7 Prince 7

1980s and remains his biggest-selling album. Three of its
singles were hits: the frenetic “Let’s Go Crazy,” the androg-
ynous but vulnerable “When Doves Cry,” and the anthemic
title cut. Thereafter he continued to produce inventive
music of broad appeal; outside the United States he was
particularly popular in Britain and the rest of Europe.
Throughout most of his career, Prince’s prolific inven-
tiveness as a songwriter clashed with his record company’s
policy of releasing only a single album each year. As a back-
log of his completed but unreleased recordings piled up, he
gave songs to other performers—some of whom recorded
at and for Paisley Park, the studio and label he established
in suburban Minneapolis—and even organized ostensibly
independent groups, such as the Time, to record his material.
His 1996 album Emancipation celebrated the forthcoming
end of his Warner Brothers contract, which enabled him
to release as much music as he liked on his NPG label.
Later he explored marketing his work on the Internet and
through private arrangements with retail chains as a means
of circumventing the control of large record companies.
In 1999, however, he released Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic
under the Arista label; a collaboration with Sheryl Crow,
Chuck D, Ani DiFranco, and others, the album received
mixed reviews and failed to find a large audience. Prince
(who, following the formal termination of his contract
with Warner Brothers in 1999, stopped using the symbol
as his name) was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame in 2004. That year he also released Musicology, an
album that both sold well and was much praised by critics.

Madonna

(b. Aug. 16, 1958, Bay City, Mich., U.S.)

T

he immense popularity in the 1980s and ’90s of

American singer, songwriter, actress, and entrepreneur