry, Sananda Maitreya, who took his two mentors’ idiosyncratic styles and fused them into his own. And then you had Stevie Wonder who was off somewhere in the periphery, making great music but not receiving any credit for it. In any case, the decade characterized by big hair and even flashier wardrobes was dominated by these two timeless music juggernauts whose lack of existence would have rendered the world (both musical and personal) a much different place than it is today.
Going back to Prince’s immediately recognizability as a public figure, he was also immediately recognizable musically. From rock to R&B to pop to jazz, from the first few opening notes, you knew it was Prince. It was as unmistakable as it was awesome; from the most cartoonish to most serious of songs. Again, the only other person to successfully accomplish this feat of eclecticism to great degree is the late, great Michael Jackson. Now, to break down Prince musically would take an eternity and a half, but the crux of what he did is that he broke down barriers. Hailing from the African-American community, he showed us that anyone from any background can accomplish anything musically; we don’t just listen to and make R&B. We can throw up our devil signs and rock and roll too. Hell, we created rock and roll. Why not go out on stage and own it too?
Can you imagine if Prince had designed to be a bricklayer instead of a musician? We wouldn’t have Lenny Kravitz, Justin Timberlake, Miguel, Trey Songz and a host of other artists who can only emulate but ever duplicate the greatness that was the Purple One. I, myself, have composed several interpretations of “The Beautiful Ones” and “Purple Rain” within the context of my own music, but what made those songs so special and unique to Prince will always elude me because how can one be completely original after all of that? It’s almost impossible. It’s in our DNA to dress, sing, dance and compose like Prince, but with the benchmark set so high, the world will never see an artist of this caliber again; at least not anytime soon.
One has to note, however, that the fact that Prince made great music is not the only contributor to his massive success. He was also a style maven and chameleon. The true benchmark of being a mega-successful musician is to be able to see the ripples of not only your sonic influence on the world, but also your visual influence. Michael had this in spades, but Prince was the flip side of the coin. He embraced his androgynous characters and reveled in them; flying in the face of all rules of fashion conventionality. Prince had the strut and flair of a pimp, the confidence of a tightrope walker and the hair of a white woman in an Herbal Essences commercial. You weren’t touching this guy when it comes to letting your freak flag fly. Not to mention the fact that if he had half the mind, he could cut a rug and maneuver a James Brown-style splits if he so felt like it, all the while wearing high heels doing it.
In addition to all of the aforementioned, boy, was Prince prolific. There are other artists in pop music history who had historic runs where they dropped album after album, one after another. The most immediate example that springs to mind is Stevie Wonder. Others would include Earth, Wind & Fire and Steely Dan. The difference between Prince and these other gigantic artists is that Prince had never gone any longer than four years between albums (four years is actually an anomaly if you look at his discography) Take into consideration that the average artist from the 80s and 90s took at least two to three years to release another album. Nowadays, and not to be hyperbolic, it’s generally 6 or 7 if you’re an artist who makes quality music. From 1978-1992, Prince had only gone one year without releasing an album, and that was 1983; one year before his landmark movie and accompanying soundtrack, Purple Rain, had took the world by storm, resulting in both Grammy and Oscar grabs. Rare for an artist who had only been out for 6 years with very modest success up until that point in time.
The hardest thing to reconcile with Prince’s death is the fact that there is also a treasure trove of Prince songs that we haven’t heard yet and will probably never hear. Can you remember the excitement you had whenever Prince released a new album? Who can fathom the grim reality that we’ll never get another Prince album for the next half of our lives? Just watching the news that immediately covered news of his death, it was said that Prince makes a song a day. Now, this is not unusual or unheard of when you’re that talented, but it takes your average rock band at least a week to complete a finished song. Prince could bang one out in a couple hours and it would actually be a quality song. The only other living artist I can think of who can accomplish that is producer/singer/rapper Pharrell Williams, but again, he’s used Prince’s discography as a springboard for his own musical ambitions and idiosyncrasies. Justin Timberlake just tweeted shortly after Prince’s death that his presence lurks somewhere in just about every song he’s written. So, what I’m trying to illuminate here is that the influence always circles back around to Prince.
So what do we do? What do we say? Do we just listen to “Raspberry Beret” on repeat, numbing ourselves to the fact that we just lost one of the last Mohicans in a vanguard of artists who can play 20 instruments and hop from one genre to another within the blink of an eye? Do we pour out some Old English for our fallen comrade who we’ve never met? Write a eulogy masquerading as an essay? Wear purple to communicate to folks our condolences without having to utter a single word (true story that happened to me at work)? However you’re grieving, you have every right to do it and for however long. Prince was a personal artist; his proximity to you may not be the same as his to me. The beautiful thing about this is that no two people are grieving the same. What is personal to you is something that no one can take away from you. In a world full of evil and uncertainty, who are we to tell each other how to mourn the loss of anyone? If anything, the loss of all of these giants in music only smack of our mortality and that we need to cherish people while they’re still alive.
With that being said, enjoy the music and God bless.
jacobvanloon
