One quote sums up why Prince was the greatest pop innovator ever
Liu Heung Shing / AP
It's hard to sum up his contributions to American (and global) culture.
He made a rock opera, he rang in the millennium, and he fused masculinity and femininity in a profound, magical way.
Questlove, the Roots drummer and DJ, loved him intensely.
In an interview with the journalist Touré in New York Magazine, he explained what made Prince so singularly fresh.
"Prince is probably the only artist who got to live the dream of constant innovation," he said.
And then:
"He knew the balance between innovation and America's digestive system. He's the only artist who was able to, basically, feed babies the most elaborate of foods that you would never give a child and know exactly how to break down the portions so they could digest it.
I mean, 'When Doves Cry' is probably the most radical song of the first five years of the eighties, because there's no bass. I heard the version of 'Doves Cry' with a bass line-it wouldn't have grabbed me. Without bass it had a desperate, cold feeling to it. It made you concentrate on his voice. With the bass line, the song was cool. Without it, it was astounding."
Questlove, himself an innovator of music and style, was praising Prince's metacognitive sense of other people's tastes, and the Purple One's gift for stretching those tastes bit by glorious bit.
Without lapsing too far into tech lore cliche, it's fair to say that in this regard, Prince's direct analog might be Steve Jobs. The Apple CEO had an incredible knack for knowing what people wanted even before they knew what they wanted, with the iPhone being the primary example. Prince did the same thing - but with music that will live forever, rather than electronics you constantly need to update.
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