And the one of the greatest influences on R&B music ever. Up there with James Brown and Ray Charles in my opinion. IN the 80s, there simply wasn't much R&B music that didn't have some Prince in it, in my opinion.
If he had just stopped in 1982 after 1999 he still would be regarded as one of the greats.
But he didn't. He went on. He continued to record great, innovative R&B. As well as rock, pop, psychedelic...
Prince is one of the few artists that I listen to that I find myself scratching my head at how to categorize his music. He can do dance/funk/soul/hard rock and pop in one damn song.
And the output. He just recorded so damn much. How is it even possble that one human being could put out as much as he did? And apparently there are tons of unreleased stuff in the vault. Of course, not everything was BRILLIANT'. His habit of releasing 3 CDs or more a year resulted in a drop of quality in his albums, I think. But none of it is really BAD, either. (Well, maybe Cloreen Bacon Skin should have remained forever buried!)
And its really not just music. His lyrics are way underrated, perhaps because of their humor or their unironic stance. But he honestly never wrote a bad line; at times, his lyrics are so right on they SEEMS trite, until you think about it and realize that he's latched on to something really real and honest.
Everybody goes on about his musical proficiency on many instruments. That's not actually that unusual for a good musician. But the fact that he was fucking hot on them is. He was a virtuoso guitarist. He was a GREAT keyboardist, bassist...The most influential producer of the 80s BY A MILE.
He was an incredibly, mind-meltingly great performer. I have never seen him personally in concert but I have seen clips. He could dance, he could sing, he could play like a virtuoso on a guitar that was literally ejaculating while doing the splits having just leapt from a huge speaker in high heels.
Artists are conduits: they are filters. Conduits from the subconscious mind of myth and imagination; from God; from the beating heart of the universe, fromthe collective unconscious of their audience--whatever you want to believe.
Prince was the PUREST conduit perhaps in the WORLD.
I'm not exaggerating: we are honored to have shared a planet with Prince while he was alive. Because he will be remembered.
His weirdness, his eccentricity, his shitty movies, his personal life, his Jehovah's Witness-ism...None of that will really be remembered. His music, it's incredible range, profundity, smuttiness and class, it's duality on all levels...that's what Prince will be remembered for.
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