Prince

About Prince

The sharp dressed musical genius Prince Rogers Nelson, best known as Prince, has made ladies swoon and fans scream with his deliberately provocative bedroom ballads and freaky-funky dance singles. Prince is an acknowledged musical prodigy-he can play piano, saxophone, guitar, bass and just about anything else he picks up-and he's never met a genre he doesn't like. Prince got his start with classic R&B/funk jams but has since dabbled in New Wave, disco, jazz, rock, blues and hip hop. The visionary Prince first caught attention with his synthesized take on funk, using taut industrial drum machine tracks and stabbing synthesizers where listeners might expect a full brass horn section. Prince is also a self-described workaholic, having allegedly recorded over 1,000 songs and he's famous among fans for his sprawling two and three disc album releases. He also has a reputation as a bit of a perfectionist and insists on controlling every element in the studio while he's recording. Prince began gaining momentum with his breakthrough singles "Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?" and "Sexy Dancer" off his self-titled 1979 album. He found his sound with 1982's 1999 and his classic singles "1999," "Let's Pretend We're Married" and "Little Red Corvette." He achieved icon status with his classic 1984 album/move Purple Rain-singles included "When Doves Cry" and "Lets Go Crazy" and Prince won an Academy Award for the title track "Purple Rain." It was at this period that Prince began drifting into his own world, mixing spirituality and sexuality, and released his 2-disc freak epic Sign of the Times. The disc was weird and wonderful and Prince fans have been guessing his next move ever since.