Nothing compared 2 him: Prince dies at 57

The stunned tributes from fellow musicians and fellow cultural exemplars had begun early this morning as fans began gathering outside the 57-year-old’s Paisley Park complex in Minneapolis.

“A creative icon”, said Barack Obama. “A visionary”, according to Madonna, on whose record he played guitar uncredited. Slash called him “one of the greatest musical talents of my lifetime. Maybe of the 20th century.”

Mick Jagger said Prince’s talent was “limitless”, calling him a “revolutionary artist, a great musician, a wonderful lyricist.” Chuck D, Neil Rogers and Gene Simmons used the word “genius”.

Prince Rogers Nelson was one of the most inventive musicians of his era. His music cut a line through rock, blues, funk, jazz, soul and psychedelic pop. That he was a singer, songwriter, arranger, multi-instrumentalist and producer meant he was able to create a vision that was uniquely his own.

Purple Rain, Little Red Corvette, 1999, Raspberry Beret, Kiss, Let’s Go Crazy and When Doves Cry were a soundtrack for a generation and for a cultural time quoted in books, movies and TV shows. “Tonight I’m gonna party like it’s 1999” became a much quoted refrain. A series of 39 albums went on to sell 100 million. At the same time he was penning hits for The Bangles, Sinead O’Connor and Sheena Easton, among many others. His music could rock, be sexy, hit nightclub floors and be totally romantic. They were also listed high in the Filthy 15 list, compiled by moralisers who campaigned to have albums come with censorship stickers.

His live shows were spectacular, flamboyant and impeccably musical, running for three hours, with Prince as the total band leader. Yet on his last visit to Australia, when he was accompanied just by his piano, he could be just as breathtaking.

Prince was born in Minneapolis in 1958 to a pianist and songwriter father Prince Rogers and a jazz singer mother Mattie Della (Shaw). Prone to epileptic fits as a child, he told his mother he wouldn’t be sick any more, “because the angels told me so.” Turning to music after his parents split, the story goes that he wrote his first song at seven. He was also good at basketball and earned the nickname of Skipper.

On his self-titled debut album in 1979 he is credited with playing 27 instruments on it. Superstardom came in 1984 with Purple Rain, his sixth album which became his first chart topper in the US. It stayed at pole spot for 24 weeks and sold 13 million copies there. In a purple patch, at one time he had the #1 spot with a single, album and film. He won the Academy Award for Best Original Song Score for Purple Rain.

Other accolades included seven Grammys, a 2007 Golden Globe for The Song Of The Heart in Best Original Song which was featured in Happy Feet, and has been recognised at the BET Awards, Brit Awards and Image Awards.

Along the way, he worked with several bands under a series of pseudonyms, including The Time, the New Power Generation and The Revolution, as frontman and producer.

A vegetarian and one time Jehovah Witness, Prince was romantically linked with high profiled women including Kim Basinger, Madonna, Vanity, Sheila E., Carmen Electra, Susanna Hoffs, Anna Fantastic, Sherilyn Fenn and Susan Moonsie of Vanity 6 and Apollonia 6.

His eccentricities included wanting to smell like lilac. He’d never allow his interviews to be taped, only for a pencil to be used. When he met with his rival Michael Jackson, the pair stared at each other for 40 minutes, waiting for the other to speak first. At one awards ceremony, he had six bodyguards accompany him to the winner’s podium.

He loved pseudonyms, including Jamie Starr and The Starr Company, Joey Coco, Alexander Nevermind and Christopher. “I was just getting tired of seeing my name,” he explained, “If you give away an idea, you still own that idea. In fact, giving it away strengthens it. Why do people feel they have to take credit for everything they do? Ego, that’s the only reason.”

In September 2014, Prince said of his career to Billboard. “I don’t need another gold record. You don’t quantify success by numbers.”

There were famous run-ins with his record company Warner Bros in which he scrawled ‘Slave’ on his cheek when he went public.

The distribution of his music created issues for him. On June 12, 2006, he received a Webby Lifetime Achievement Award for his “visionary” use of the Internet. He was the first major artist to release an entire album, 1997’s Crystal Ball, exclusively on the Internet. 20Ten in July 2010 went out as a free cover-mount with magazines in Europe.

He refused access on download services. He told the Daily Mirror, “The internet’s completely over. I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won’t pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can’t get it… Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you.”

His final album HITnRUN Phase One was first made available on September 7, 2015 on music streaming service Tidal before being released on CD and download on September 14.

This year he announced he was writing his memoirs, tentatively titled The Beautiful Ones.

Reports indicate that he has so much unreleased material that his estate could issue an album a year for a century after his death.