Prince Has Died

http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/21/11480332/prince-has-died-tmz-reports

by acdanger • 10 years ago

221 54 10 years ago

jkelsey• 10 years ago

I hate you, 2016.

Truly one of the all-time greats. Minnesota will go into deep mourning tonight and tomorrow we'll all wear purple and throw a hell of a party.

When asked what it feels like to be the best guitarist alive, Eric Clapton said, "I don't know. Ask Prince."

meeper163• 10 years ago

Well said.

rconti• 10 years ago

I'm sure Clapton is mourning his promotion today. Sad.

Tomte• 10 years ago

I suppose he died doing what he loved. There are worse ways to go. Requiescat in pacem!

pnut• 10 years ago

Bowie, and now Prince?? Dylan, hang in there...

pigpaws3• 10 years ago

so Chyna doesn't even rank? where is your artistic compassion?

Apocryphon• 10 years ago

Different genre of art.

pigpaws3• 10 years ago

one thing I've learned is that too many people on HN have absolutely NO sense of humor.

CWuestefeld• 10 years ago

Merle Haggard, Maurice White, Glenn Frey, Lemmy.

onpointphife• 10 years ago

Phife Dawg

dkns• 10 years ago

Lemmy was 2015 though.

11thEarlOfMar• 10 years ago

Keith Emerson.

danso3• 10 years ago

I imagine TMZ is blacklisted from normal submissions, but they deserve the credit for breaking the story while having a nice roundup of highlights in his life, including this solo at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=214&v=6SFNW5F8K9...

http://www.tmz.com/2016/04/21/prince-dead-at-57/

slantyyz• 10 years ago

And while I am sure there will be a lot of "why is this story on HN" comments, Prince was an occasional news maker in the area of digital music.

He was a bit of a curmudgeon when it came to digital music in that he wasn't a fan of it or the services that provide it.

Interesting, however, that he was a fan of SoundCloud.

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/957510/prince-the-int...

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110624/12140014847/princ...

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jul/02/prince-pulls-mu...

danso3• 10 years ago

Yeah, I understand that HN isn't supposed to be a replay of mainstream front pages...but some celebs are transcendent -- especially someone as dominant and skilled in his work as Prince was. Bowie got a decent amount of discussion here, seems like Prince should warrant a mention, particularly because of how young he died.

altotrees• 10 years ago

I was about to mention this. Interestingly enough, I found this out the hard way, as I was struck by a sudden urge to listen to Sign o' the Times late one night in college.

Upon signing into YouTube, I was surprised not only to not find any of his songs uploaded, but to also find several articles about his extreme distaste for digital music after Googling the topic. I ended up going to the record shop and buying a used copy.

And as far as the topic of whether this story should on HN, I tend to treat this news in a similar manner as the death of Bowie. Both artists were really creative, and were fiercely passionate and intelligent (at least from what I've seen and heard), not to mention they were masters at marketing themselves. These are attributes anyone who values innovative technology and startups might be interested in — at least in my opinion.

Regardless of whether it is on- or off-topic, the world lost a great musician who blended genres and broke rules, and that is a shame.

chadpaulson• 10 years ago

Prince was instrumental in helping inspire Van Jones' YesWeCode. He was a humble and thoughtful genius. http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/04/21/prince-va...

gamache• 10 years ago

TMZ broke the news before it was certain. AFAIK, the Associated Press were the first to have an inside source.

http://bigstory.ap.org/b9e3df0421a04344835cd4fac7680c24

kqr2• 10 years ago

Ƭ̵̬̊

http://parkerhiggins.net/2013/01/writing-the-prince-symbol-i...

GauntletWizard• 10 years ago

Now is the time to lobby the Unicode Consortium. Love Symbol codepoint now!

pmarreck• 10 years ago

"Dearly beloved... We are gathered here today to celebrate this consensual illusion called 'life'..."

the_economist• 10 years ago

He died young. Fame kills.

morganvachon• 10 years ago

Fame kills

The cause of death has not been released yet, but reports say he had the flu. That has nothing to do with fame.

elsurudo• 10 years ago

There are also rumours that he had AIDS, although I haven't heard this from any official sources at this point.

anoonmoose• 10 years ago

I'm waiting to see if we hear more about the cause of death because there's some evidence to point to this being a similar thing to what happened to Jobs. Not fame, but stupidity.

meeper163• 10 years ago

I really admired him.

meeper163• 10 years ago

He was truly creative. Much can be learned from him and applied to a variety of efforts.

mmaunder• 10 years ago

RIP you prolific genius. He left us with so much.

danso3• 10 years ago

A nice writeup by the LAT in 1996 about how much Prince strove to have things his way when it came to publishing:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-et-ms-prince-a...

Tensions between artist and label first came to a boil in early 1994, when he decided to drop the name Prince and asked that people start identifying him by an unpronounceable symbol--thus disassociating himself, in a most burdensome way, from the guy who recorded some of the most popular and acclaimed albums of the '80s.
To further express his frustration, he stopped performing Prince-era material in concert and began appearing in public with the word "slave" written on his cheek. In 1994, he also released "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World," a successful single that was distributed not by Warner Bros. but by the independent company Bellmark Records.
In one breath, he'll say, "If I knew the things I know now before, I wouldn't be in the music industry." In the next, he'll talk about his craft with such passion that it's impossible to imagine him working in any other field.

I suppose few of his independent ambitions here sound that crazy today...but this was in 1996, 5 years before the first iPod.

rrauenza• 10 years ago

That article makes it sound like is name change was more of an artistic choice, but what I've read more recently was that it was all about getting out of his contract with Warner Brothers. Trying to find a concise article -- this one is currently top of my list:

https://storify.com/joesteinbcpop/conflicts-between-record-l...

edit: This one is a bit more thorough - http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2011/10/prince-bio-201110

k-mcgrady• 10 years ago

> "Tensions between artist and label first came to a boil in early 1994, when he decided to drop the name Prince and asked that people start identifying him by an unpronounceable symbol--thus disassociating himself, in a most burdensome way, from the guy who recorded some of the most popular and acclaimed albums of the '80s."

I might be wrong but my understanding is that it was a way to get around his contract with his record label (not to disassociate himself from past material).

sangnoir• 10 years ago

I might be wrong but my understanding is that it was a way to get around his contract with his record label

My understanding is that it was a hack to make life difficult for the label while fulfilling the letter of the contract in order to prod them to release from the contract. I think marketing his music became a headache for the label, and DJs ended up calling him "the artiste formerly known as Prince"

shas3• 10 years ago

I've seen many of his interviews (e.g. with Arsenio Hall, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYK4o6o1YFo), in real life he seems like the opposite of his stage personality: humble and dedicated to his art.

sjs382• 10 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0lLDyknUjw

mark-r• 10 years ago

This article has at least one inaccuracy - they claim he died in his "Paisley Park home", making it sound like Paisley Park is a city. It isn't, it's just the name of the studio he built. I drive past it often.

The statement from the local paper is much more useful: http://www.startribune.com/authorities-investigating-death-a...

6stringmerc2• 10 years ago

From most reports the guy pretty much lived in the studio. It shows on something as utterly amazing as "Plectrumelectrum" though some might disagree with me. Very fitting he was in his creative space when he departed. Will be very much missed for a variety of music and individualistic reasons.

maxerickson• 10 years ago

He played basketball too.

6stringmerc2• 10 years ago

That he did. I saw an interview with his High School coach. Apparently even as a Freshman on Varsity, he wanted more playing time and was...vocal about it haha. Quite a dynamic person, no doubt. Sad he's no longer among us but what a legacy.

joshmn• 10 years ago

Eric Clapton was asked what it feels like to be the best guitarist alive. He said, "I don't know. Ask Prince."

Minnesota will be collectively mourning with the rest of the music community.

All of our guitars gently weep.

aaron695• 10 years ago

Given the current linked article clearly is hinting at something.

It was AIDS complications is what other forums are saying.

If this is considered irrelevant on HN perhaps the article linked shouldn't mention anything.

wickedOne• 10 years ago

i do remember that, in the music industry, he was quite an early adopter of interactive technology when he released "(Prince) interactive" back in 1994 http://www.mobygames.com/game/prince-interactive

RedCarnage• 10 years ago

I don't want to be that guy but I would like to know if his faith, Jehovah's Witness, has anything to do with not treating his 'Flu'. If he had a treatable condition it would be a shame if he died for somebody's idea of God.

phugoid• 10 years ago

Unless it involves blood transfusions in any form, there's no issue.

At the risk of being argumentative, it would be a case of dying for his own idea of God.

From my point of view, he wasn't a straight-and-narrow JW member because he kept performing material which didn't fit that view. I doubt that anyone had the pleasant surprise of Prince knocking on their door one Saturday morning.

phonon• 10 years ago

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/11/24/soup-with-princ...

"Prince had his change of faith, he said, after a two-year-long debate with a musician friend, Larry Graham. “I don’t see it really as a conversion,” he said. “More, you know, it’s a realization. It’s like Morpheus and Neo in ‘The Matrix.’ “ He attends meetings at a local Kingdom Hall, and, like his fellow-witnesses, he leaves his gated community from time to time to knock on doors and proselytize. “Sometimes people act surprised, but mostly they’re really cool about it,” he said."

rads• 10 years ago

I just heard a story from a listener of The Current about exactly that: Prince pulled up in a van at her friend's house with a couple other people and spread the word.

daveloyall• 10 years ago

...was formerly alive.

danans• 10 years ago

Doves are crying. RIP

Prince Has Died

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