Back in 1989, when the rock critic for the local daily mattered, I was tasked with doing a decade roundup for the then-St. Petersburg Times. Artist of the ’80s was the big item, and it boiled down to five: Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, U2, Michael Jackson and Prince.
By now, most of you know whom I chose — resoundingly. It came to light today that Prince has died at age 57. Details are scarce. He reportedly died at his Paisley Park compound in Minnesota.
Prince’s passing joins a recent spate of rock star deaths, but — for me, and a lot of us — this one hits particularly hard. A real shock. The artist — real name Prince Rogers Nelson — did not have a widespread reputation as self-destructive rock-star knucklehead.
TMZ reported that Prince had a medical emergency on April 15 that forced his private jet to make an emergency landing in Illinois. He did, however, appear at a concert the next day and told fans he was OK. Sources told TMZ he was battling the flu. Police are investigating.
I didn’t know Prince, obviously, and never got the chance to interview him, despite repeated (feeble) attempts. He’s in my all-time Top 5.
When details of his death emerge, I don’t know what’ll be worse: that Prince had a secret drug problem like Michael Jackson, or that he simply died from complications of the flu. Maybe it’s neither. Something more … exotic. I hope so.
•••
It’s difficult for a pop star to really matter decade after decade. Prince was no exception. He mattered to his hardcore fans — most of us Boomers — but not much to the musical zeitgeist in the last dozen years or more. And yet his brand appeal persisted. A Prince appearance could still add cachet to an award or talk show. Because of his abject shyness and intermittent reclusiveness, he was still in demand. And, by most accounts, he could still put on a helluva show.
Where Prince showed his most precipitous decline was as a recording artist, and that starts with songwriting. He was simply out of ideas. Which is OK. Songwriting is not an endlessly renewable resource. And given how astonishingly prolific Prince was throughout the 1980s and into the early ’90s, it’s no crime that he dried up. The man tapped his talent hard.
Prince hadn’t really mattered for quite some time. His last better-than-good album was 2004’s Musicology.
Unfortunately, Prince now matters again.
•••
I was not an instant acolyte. I remember Rolling Stone (when it mattered) giving Dirty Mind a 5-star review in 1980. I checked the album out and was intrigued — but not blown away.
About a year later, I was beered up watching Night Flight on USA Network with my future (and still) wife Bonnie, and here comes Prince on stage, dervishing around to a tune from Controversy. He was wearing a long dark coat and flashing bikini underwear. It all became clear: Prince was funky. You couldn’t take your eyes or ears off of him. We became devotees on the spot. That this coincided with the beginning of my career as a rock critic only deepened my fandom.
I played “1999” more times than the number in the title. Purple Rain blew things open even more. This diminutive, enigmatic, racially ambiguous, androgynous genius became one of the biggest stars in the world. Most music heads lament the loss of their favorite artist to superstardom. You’re no longer a member of an exclusive club. Not me — not with Prince. I always figured it was just a matter of time. Besides, I got to the party early.
When I signed on as the Times rock critic in 1987, I was immediately surrounded by a gaggle of Springsteen fanatics. My preference for Prince and, to a lesser extent, Michael Jackson in the pop star pantheon met with considerable derision, although it was (mostly) all in good fun. I put together a little Prince cabal in the newsroom and ultimately got a few of my colleagues from the Bruce camp to accept honorary membership.
You just couldn’t deny an artist who seamlessly straddled R&B and rock, who could wail a wicked guitar solo with as much savvy as executing a triple-spin dance move, who was as at home with harmony-laced power-pop as gutbucket funk. Here was the sublime synthesis of James Brown, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder (all of whom, come to think of it, regularly move in and out of my Top 5).
Then came some slippage. Parade (’86) was a disappointment, but the following year came Sign o’ The Times, a masterpiece. Prince’s last truly great album came in 1991 with Diamonds and Pearls (damn, that’s 25 years ago).
Then the act of self-subterfuge. Prince renounced his name and recast himself as a symbol. I remember thinking, “Oh, man, c’mon,” and feeling it foretold bad things. We took to calling him The Artist Formerly Known as Prince, or TAFKAP — which didn’t quite have the same ring, or brand appeal, as before. He performed on an awards show with “Slave” scrawled across his face — in the middle of an eight-figure record deal with Warner Bros.
He left Warners in 1996, and if he’d done so after the internet age had heated up, he might’ve kept selling records in big numbers. But the music had turned half-baked. Prince — his mega-talent, his career — never really recovered. He even did an instrumental album of “smooth jazz,” the title of which I refuse to remember.
•••
All is forgiven now. My last Prince “moment” came not all that long ago. I had put together an extensive Spotify playlist and wore it out for a week. A couple of months later, I returned to it and all the tunes were grayed out, unplayable. Prince had withdrawn his material from the streaming service. Well, back to the CDs, I mused.
I checked that playlist today. The tunes are no longer grayed out. They’re simply gone.
Appropriate, I guess.
This article appears in Apr 21-28, 2016.