Prince

Alright, this has to stop. Enough with every great musician dying recently. It's getting ridiculous.

I don't even know where to start with this one. It blindsided me. I knew that Prince had a health scare last week, but I never expected him to frickin' DIE a week later.

Do you remember how, after Bowie died, I wrote about how his Let's Dance album penetrated the hinterlands of rural Michigan? It was exactly the same deal with Prince when 1999 was released, and then the doors blew off their hinges two years later when Purple Rain exploded.

Prince introduced R&B and funk to quite a few small town, Midwestern white kids. And it's safe to say that if you came of age in the 1980s, Prince was a major part of your life's soundtrack.

It was in a van heading home from a high school golf tournament when I first remember hearing about Prince. The year was 1982. I remember that the Brewers were playing the Cardinals in the World Series. Conversation went from the Fall Classic to this weird guy with equally odd name of Prince who sang songs that were, on the whole, decidedly R-rated. I was intrigued...

But it wasn't until I first saw the video for "When Doves Cry" in 1984 that I was completely blown away. "When Doves Cry," with its hypnotic electro-beat, shredding introductory guitar riff, and the Purple One's enigmatic vocals and lyrics, was (and still is) a mesmerizing song. It has to rank as the one of the most daring singles ever released.

It was a full month and change between the release of this incredible single and when Purple Rain was unleashed. If memory serves me, the build-up for this album was intense. By the time it was released and I finally had an opportunity to buy it, I happened to be on a trip to the Twin Cities with my aunt, uncle and cousins. With Prince's international explosion that summer, the excitement in Minneapolis was palpable. You could just feel it in the air. Thrilled beyond belief in a way seldom approached since, I bought my vinyl copy of Purple Rain at a record story in the City Center shopping mall in downtown Minneapolis.

That August of 1984, I went to a two-week summer camp for high school science and art geeks that was held at Michigan State University. One of my best memories are the dances that we had in the McDonel Hall kiva, absolutely losing our minds to the music from Purple Rain in particular. The slow build and anticipation of "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life..." and slow dancing to "Purple Rain" (the title track). Teenage hormones and unbridled lust for life. I can't hear Purple Rain without thinking of that summer camp and and all the joyous experience meeting so many kids of like mind for the first time in my life.

Prince was by my side for the rest of high school. Dirty Mind, Controversy, 1999, Purple Rain, Around the World in a Day, and Parade were in heavy rotation throughout those years. In 1985, I took another trip to Minneapolis to visit my two older cousins Joe and Sue, who were living there. I'll never forget walking around downtown and stumbling in the First Avenue/7th Street Entry, made famous in the movie Purple Rain. My impression was that it was quite a bit shabbier looking in person than it appeared in the movie. (I haven't seen it since '85, so I'm not sure if this is still the case).

By the time I got to university, Prince didn't seem quite as cool anymore--as I got into the "college rock" of R.E.M., Husker Du, The Replacements, U2, etc. Though I liked "Sign O the Times" (1987) and "Alphabet Street" (1988), I didn't bother to buy the records. In the skewed, self-righteous logic of a college kid, I deemed the music of Prince to be "high school music" and blew it off.

It wasn't until the mid to late '90s that I backtracked and rediscovered the music that I missed.

There's no doubt that Prince lost his way a bit musically in the last two decades of his career, and Diamonds and Pearls is about where I stopped with Prince. There's no denying the man was a musical genius, and for many of us his albums and singles constitute a major part of our life's soundtrack.

R.I.P., Prince Rogers Nelson.