The died singer dragged the Afro-American musical culture in the white mainstream. But He also decided that decade style, becoming synonymous of debauchery and disinhibition.
Prince and the myth
Along with Madonna and Michael Jackson, Prince is definitely synonymous of the 80s in the popular american culture. He marked the imagination of that era, in a dimension that goes beyond the music: even more of his friend from Detroit, Louise Veronica Ciccone, Prince definitely represents the most libertarian side, sexually unrestrained, modern Dionysus, voracious. On the aesthetic front he has been always in the forefront in setting the rules, with his flamboyant and eccentric set.
Prince and the music
But let’s start from music. Prince Roger Nelson is definitely the most refined, among the three we mentioned: imbued with funk culture of marca’70, son of Motown, pride of Afroamerica he carries it into the next decade, adapting it to the most synthetic atmospheres of the time. Returning again to the triangle, with another son of that season, Michael Jackson, he contends the rankings for all the 80s, in an unbridled competition that serves to consecrate both.
Prince and women
But, unlike Jackson, Prince immediately becomes icon of sexual disinhibition, unbridled conqueror, showing off beautiful girlfriends: Kim Basinger, the disappeared Vanity Apollonia, Sheena, Jill and the Madonna herself fall in love with the Black Prince, over other countless and unknown one night companions. A real harem that the singer shows off also during his concerts: by choice, the band that accompanies him is almost always made up only by women.
Prince and fashion
Prince is with no doubt master of style: showy bodices, pirate shirts, shawls, certainly not devoted to understatement, made the most important designers go mad. In Milan, of course, he was always a very welcomed guest: we can still remember his very exclusive concert for Versace, a few years ago.
Prince and cinema
Like Madonna, Prince also tried to succeed on the big screen. Just like his colleague, he failed to break through both with “Purple Rain” and with “Under the Cherry Moon.” Which indeed cost him the Razzie Awards, the sarcastic award for the worst film of the year.
Prince e Minneapolis
Another among his credits is that he made Minneaopolis famous: the industrial Minnesota big city, since then just a jumble of factories and the city with the highest murder rate in America, redeems itself with its favorite son, who has always been associated with it, in the style of Bob Dylan with Duluth. Because Prince will never abandon its “homeland”, placing there his house and “office”.
Prince and legacy
But Prince was also a generous scouter of talents and especially songwriter for others: to Bangles he gave “Manic Mondays”, to Sinead O’Connor the extraordinary “Nothing Compares to You”. And then, again, the collaborations with Madonna, Chaka Khan and countless others. Therefore he has been critical in designing the sonorous, cultural and aesthetic geography of that decade. And only that one, because then he won’t be able to influence anything, slave of his myth. But that’s another story…
