View photo gallery | More on Prince

When Prince Rogers Nelson first emerged with 1978's "For You," he seemed both prodigal and anonymous. A mere 20 years old when the album was issued (he was marketed as an even younger 18 just to make him seem more like a wunderkind), Prince wrote, produced, arranged, sang and played damn near everything on the album, but his basic discomfort with the promotional process gave him a patina of mysteriousness. So did his hometown. Loads of R&B geniuses hailed from the neighboring Midwestern cities of Chicago and Detroit, but Minneapolis had a tiny African-American population, and despite its centrality to U.S. record distribution and chain stores (Musicland/Sam Goody was headquartered there), it was mostly a weigh station on the pop landscape. Though the roaring hub of indie punk that blossomed there in the early '80s helped to a smaller degree, Prince would change that perception pretty much single-handedly.

"For You" introduced Prince as an R&B phenom, and 1979's "Prince" would move him toward the mainstream, thanks to the glorious "I Wanna Be Your Lover," which went top 15 pop and occasioned a memorable appearance on "American Bandstand," during which Prince refused to speak to host Dick Clark. If that seemed a punkish thing to do during a time when punk was making slow inroads in America, the follow-up, 1980's "Dirty Mind," was a full-on embrace of new wave, from the raw urgency of the beats (faster than the funk norm, and straighter, more rock) to the spindly synths (echoing Blondie and Elvis Costello and the Attractions). "When You Were Mine" could well be the greatest new-wave song ever written -- the lyric examined sexual jealousy and acquiescence with an eye as cold-yet-feeling as anything David Byrne ever did. It was also among R&B's finest moments -- unlike most of his skinny-tied peers, Prince could sing his ass off. "Dirty Mind" and, to a lesser degree, 1981's "Controversy" nailed a perfect détente between soul showmanship and postpunk paranoia, all guided -- as titles like "Jack U Off" indicated -- by the single most overactive libido in the history of popular music.

If the records made a name for Prince, it was his live shows that sealed the deal. His band was modeled on Sly & the Family Stone -- male and female, multiracial, young and exuberant, but with a surly edge that complemented that of the frontman. Their name, the Revolution, was first indicated in the cover art of 1983's "1999," the album where Prince's mastery of synthesizers and drum machines reached its zenith. The cold, mechanical textures of cuts such as "Automatic" and "Something in the Water (Does Not Compute)" would be picked up on by generations of Detroit techno and Chicago house producers, as would Prince's gift for injecting those steely soundscapes with warm-blooded funk. "1999" is loaded with anthems: the doomsday-party-time title cut, the amazing mid-tempo synth-rock of "Little Red Corvette," the cyber-rockabilly "Delirious" and the snarling strut of "Let's Pretend We're Married" -- and those are just the singles. His next album was 1984's "Purple Rain," the soundtrack to a semi-autobiographical movie (note to fact fans: Prince's real-life parents were, in fact, both black, despite the black father and white mother depicted in the film) and the juggernaut that sealed his place in history.

For anyone who was touched by its cultural dominance, it is still impossible to hear "Purple Rain" without a surge of awe. There are no weak cuts, though "Darling Nikki" has nothing on the earlier "Let's Pretend We're Married" and "Computer Blue" still feels weirdly unfinished. (It was originally a lot longer, though it seems safe to assume its editing hasn't robbed us of an unheard masterwork.) The title power-ballad still earns every prom dance it's ever inspired, "Let's Go Crazy" and "Baby I'm a Star" are still as show-stopping as intended, but aside from the irreducible "When Doves Cry" (no bass line, five weeks at No. 1), the masterstroke here is "The Beautiful Ones," a torch song that sounds like it's actually come into contact with lit matches.

Delicately trippy cover art and occasional sitar accompaniment aside, 1985's "Around the World in a Day" does not sound like it has come into contact with psychoactive narcotics. This is unsurprising -- Prince is a famous abstainer from drugs and alcohol -- but it does make "ATWIAD" seem somewhat like an uncertain genre exercise, though the singles "Raspberry Beret" and "Pop Life" were pretty damn nifty. Less so was Prince's second film, 1986's "Under the Cherry Moon," which he directed. Shot in black and white, it was an attempt to make a sophisticated romantic comedy, but the funniest stuff -- as in funny-astounding, not funny-ha-ha -- made it onto the soundtrack album "Parade," from the absurd steel-drum groove of "New Position" to the lithe, otherworldly rhythm bed into which luxuriated the absolutely perfect "Kiss," a No. 1 single. (If it had stopped at No. 2, someone should have instigated a riot.) As funky as "1999" and as dazedly psychedelic as "Around the World" had tried to be, "Parade" is the favorite album of a lot of Prince nuts, especially in Europe, where his scaling back of echo-heavy big-rock moves was especially appreciated.

Still, no Prince album is as beloved by his cult as 1987's "Sign 'O' the Times." Recorded mostly alone -- he'd disbanded the Revolution after the "Parade" tour -- "Sign" is as much the culmination of Prince's artistic ambition as "Purple Rain" is of his commercial zeal. He was writing indelible songs at a frightening clip by this time; the arrangements either pile it gloriously on ("Adore" is the apex of R&B slow-jamdom thanks to its lush walls of voices, wandering saxophone and tireless stop-start dynamics) or barely exist ("Forever in My Life" features a drum machine, a background-vocal screw-up the artist decided to leave alone, some acoustic guitar at the end and precious little else). There is no better glimpse of the many ways his musical mind works; throwaways such as "It" carry as much weight as showstoppers such as "Housequake," because each of the 16 cuts shade and buttress the others perfectly. If anyone tells you there is a better '80s album, laugh in their face. Hard.

Even before "Sign" had run its commercial course, though, Prince was beginning to grow restless, so instead of resting on his laurels, he recorded "The Black Album," which wasn't issued officially until 1994. It's a likeable throwaway of smutty funk, but after a dark night of the soul, Prince decided to shelve it and record the all-one-track "Lovesexy" instead. The inspiration was beginning to run out, though, as 1989's "Batman" demonstrated. 1990's "Graffiti Bridge" was another soundtrack, to Prince's fourth and last movie (the third had been a generally great concert film for "Sign 'O' the Times"). It's uneven, but there are interesting-in-historical-retrospect new jack swing rips galore and some good guest appearances by the Time, Mavis Staples and Tevin Campbell. There's also some rapping, a style Prince had mocked on "Dead on It" (from "The Black Album") and one he dove into more overtly with 1991's "Diamonds and Pearls" thanks to Tony M, a dancer-turned-MC who really shouldn't have. "D&P" was hugely uneven, but it contained Prince's biggest hits since "Sign," and some of his best ever: "Cream," "Gett Off" and the silky and political "Money Don't Matter 2 Nite." 1992's "I'm Going to Change My Name to the Title of This Album," also known as "Symbol" and "Prince XV," is looser and longer, with a silly series of skits relating to a "plot," but it was also good for some hits, the best of which are collected on the three-disc box set "The Hits/The B-Sides," released in 1993.

By that time, though, Prince had become a cult artist with occasional hits, rather than a mainstream success with cult appeal. He'd spend much of the rest of the '90s making uneven albums that are nevertheless better than their reputation (most notably 1995's "The Gold Experience" and 1996's three-disc "Emancipation"), marrying and quietly divorcing dancer Mayte (while weirdly hiding the facts of their stillborn child) and fighting with his record company, the low point of which, in publicity terms, came when he began writing "Slave" on his face. The name change didn't help his credibility much, either. Along with "The Black Album," Warner Bros. issued "The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale" to fulfill his contract; it's as indifferent as you'd expect. A release through Arista of 1999's unmemorable "Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic" didn't help its commercial chances any, and the next few Prince albums were either issued via the Internet or smaller distributors, as with 2001's "The Rainbow Children," which was heavily informed by Jehovah's Witness faith and lite-jazz sax from Najee, a combination precisely as off-putting as it sounds.

But in 2004, Prince teamed with Columbia to release "Musicology," a relatively ordinary album that nevertheless found the artist sounding more comfortable and playful than he had on record in years. (Live was a different question -- Prince has never been less than utterly commanding onstage, even during the wilderness years.) 2006's "3121" was a mixed bag, too; the lead single, "Te Amo Corazon," is a mild ballad with a Spanish guitar high in the mix, but it was swiftly followed by "Black Sweat," which reimagines the "Kiss" groove with a Neptunes update. Overall, it's proof that Prince has indeed returned as a vital, serious recording artist on his own terms. Now we get to see if this holds true on "Planet Earth."

Regardless of all the questioning over the years, one thing is for sure: Prince has made enough good music to last anyone a lifetime, and the idea of more to come is simply gravy.

Michaelangelo Matos is a renowned music journalist whose writing has appeared in Rolling Stone, Spin, Slate and many other publications. He is the author of the book "Sign O' The Times," an entry in the Continuum Press's acclaimed "33 1/3" series.