I love how he threw in the Montrose guitar solo from Frankenstein. I am the same age as Prince, and Edgar Winter was my first album purchase. Prince probably heard it for the first time the same time I did. He loved rock n roll and was as pure and daring a rock star as there was.
Singles were still popular in the 80's as there were plenty of one and done artists. It's just that there's little incentive to listen to an entire album if you can just purchase the catchy single. I kind of enjoyed how you would give a record a listen and find songs that I preferred over the singles and being able to play an album from beginning to end and feeling a connection to the state the artist was at when they wrote and recorded that album. Now that's going by the wayside because it's easier just to bypass all the stuff that producers didn't choose to market the latest album. Heck I'm guilty of hitting iTunes now and just grazing on the most popular songs of artist. I do try to go through every song in their album but it's one of those things were a lot of great songs need a few plays to stick and you can't get that by listening to a 30 second clip.
Artists like Prince took advantage the single, I think he only has one top 100 all time selling albums(purple rain) and it sold under 20m copies yet when you add all his albums up it's over 100 million. 70's/early 80's owned album sales, back then musicians wanted at least 3 mega hits per and some just went crazy.
Top 5 all time:
1) Michael Jackson (Thriller-1982) 6 top 10 singles, -68 million copies
2) AC/DC (Back in Black-1980) 4 top 10 singles, -50 million copies
3) Pink Floyd (Dark Side of the Moon-1973) 3 top 10 singles, -45 million copies
4) Whitney Houston (The Bodyguard-1992) 4 top 10 singles, -44 million copies (bucked the trend)
5) Meat Loaf (Bat out of hell-1977) 4 top 10 singles, -42 million (personal fav)
After these you had top selling albums from the Eagles,Fleetwood Mac, Bee Gee's..etc. all in that 70's/early 80's period.
Prince was dope because he was not only one of the greatest guitarists ever, he was an unreal singer. Sang better than any other guitar great and played better than any other singing great.
Eddie Van Halen had David Lee Roth, Brian May had Freddie Mercury, etc. Prince had Prince.
As an 80s baby, it's weird to see so many of my contemporaries (and people much younger than me) so interested in/affected by Prince and his passing.
He was a total non-entity to me growing up. Now that every station is playing his songs on repeat I recognize about half of them, but until now couldn't have named the artist behind them.
Strange to have missed out on someone who was clearly a cultural phenomenon.
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Been listening to the Stingray Music Remember the 80s channel right now. Lots of Prince music, usually a doubleshot. Just heard Prince and the Revoultion Anotherloverholennyohead and I could never take the place of your man. Sad news, great music.
I also find it interesting how the music sales of a recently deceased performer really increase. It is almost like people forget about the artist until they read they have died.
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Prince was dope because he was not only one of the greatest guitarists ever, he was an unreal singer. Sang better than any other guitar great and played better than any other singing great.
Eddie Van Halen had David Lee Roth, Brian May had Freddie Mercury, etc. Prince had Prince.
Plus, he was just the coolest dude.
This is one of his five #1 songs:
I'd say Jimi Hendrix, James Hetfield and Billie Jo rivaled his abilities. You are correct though, guitar/singer is a very rare breed. Freddie Mercury had Freddie Mercury, he could've done a concert with just his voice.
Shout out to amazing Canadian guitarist Donna Grantis (Prince's amazing female guitarist with the half-buzzed hair cut in this video) who gives Prince a run of his money on the guitar solos to his own songs. Prince was doing a lot of her, I hope that she and her band, Third Eye Girl can continue to do well without that help.
As an 80s baby, it's weird to see so many of my contemporaries (and people much younger than me) so interested in/affected by Prince and his passing.
He was a total non-entity to me growing up. Now that every station is playing his songs on repeat I recognize about half of them, but until now couldn't have named the artist behind them.
Strange to have missed out on someone who was clearly a cultural phenomenon.
He wrote a lot of number 1 hits for other artists as well like Manic Mondays (Bangles), I Feel For You (Chakha Khan), and Nothing Compares 2 U (Sinead O'Connor).