The Cross by Prince

I actually saw him in jeans and a t shirt once. I was at a c store in Chanhassen down the road from PP during the summer of 97. He rode up on his bike. I was stunned, the natives hardly looked up.

I've been a fan of his since the early 80s. He had a run of 8 albums from 1980-88 (Dirty Mind-Lovesexy) where he was absolutely on fire. There isn't ONE filler song during that stretch, unlike later years.

I can't imagine anybody (including him after that run) could ever duplicate that, especially in that short amount of time. The music just flowed through him.

As he got older, he got comfortable IMO, and he lost his edge. That's not to say he didn't have GREAT songs after that, and even decent albums, but to me he wasn't the same. The Batman soundtrack in 1989 is where a lot of fans think he jumped the shark.

A lot of his appeal (besides being otherworldly talented) was the sexual edge he had to his music. It gets harder into your 40s and 50s to be like that musically, and that's when he became more spiritual and really started preaching on his albums. There are traces of his belief in God early on, but he went into overdrive as he aged.

Lovesexy was A+ also, but was his last great album. Batman is where he just became pretty good IMO. He just had too much bs going on (along with getting older and comfortable). Fighting with Warner Bros, his son passing away, divorces, etc... I think all of that took a toll.

He still toured for years and had hits including a #1 (and was ALWAYS great live), but creatively, just got stuck in neutral. He went through a rap phase that bombed. Prince just wasn't a rapper, but he was struggling to remain relevant.

Post Batman, he'd still hit you with a few great songs like Cream, or Gett Off, but his albums weren't must listen from beginning to end like in the 80s.