2. PrincePurple Rain
I first got into Prince during my mid-twenties. Before then, I lived the life of a nun, listening to religious music, immersing myself in religious art and reading. I was an extremely pious, intense person, and very sheltered too. My time at school from primary to secondary education was quite torturous. I’d had a bad experience, a private bad experience, one that my family didn’t really know about, and which I was suffering with alone. And so, in hindsight, I can see that I was looking for a way to process the trauma. Spiritual music, which contains this belief in a world of otherness and alterity, drew me in completely. It was where I wanted to exist all the time, which didn’t make space for a lot of other genres and artists, aside from a few exceptions, like Bjork. Even as a child from the 80s, I never really listened to Prince. These days, I’ve come to love all of his albums. It was actually my husband Jez who introduced me to his music. Purple Rain is a kind of late coming of age album. When we first met, he had every single Prince record in his collection, and it would be all we’d listen to. Prince isn’t regarded as an experimentalist, but dive into his discography and you’ll find all these “Wow!” moments. Yet, he’s also rousing, sexy and fun, without losing his uncanniness. And that’s present in Purple Rain too. It was a sound I’d never heard before, which is why it’s one of my absolute all-time favourite records.
