Thanks, Mom: Prince - “Musicology”

I think I was in second grade, things were changing pretty quickly around me, I was barely settled in to living in Ohio and we were moving again. Just switching towns this time, but again I had to say farewell to my childhood friends. Like anyone, we vowed to still hang out, but it wouldn’t happen. My parents had just started leasing a 2004 Chevy Malibu MAXX: a hatchback, which, importantly, had a rear stereo separate from the front. This meant that whoever was driving could listen to one thing, while the people in the back could plug in headphones and listen to something else completely. This was crucial in erecting the imaginary barrier between driver and passenger that would later be replaced by the mini tv, at the time though, it was just music. My mom was all in on the new Prince album, Musicology. I, on the other hand, had been through enough changes for the moment. That whole year was just Van Halen’s 1984. I thought it was cool, rebellious, and different: kids at my school had never heard “Hot for Teacher”, “Panama”, or “Jump”. When we would pick up my friends, I would show them, making sure to point out the baby smoking a cig on the album cover. All the while, my mom went on listening to her beloved Prince album. It was sort of a comeback for Prince, who had released 7 straight albums without going platinum, the longest drought of his career, before Musicology went double platinum. Prince was older, 46 at the time it was released, and was fed up at the thought that he had no place in modern music. Musicology was Prince reiterating his place in the grand scheme, that he wouldn’t just die out alongside his fading genre. Yet to me, at seven years old, my mom’s recommendation was the last thing I wanted to hear. So I sat in my backseat, headphones in ear, certainly not being able to foresee re-listening to Musicology with her years later, realizing how much of an impact my mom has had on opening me up to new genres of music. Thanks, mom <3