Project 366 / 113 — RIP Prince

So far 2016 has been a dark year for famous deaths. From Alan Rickman, Terry Wogan, Paul Daniels and George Martin, to Ronnie Corbett, Lemmy, David Bowie and now Prince.

Whilst there seems to be more people passing away than ever, there is some clue as to why. Prior to the 60’s there was no television so the only famous people were from cinema so technically there’s just more famous people now than there were before. Then the people who started being famous in the 60’s are now entering their 70’s and are naturally starting to die.

Sadly that doesn’t explain the casualties, the ones, like Prince, who died before their time. The likes of Paul Walker (car crash), Philip Seymour Hoffman (drug overdose), Heath Ledger (drug overdose) and Michael Jackson are the ones which impact the most.

And then there are the numerous victims of Cancer going to prove that it doesn’t matter how famous you are or how much money you have that if it’s your time, it’s your time. You have to take your hat off to these celebs, they’re battling an illness behind closed doors. The world unaware of their struggle and fighting for not only their lives but their legacy. David Bowie, well aware of his limited time made the effort to make a final album. That’s got to be a tough call.

There’s talk of a vault in Prince’s residence that contains enough songs to release an album a year for 1000 years (yes a thousand years). One of his producers was reported to say that Prince had been recording 2 songs a day for years, most of which he either never intended to release but others which he felt were so good that the world wasn’t ready to hear yet.

As it was Price released 39 albums from 1978 to 2015 (that’s more than 1 per year) but that doesn’t include the 5 soundtrack albums, 4 live albums, 17 video albums, 12 EP’s and various remixed albums, collaborations and countless songs he wrote for other artists and under pseudonyms.

Just as with David Bowie, Prince was an extremely prolific, experimental, flamboyant and influential musician, and the world is a much poorer place without him.