Wow. So Prince died today. My coworkers came into my office and said, “You hear that Prince died? The news reports are kind of hazy.” Totally wasn’t expecting to hear this today.
It’s interesting how we get when artists that are important to us die. There’s this outpouring from us that sometimes we don’t even give to passing family. A popular artist is a public figure — in most cases, you wouldn’t have ever come across them if it weren’t for the very public act of the artist releasing his or her art (or, in this case, music) out into the wild. For some, it’s the live show they put on. For others, the studio work is enough. There is something about the songs that speak to us in a way that those who are close to us don’t, and in a lot of cases this outside view — that may or may not have been birthed from feelings similar to the ones that we ourselves are feeling at that time — helps us put our close-in relationships in a different perspective. This is true whether the music is shallow or deep, based in hardcore reality or in faraway fantasy, escapism or realism.
I’ve always had respect for Prince’s musicianship. He came up with some of the most interesting musical lines and grooves in pop music, and at the same time he always had a lot of the solid bedrock elements of the genre embedded in his music as well. Or, rather, I guess you can say he had a lot of input into what came to be considered the “solid bedrock elements of pop music” in the ’80s.
I imagine that everyone who grew up when I did, whether or not he was one of your favorites, has a favorite Prince song or list of songs. I could never narrow it down (I’m not a “single favorite song” guy — it depends very much on my mindset or mood at the time you ask me), but the Purple Rain album is at the top for me. Prince had plenty of songs not on that album that are as great as any on it, but the collection of songs speaks to me in some way.
I guess it’s natural to get reflective when things like this happen, and it’s always good to review the music that had such an effect on you. I went through the same internal process when Phife Dog died a few weeks back. In time, we may forget when this happened, or exactly how we felt, but we’ll never forget the music Prince left behind — that speaks for itself, quite profoundly.