Image via Complex Original
In life, Prince defied comparisons. In death, he’s left a void that may prove impossible to fill. Just try to come up with someone who was like him. Anyone ever. Any comparison you try and make, past or present, falls short. Miles Davis is in the ballpark when it comes to sheer output and stylistic changes—both musically and sartorially—but in other ways even the Dark Prince was no Prince.
It’s necessary to compare Prince not to single people, but to entire groups—he was James Brown and the JB's, Sly and the Family Stone, George Clinton and Funkadelic, all wrapped up in one neatly coiffed, 5’1” purple package. He was the bandleader and the band. Imagine if Young Thug were just as prolific, but he also made every single beat. That still wouldn’t be close, but it’s probably as close a modern comparison as there is. D’Angelo has the creativity but not the productivity—his entire output would represent a solid month for Prince.
Sometimes it seems impossible that Prince was only one person. There must have been dozens of the guy just to manage all the outfit changes, let alone the touring, the writing, the recording. Maybe that’s part of why his death hit so hard; it was like losing an entire community of people in one body. Replacing him won’t be easy. But you’re welcome to try.
Master every musical instrument.
On his first album, 1978’s For You, Prince is credited with playing all 27 instruments. Twenty-seven. He also produced, arranged and composed all of the music, using a co-writer on just one track. The album released two weeks before his 20th birthday. For comparison’s sake, former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl wrote and performed all of the music on the Foo Fighters’ debut album, save one guitar solo. Asked by Howard Stern whether Prince was a better musician than him, Grohl replied, “Hell, Prince was a better drummer than me.” Prince’s drum programmer can attest to his proficiency.
Write so many dope songs that you have to give them away to your friends and start new bands.
Prince didn’t keep everything he wrote for himself. He wrote “Manic Monday” for The Bangles, recorded and released “I Feel for You” in 1979—Chaka Khan would later record her own version that became a hit—and conceived of the entire concept behind Morris Day & The Time. In fact, on their first record, Prince was The Time. Then there was “Nothing Compares 2 U,” written for another of Prince’s side projects, The Family. It didn’t do much for them, but a cover version by Irish singer Sinead O’Connor turned it into a global hit.
Play live anywhere, anytime, for anyone, for as long as possible.
Image was a large part of what made Prince, Prince, and as such he took his stage shows as seriously as he did everything else. At the same time, nothing mattered more than the music. And during tours—sometimes even on the same night as big shows—he’d move the party to a smaller venue and just play and play and play. There is an entire genre of recordings dedicated to this. He never seemed to want to stop playing. He once took requests during a show he put on for video extras. He even played a three-hour show for the Minnesota Lynx at his estate after they won the WNBA title in 2015.
Demand—and get—a starring role in a movie despite having never acted before.
Purple Rain came about because Prince wanted to star in a movie. This despite his only experience being music videos and, you know, being Prince. The movie, a loose interpretation of his life also starring Morris Day, was filmed mostly on location in Minneapolis, including the First Avenue nightclub where he launched his career. Purple Rain went on to make $68 million, not counting the soundtrack, which went on to sell 25 million copies worldwide.
Be a sex symbol to everyone regardless of gender or orientation.
Prince cut an androgynous figure despite the occasional presence of meticulously sculpted stubble, his diminutive frame wrapped in purples and pastels, lace and low-cut frills. Jumpsuits, with or without asses. High-heeled boots and platform shoes. The symbol he later adopted and never entirely abandoned even wove together the symbols of male and female. But they didn’t negate each other. Prince somehow embraced the fullness of both sexes at once, flowering into something entirely new. He didn’t tie gender into knots as much as turn it into some kind of Mobius strip, one and two-sided at the same time. Here was a guy who could shop in the ladies department and still bring all the ladies home with him.
Release 30-plus albums and still have tons of material in the vault.
Calling Prince prolific does the man an injustice. Not only were there the 32 or so albums he released under his own name, there were the albums from The Time and The Family, not to mention B-sides and remixes. Factor in double and triple (and quintuple) albums, and that’s a lot of music to catch up on. But there’s more! In an unpublished interview with Rolling Stone, he said not only are there entire albums in the vault, he said that there are vaults, plural. “I've never said this before, but I didn't always give the record companies the best song.” Mercy.
Change your name to an unpronounceable symbol.
Back in 1993, Prince decided to drop the name “Prince”—his real name—in order to no longer promote Prince, the brand, for Warner Bros. This was a bold move, especially since the name he adopted, an unpronounceable symbol that just became known as “the love symbol”—Love Symbol #2, actually—wasn’t reproducible in text. (Ever helpful, his people sent floppy disks with the symbol to major publications.) Unfortunately, since there was no way to pronounce it, people just started referring to him as “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince,” which both defeated the entire purpose and made explanations difficult. In 2000, he went back to calling himself Prince.
Own your publishing and your masters and scour the Internet for your music.
Anyone who went straight to YouTube to look for Prince’s music following his death was in for a surprise. There is one outstanding concert from 1982, a short NFL film on his epic Super Bowl halftime performance, and, well, not much else. As the creator of all his own music, Prince valued it tremendously and starting in 2007 he made it his goal to end unauthorized use of it. Ownership was another challenge. His initial deal with Warner Bros. gave him the publishing, but not the masters—which eventually led him to appear with 'SLAVE' written across his face. He was still referring to record contracts as “slavery” as recently as last year even though he re-signed with Warner Bros. and received the rights to his ‘80s masters in 2014.
Influence entire generations of artists while still being able to blow them all off the stage.
Watch the video above. Then watch it again, keeping an eye on the faces of the other musicians, especially Dhani Harrison. Then watch it AGAIN, watching Prince’s face this time. Thirty years into his career and having an absolute blast.
Be a revolutionary artist for 40 years.
Prince’s music is as impossible to categorize as it is to date, as pointed out by MTV’s Brian Phillips. Pick a song from virtually anywhere in his extensive catalog, and you’d be hard-pressed to name what era of his career it was from, let alone what year. This isn’t because he never evolved as a musician—because he did—but because nearly everything he recorded was ahistoric, leading rather than following. He blended elements of hard rock, rap, funk, R&B, new wave, and jazz into a fragrant stew that was just…Prince. In case you haven’t figured it out already, there will never be another.