I grew up in the '80s as part of the MTV Generation, discovering artists and their songs mainly through the advent of music videos rather than traditional radio airplay. Oh, I was a slave to Top 40 radio, too, religiously taping songs off Casey Kasem's Sunday-morning AT40 shows from age 12-15, but I mainly found and soaked up said artists and their songs through highly stylized three-minute films beaming from my television every afternoon after school.
One of the first videos I can remember seeing was for Prince's "Little Red Corvette" in 1983. A great song wrapped in a pretty low-key performance video (they were all like that in the early days): just a microphone stand, back-up band and a man in a shimmering purple suit. Pretty simple. Except that the man was Prince. He may just have been standing there for three minutes, but he oozed such charisma and style you couldn't take your eyes off of him.
The next year brought the soundtrack to the film Purple Rain. The first single was "When Doves Cry" and both the song and the video just blew my then-13-year-old mind (I still consider it one of the top ten songs of the entire decade). From there came "Let's Go Crazy." I can remember buying that one as a 45 and playing it and the b-side "Erotic City" over and over on my little Emerson turntable with my bedroom door closed so my mom couldn't hear certain lyrics. Ah, good times.
By 1987, I had transitioned from Top 40 to alternative and I can't say I bought any Prince tunes after
that (well, maybe the Batman soundtrack in 1989). But I was always interested in what he was doing. You couldn't be a fan of music and not be interested in what Prince was doing next.
Prince was in a league of his own. A pure genius and a talent unlike any we'll ever see again. I cut my teeth on the music of the '80s. It'll always be a reminder of my youth and basically encapsulates a 30-plus-year passion for sonic creativity. Prince's music will always be a big part of that. Thank you, my friend.
