I discovered Prince in college. One of the great things about college (university, actually; I went to four schools in total and every one was technically a university) is that one is exposed to different people, ideas, cultures, and situations, which is the main reason I believe that college students tend to be liberal politically. There's no great conspiracy, conservatives--liberalism is just a logical outlook when one is pushed out of their comfort zone. Prince definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone. I grew up in a small Indiana town, and although my politics shifted early on from fuck-everyone libertarianism to a liberal humanist outlook, I still harbored a few adolescent notions regarding gender and sexuality. As a teenager, I think Prince was "too gay" for me--teenage boys are incredibly insecure about everything--but I didn't really give a shit about such things as a young twenty-something. Prince was a fantastic personality, and Purple Rain is such a fantastic album, it's impossible not to like. From the hopped up Stonesy rocker Lets Go Crazy to the sparse funk of When Doves Cry to the power ballad to end all power ballads of eponymous track, Purple Rain is a rocking good time and pretty much demands to be listened to in its entirety. Prince is like a gateway drug to the eighties, a decade that I had initially rejected musically for being more diverse than the classic rock golden years of the sixties and seventies. Prince basically epitomized diversity: he was half black, half Italian, of dubious sexuality, and someone who clearly drew from the rock-guitar god legacy of Hendrix but who was more of a funky R&B star than a rocker at heart. Purple Rain helped to open my mind and get me out of my rock only mindset. Unlike some overplayed albums, I'll still listen to this one occasionally today.
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