Ok, here’s something you probably don’t know. Prince’s album Purple Rain literally changed the face of music (at least in the US). All those Parental Advisory stickers on the front of albums with “explicit” lyrics are basically the result of Tipper Gore (Al Gore’s former wife) overhearing her daughter singing along to a track on that album, Darling Nikki (don’t listen to it without first listening to Computer Blue (one leads into the other)),in which Prince describes meeting the titular Nikki while she masturbates with a magazine in a hotel lobby.

Tipper wasn’t a fan of this, got together with some other senators’ wives, and now we’ve got those stickers everywhere.

Even stranger: Prince was a devout Jehovah's Witness who regularly attended his local Kingdom Hall meetings, where he was known simply as "Brother Nelson".

I had been a fan since "1999" came out and I was surprised to learn this factoid upon his death. But it explains quite a lot about his career, not least the preacherman intro to "Let's Go Crazy".

He only became an Jehova’s Witness in 2001. He stopped performing these explicit songs, in live shows, thereafter.

I mean, "I Would Die 4 U" is very explicitly representing Jesus...

I often wonder how many artists ended up making explicit music simply to get that sticker. There's no doubt that it became a marketing ploy for artists. As an edgy teenager I was put off by albums that didn't have said sticker. What a time to be alive.

It is a great sticker: bold, all caps, tons of contrast. I think it would be really hard to fit more attention-gettingness in that little space.

Quite a lot. Frank Zappa had a ton of fun with it as well, putting his version of the notice on even his instrumental albums.

Something I learned last year at Sinéad O'Connor's death, is that her hit Nothing compares to you, was written by Prince.

Wait until you find out Killing Me Softly by the Fugees is a cover of the original hit by Roberta Flack

Not an exact corollary, since Prince never actually performed it for one of his own albums. He had one of his many front bands record it. IIRC, the only Prince versions are a studio demo/outtake (not very good, IMO) and a live version (which is better than the Sinead version, IMO, but is marred by technical issues).

Agreed, not exact, but as a grizzled old man it still astounds me the number of people I meet that don’t know Nothing Compares 2 U was written by Prince, and also (though not necessarily intersecting) those who don’t know Killing Me Softly isn’t an original Fugees track. I suppose it only bothers me because people just don’t seem to care about the history of things?

Do you immediately check the Wikipedia article for every song you hear on the radio? I imagine almost nobody you know actually owns a Sinead O'Connor or Fugees album, they heard it on TV/radio and never thought of it outside that context.

Or that Tainted Love by Max Raabe & Palast Orchester is a cover of an original composed by Ed Cobb and recorded by Gloria Jones in 1964.

You surely mean Tainted Love by Soft Cell!

Tainted Love by Broken Peach.

Which feels like a cover of Tainted Love by Marilyn Manson.

Amazing that it is from 1964 originally!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73IhpmXPQvw

What about Johnny Cash's Hurt... can you believe it was written by them noisy Nine Inch Nails?

"Because the night"? Bruce Springsteen.

Co-written by Springsteen and Patti Smith, not a Prince song.

Yeah, I mentioned it just as a classic item in the "I didn't know that" list.

Nothing Compares 2 U was originally performed by The Family back in 1985: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Family_(The_Family_album)