Chris Stanley's Bazaar

Life is full of curiosities, and it’s inevitable that you’ll come across the odd coincidence here and there. I guess it’s a small one that within days of one Prince passing , it’s the anniversary of the death of a much more colourful one. Today marks five short years since Prince Rogers Nelson was found dead at his Paisley Park home, in circumstances that seem ill-fitting with both his lyrical themes and his beliefs. Personally, at the time, Prince’s death was far more of a rider to that of David Bowie . I liked some Prince stuff, but in the same way that I enjoyed, say, Belinda Carlisle . I hadn’t grown up with Prince in the same way that I’d grown up with Bowie, and neither had he been a touchstone in any aspect of my musical education. Nobody at school was a Prince nut; nobody at university walked about in a purple knee length frock coat and ruffles . You didn’t even hear ‘ 1999 ’ played at the student disco. Not that that’s an excuse; you didn’t hear Gay Dad either, but I bought...

When Prince passed away in 2016 it was a sad end to what had been an interesting life. The details of what killed him aren’t clear , but for the man who created the purring come-on of ‘ Gett Off ’ to be discovered collapsed in a lift is ignominious to say the least. It took me a long time to get around to Prince. I’m not particularly enthusiastic about funk, and his cavortings always seemed faintly ridiculous for a man of his physical stature. But even though his imperial period had long since passed by the time I recognised he was a genius, it was still a huge ambition of mine to see him live. There was opportunity, should I have been arsed enough, to see him during his O2 residency in 2007, but I guess I thought he’d go on forever, like an icon does. But then David Bowie died , England lost to Iceland and Brexit happened. 2016 was a shitshow , and it took Prince Rogers Nelson away on a purple ebb tide. For the last year I’ve overdosed on music. I’ve been doing a lot of ed...