Prince's sexuality was unlike anything pop music had ever witnessed
Prince's overt, daring sexuality, which was a novelty or curiosity earlier in his career, also inevitably became a primary focus as he entered the mainstream spotlight.
People magazine spoke to Dan Peters, a minister at the interdenominational Zion Christian Center in North St Paul, Minnesota, who called Prince "the filthiest rock 'n roller ever to prance across the stage."
Peters had been leading an anti-rock crusade for several years, urging people to destroy "offending" albums.
Not only was Peters unconvinced by the backward message at the end of (the song) "Darling Nikki", but he singled it out as objectionable. "Kids come up to us and say, 'See, that shows he is a Christian,'" he protested. "And I say, 'As far as we can tell from listening to the lyrics, his Lord is a penis.'"
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| Prince in a still from Purple Rain. |
This reaction to (the film) Purple Rain would, of course, find its most significant manifestation the following year, when Tipper Gore overheard her daughter listening to "Darling Nikki", noticed the line "I met her in a hotel lobby / Masturbating with a magazine," and set in motion the project that would reach the floor of the United States senate as the Parents Music Resource Center and lead to warning stickers being placed on albums deemed to contain explicit lyrics.
Whether you considered it a source of outrage or not, Prince's sexuality was unlike anything pop music had ever witnessed.
As shocking as Elvis Presley, Mick Jagger, and other rock gods had been when they first appeared, he had raised the stakes to a new level. "His songs were propelled by how incredibly palpable his sexuality was," marvels Wendy Melvoin.
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| Let's Go Crazy: Prince and the Making of Purple Rain; Simon & Schuster; Rs 399. |
"He was wearing, for all intents and purposes, women's clothing and makeup - not dissimilar to Bowie or Little Richard - not being a homosexual, still having a certain amount of badass factor in him, singing in falsetto and wearing black underwear and high heels. It's remarkable to me that twenty million people gravitated to that and were like, 'Not only do I love that music, but he's fu*kable to me.'"
"Prince gets over with everyone because he fulfils everyone's illusions," wrote Miles Davis in his autobiography.
"He's got that raunchy thing, almost like a pimp and a bitch all wrapped up in one image, that transvestite thing. But when he's singing that funky X-rated shit that he does about sex and women, he's doing it in a high-pitched voice, in almost a girl's voice. If I said 'F*ck you' to somebody, they would be ready to call the police. But if Prince says it in that girl-like voice that he uses, then everyone says it's cute."
Prince's recasting of his sound and image into the role of the guitar-slinging rock god also allowed him much more latitude to mix and match gender signifiers.
It's hard to think of another rock star, or almost any prominent straight male, who would dare to offer himself up as a character with the vulnerability and femininity of the Kid (Prince's character in the film, Purple Rain).
In the first few scenes, we see him putting on make-up, checking his hair in the mirror, returning to the home where he lives with his parents, and getting knocked down by his father - not exactly Rambo.
Yet simultaneously, we watch him playing the s*it out of his guitar and parting the crowd in front of the club with his custom motorcycle, always conveying a sense of aggressive masculinity.
(Reprinted with publisher's permission. Courtesy of Mail Today.)