Prince

Prince Rogers Nelson was born in Minneapolis in 1958 to a black father and white mother. The boy was deeply interested in music, both writing and performing. That was why the whole material of his debut solo album was written, arranged, produced and performed by Prince himself. He felt free to transform the classic R&B sound adding widely synthesizer and simplifying the structures of the songs. Experts noticed this revolutionary approach after the release of the singer’s second album, Prince, in 1979. Although Prince raised some interest among critics, he failed to reach a wide audience with his first two albums. He succeeded after producing Dirty Mind in 1980. The singer was again the only author of all the songs and aroused attention to his figure predominantly with his audacious lyrics. The indecent texts were supported by an extravagant image he made up. It included high heeled shoes to make up for his height and elements of female clothing raising suspicions about his sexuality. By that time, Prince had already revealed his ability to mix the genres packing his albums with soul ballads and catchy rock tunes at once.

In 1981, Prince formed The Time band to back him up during the concerts. 1982 became the year of a big breakthrough to the large audiences abroad. This was achieved after releasing a monster hit, the album 1999. The record was a sensational bestseller with three million copies distributed. However, it was just preparation before the delivery of the most prominent work by Prince in his career. Purple Rain was released in 1984 along with the same titled movie. In the States alone it sold ten million CDs and remained on the top for 24 weeks. The success could be explained by the simple fact that it was the most pop-oriented record that Prince ever made. The Time was renamed to The Revolution and helped him significantly to produce this long player. As a world new superstar, Prince understood that he had no risk making experiments because the public was ready to buy anything he would offer. The rest of the eighties were the period of playing with the psychedelic music featured on the albums Around the World in a Day (1985) and Parade (1986). After the commercial disaster of Lovesexy in 1988, Prince returned to the charts top with the soundtrack to Batman in 1989.

Prince entered the nineties with the new band and image. He formed The New Power Generation, the strongest group he ever had to produce a powerful album called Diamonds and Pearls in 1991. In 1993 he released another album titled as a symbol. Later, Prince went through a legal procedure to change his name into this symbol. The public was evidently not ready and glad to see the artist transformed. It resulted in catastrophic commercial failures of his records. This was accompanied a big process between Prince and his label Warner Brothers. Bound by the contract, he was obliged to release two more albums with Warner. These were The Gold Experience (1995) and Chaos & Disorder (1996). After the cooperation with Warner, Prince released three CDs with songs written long ago and covers. They included only one big hit, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World. In the new century, Prince has not repeated his earlier success. Nevertheless, his 2004 album Musicology became a big event in the USA and had huge sales. In 2005, Prince was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. With his most glorious years far behind, he remains one of the biggest figures in R&B and a trademark guaranteeing perfect quality of any album whenever it is made. In 2006 the singer released his album 3121, and in 2007 another record titled Planet Earth was issued. That album got the very strong and new sound. After 2 years Prince made his fans happy by releasing two albums: MplSound and LotusFlow3r. They are parts of the trilogy, third element of which is Prince’s protйgй Bria Valente’s record Elixir. The singer’s another long play 20Ten saw the light in 2010. There is absolutely no doubt that this traditionally strong work, created in Prince’s easy recognizable style, will be enjoyed both by the musician’s old fans and by those, who are just going to get acquainted with his creativity.