"When Doves Cry," the first single to be released from Prince's 1984 album Purple Rain, hits the top of the charts. The song stayed on top for five weeks and became the best-selling single of 1984. Meanwhile, the album topped the charts for 24 weeks and sold more than 10 million copies.
Prince, born Prince Rogers Nelson in Minneapolis, was the son of a jazz musician. He began learning piano as a child, and by his teenage years he had also learned guitar and drums. He played with several bands during his high school years. After his parents divorced, Prince lived with various family members and finally moved into the basement of a friend's house. His mastery of multiple instruments soon brought him a gig working on a local radio commercial in exchange for free studio time. He cut a demo and landed a record contract with Warner Bros. in 1978.
Prince released one album a year from 1978 to 1982. His 1982 album, 1999, included two Top 10 hits, "Delirious" and "Little Red Corvette." With the video for the latter, Prince became one of the first black performers on MTV. In 1984, Prince starred in a partly autobiographical film, Purple Rain. The album's soundtrack, recorded with his band, the Revolution, was an enormous success. In addition to ringing up huge sales, it won two Grammys.
On Prince's first five albums, he not only sang but also produced the albums and played all the instruments. He continued his frenetic pace, writing songs for other performers in addition to releasing an album a year: Although he would have liked to release more, his record company refused to accelerate the pace. This was just one of Prince's frustrations with the music industry.
In 1993, to protest the terms of his long-term contract with Warner Bros., he changed his name from Prince to an unpronounceable glyph combining the symbols for male and female. For the next seven years, journalists referred to him as "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince." After Prince's Warner Bros.' contract expired in 1996, he released an album called Emancipation. When his publishing contract with Warner-Chappell expired in 2000, he changed his name back to Prince.
In his battles against the record industry, Prince has sought out new ways to distribute his music. An avid supporter of Napster, he launched his own music subscription service in 2001.
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