7 Things I Learned From Listening To Prince's Albums Back To Back

Since Prince's sudden death on April 21, fans like myself around the world have been remembering him by listening to his music. Over the past few months, I decided to revisit all that he's meant to me by listening to 30 of his albums in the order in which they were released, starting with his very first album, 1978's "For You."

A stack of Prince CDs and an album by his sister,
Tyka Nelson, sit next to my boombox 
on my kitchen table. 

In this blog post, I'll share insights on what I learned from this purple musical odyssey. These insights are not new, per se, but listening to these albums with the knowledge that Prince isn't around anymore reinforced the lasting impact he made on the world.

Here are 7 things I learned (did you catch the reference to his '93 hit, "7"?):

1 - Prince Made The Avant Garde Commercial

There's nothing conventional about Prince's music. He had a one-of-a-kind ability to create avant garde, abstract music and make it commercial, appealing to a large, diverse fan base around the world. Even on his first couple of albums when he was in his late teens and early 20s, he "colored outside the lines," mixing R&B with rock and folk.

Prince went even further into experimentation on his third and fourth albums, 1980's "Dirty Mind" and 1981's "Controversy." It's hard to imagine these experimental albums being released on a major label today.

Prince went in a more commercial direction with 1982's "1999," spawning huge radio hits such as the title track and "Little Red Corvette." And I noticed an even more pronounced difference from his earlier, more experimental work when I put on "Purple Rain." It was obvious that Prince was really going for the big time and shooting for a mainstream crossover audience.

2 - His Music Defies Categories

Prince is truly his own genre. He has a song in nearly every style of music: 

Blues - "Another Lonely Christmas," an excellent B-side from the '84 "Purple Rain" era.

Disco - "I Wanna Be Your Lover" from his '79 self-titled second album.

Reggae - "Blue Light" from '92's "The Love Symbol Album."

Classical - "Venus de Milo" from the '86 "Parade" album.

Techno - "Loose!" from the '94 "Come" album.

Jazz - 2002's Grammy-nominated instrumental "N.E.W.S." album. 

Country (yes, country!) -  "Right the Wrong" from '96's "Chaos and Disorder."

Another track from "Chaos and Disorder," "I Like It There," would sound at home on alt-rock radio. The mellow "June" from his 2015 "Hit n Run Phase One" album could easily have been recorded by a neo-soul artist like Jill Scott or Musiq Soulchild.

3 - He's A Master Balladeer

For as much as Prince is known as a rock god and one of the best guitar players of all time, he is equally adept at the soulful "midnight storm" ballad. His ballads range from the famous falsetto of "Do Me Baby" to his deep, almost baritone vocals on "Call My Name" from 2004's "Musicology."

There are several power ballads that are similar to "Purple Rain," such as "The Ladder" from '85's "Around the World in a Day" and "The Morning Papers" from "The Love Symbol Album." "Diamonds and Pearls," the title track from his '91 album, was perhaps the only Prince ballad to reach comparable success as "Purple Rain."

4 - Hidden 'Diamonds and Pearls'

There are some real gems hidden in Prince's indie releases: "Crucial" is a mid-tempo love song from 1997's "Crystal Ball" that rivals anything on his studio albums and sounds like an outtake from "Sign o the Times."

The sweet, sincere ballad "She Loves Me 4 Me" from 2001's "The Rainbow Children" should have been a big radio hit. And the funky jam "1+1+1 Is 3" from that same album is as danceable as "1999."

5 - He Boldly Tackled Social Issues

For most of Prince's adult life, he took a strong stance against recreational drug use and became a Jehovah's Witness in mid-life, around the time he turned 40 in 1998. For these reasons, Prince is sometimes misunderstood as a closet conservative.

But Prince took a left-leaning stance on most of the social issues he addressed in his music. For example, he recorded the song "Baltimore" about the Freddie Gray case and demonstrated his support for the Black Lives Matter movement. 

In a more obscure song, "Animal Kingdom" from the '97 acoustic indie release "The Truth," Prince sings about being a vegan and his perhaps little-known advocacy for animal rights: "No member of the animal kingdom ever did a thing to me/That's why I don't eat red meat or white fish/Don't give me no bleu cheese/We're all members of the animal kingdom/Leave your brothers and sisters in the sea."

6 - His Creativity Was Fueled By Faith

In the book "I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon," cultural commentator Toure  explains that Prince was raised in the Seventh Day Adventist denomination and embedded Christian messages in his music throughout his career. From reciting the Lord's Prayer in "Controversy" to the straight-out gospel of "God," the B-side of the "Purple Rain" single, Prince's faith was central to his creativity.

There are numerous examples in which, despite his reputation for being lewd, Prince often referred to his devout faith. In "I Wish U Heaven" from the '88 "Lovesexy" album, he espouses the Christian principle of turning the other cheek: "If I see 11/u can say it's 7/still I wish u Heaven."

7 - Did He Foreshadow His Own Death?

There are several songs that seem weirdly prophetic in which Prince seems to predict his own death: from the eerily prescient elevator reference in "Let's Go Crazy," to the somber lyrics of "Sometimes It Snows In April," about mourning the death of a close friend.

A particularly unsettling song is "My Little Pill" from "The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale," a 1999 anthology of previously unreleased material.  "All my cares and troubles dive right off my window sill when I pop my little pill," Prince half-sings, half-raps in this odd little tune.

Was this Prince confessing his addiction to prescription painkillers, which eventually claimed his life? Who knows.

There are many songs in which Prince sings about how precious life is and the importance of making your mark on the world. Consider these lyrics from the song "Last December" from "Rainbow Children": "In your life, did you just give a little or did you give all that you had?/Were you just somewhere in the middle, not too good, not too bad?"

Conclusion: Prince's Legacy Lives On Through His Music

Unfortunately, the phenomenal quality of Prince's work often gets lost in the sheer volume of it. There are so many great songs that get overlooked - even by super-fans like myself.

Before Prince died, I must admit that I ignored several of his lesser-known albums, listening to them only a few times before leaving them on my CD tower to collect dust. Part of the reason is that Prince released so much music that it was hard to keep up.

Plus, Prince seldom performed his more obscure songs in concert. In live performances, he'd often ignore an entire album he just released in favor of giving the fans the big hits they wanted to hear - like the world-class entertainer he was.

It's a shame that it took Prince's death for me and other fans to rediscover these musical "diamonds and pearls." But his legacy will live on for generations to come in his music, his movies and his messages.