Remembering Prince: 5 of the coolest things His Royal Badness did as we mark the 4th anniversary of his death
He was one of the defining figures in pop music for two decades with hits like 1999, Little Red Corvette, When Doves Cry, Purple Rain and Raspberry Beret – STYLE looks back on the life of a star who did it his way
Four years have passed since Prince left us – a supercharged period of global tumult no one could have imagined at his death, aged 57, on April 21, 2016 – and yet the pop icon’s legacy seems only more monumental than ever. Amid the multitude of geektastic factoids out there to commemorate the occasion, here is STYLE’s take on five of the coolest things Prince ever did.
Made superhero movies truly cool
Despite their stranglehold on our multiplexes, superhero movies still carry an unfortunate, if readily embraced, stench of nerdom. But for one fleeting moment they were actually, genuinely, cool – the one where Prince signed up to record an entire soundtrack of original music accompanying and inspired by Tim Burton’s seminal 1989 franchise kick-starter, Batman.
The scene where Jack Nicholson’s Joker playfully defaces an art museum to the sound of Prince squalling “The funkiest man you've ever seen” remains etched on synapses decades later.
Snubbed Michael Jackson
Not many people said no to the King of Pop, but Prince was a more-than-worthy heir who walked away from an offer to duet with Michael Jackson on the smash single Bad – a little-known encounter Quincy Jones, the super-producer behind MJ’s first three and best-loved albums, later recounted.
“Prince was always competing with Michael,” Jones said in 2016. “It was a beautiful meeting, a funny meeting, and [Prince] said ‘you don’t need me on this, it’s going to be a No 1 anyway’ – which it was.”
Hosted legendary guerilla gigs … wherever and whenever he wanted