Purple Reign: A Chronicle of Prince Rogers Nelson.

I'm young enough to be in that weird generation of music fan. Where a lot of my classics haven't aged at all, and I was still young when Nirvana ruled, and when Jay-Z released his debut album. Through all of this time, one constant has remained true in my opinion: Prince is the greatest artist of my generation, even the best artist of the past 30 years. Not like that should shock anyone. His new albums may not be great, clobbering classics, but even his worst work has music that his peers couldn't even fathom. At 50, he's still light years ahead of most of his contemporaries. It's almost if Prince has become a punchline, with the Dave Chappelle skit and all (Interestingly enough, I read an article written by Toure', pre Chappelle skit, where he played 2 on 2 with Prince, and confirmed that Prince has skills. No pancakes were involved though.), and with that, people forget how great he is.

My parents hated Prince. I think they were somewhere in between generations. They grew up with Motown, Jazz, and Philly soul on one hand, and The Beatles, Who, Beach Boys, and etc. on the other hand. So, as my father explains it, by the time the 70's rolled around, they were fully stuck in the world of Fleetwood Mac and Springsteen, and just "weren't ready" for Prince. I had an uncle though, who was ready for Prince. In 1988, I was 5 years old, and I heard what I know now was "Play In The Sunshine" (track 2 off of Prince's possibly greatest album, Sign o' The Times), and I couldn't register all that was going on, but I knew I liked it. As the years went on, and I was exposed to more and more Prince, and by 12, I was fully listening to everything he put out (of course, not all of it was appropriate for a 12 year old...), regardless of if I had to sneak listening to Dirty Mind, or Lovesexy into the house. Here's the thing, I lived through (most of) the Michael Jackson mania. I've never seen anything like it, and I won't see anything like it since. They would shut down broadcast television to debut a Mike video. I'm not knocking Jackson, but I'm not sure he could touch Prince on any level. Yes, I know. He made Thriller...but let's give Quincy Jones some credit too, shall we? I mean, let's look at Jackson's 3 milestone albums (Off The Wall, Thriller, Bad), and you've got Jones, one of the greatest producers of all time, behind the boards, and a host of talented musicians (including Louis Johnson and Rod Temperton) filling the studio. Again, not taking anything away from Jackson, but imagine if Prince had Quincy Jones on his side. The fact is that Prince didn't need Jones. He produced, wrote and composed almost every note on his greatest works. Sure, he did have a backing band, The Revolution, that had some talent in it, but you get the feel that even if they weren't around, Prince would find a way to make it work. Because that's what he does. He doesn't work for music, or anyone. He makes the music work for him. He can cover all of his influences, Joni Mitchell, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, and Jerry Lee Lewis...all in one song. Effortlessly. "When Doves Cry" has no bassline, and that's great, we get it...but what's more great to me is the risks he takes. Even now, he'll throw out his most eccentric tracks, and put them in the start, or middle of a record. That's a risk because if something is too weird, too early, people might cast your album off for good. But Prince has no problem putting something like U Got The Look 4th or 5th on a record. And I don't even need to go into the insane amount of ghostwriting that comes out of the man. He had his hands all over hits (well, and women) in the 80's.

I watch his Super Bowl halftime performance almost 2 times a month. I watch it because it's still jaw dropping. Not only the best halftime show I've ever seen, but one of the best performances I've ever seen. No one can touch that. It plays out as some kind of mythical epic. A movie scene couldn't have been scripted better. Prince comes out with his head wrapped, and strolls through the downpour of rain without even flinching. And look, I'm just as tired of hearing covers of Proud Mary as the next guy who thinks Tina Turner was a product of Ike Turner's genius (ummm...more on that some other time...), but I never knew it could sound like that. Plus, I'm sure Dave Grohl is just now getting his senses back after Prince decided to take his song ("Best Of You") and actually make it good on a national stage. You would almost imagine that Prince created the fierce downpour himself, just to finish with Purple Rain as a soaked crowd sang along, but he remained perfectly in tact, as though the rain realized it couldn't hit him. Every time I watch it, I stare, and I pick up new things that make this performance legendary. The thing is, I shouldn't be shocked. He's Prince, and he's amazing...but the fact that as an artist that everyone knows is great, he can still shock us, well...that just further speaks to his greatness. He was equal parts James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, And Janis Joplin, just to name a few.

Prince is inspiring. Not in the same way the Springsteen inspires, using the stage as a pulpit to preach the Gospel of rock doing battle against the forces that keep us down...no, Prince inspires from preaching very little. He was probably most inspiring when he was barely speaking at all. It's sad that his battle for record label independence was a battle that he fought alone, and that got him outcasted for some time. But it's inspiring that he's still fighting it, and you get the feel that he'll always fight it, because just when you feel like you can count him out, he reminds you that you can't now, and never can. His shows still sell out in minutes. He still sells a ton of records, and there will never be another Prince. In the interview with Toure', Prince stated that he never worried about Michael Jackson, because he is "Just a guitar player". Sure. Prince is "just a guitar player" like Al Capone was just a guy who enjoyed a little bootlegging. And I think it speaks to the respect for Prince that no one even tries. How many Michael Jackson clones do we have to sit through every year? Usher is tired of Chris Brown's antics at this point. D'Angelo came close to trying to be Prince, but after one solid album (VooDoo), he went crazy. He realized that he couldn't do it, and it's an exercise in futility to try. We only have one Prince, because we only need one Prince.

The greatest part in the aforementioned halftime show is when, prior to the Purple Rain guitar solo, Prince gestures to the crowd and asks "Do you mind if I play this guitar?"... As if anyone now, or ever would object to that.