It is April 16, 2016. The streets are busy, and music lovers are crowding into local shops to celebrate Record Store Day.
Suddenly, a man rolls up to the sidewalk on a simple bicycle. He isn’t wearing a disguise. He doesn’t have a giant team of bodyguards clearing the path. It is Prince. He is a global megastar, but today, he is just a regular guy who loves music.
Prince Fans Pack Electric Fetus On Record Store Day
He pushes past the creaky doors of his absolute favorite record store, the Electric Fetus. He smiles at the counter staff, browses the deep cuts in the aisles, and picks out six specific compact discs.
Nobody in the shop had any idea that this would be Prince’s final public appearance. Just five days later, the music world would lose its king. Because he didn’t know his time was short, this wasn’t a sad, staged farewell. It was a beautiful glimpse of a legendary artist in a state of pure, childlike musical joy.
Prince walked up to the counter and bought six specific CDs. Music critics now look at this exact list as the ultimate blueprint of Prince’s musical DNA. It spans funk, jazz, rock, new wave, and gospel; the exact ingredients he spent his life mashing together to create his legendary sound.
His final choices were absolutely pristine:
- Stevie Wonder – Talking Book
- Joni Mitchell – Hejira
- Santana – Santana IV
- The Chambers Brothers – The Time Has Come
- Swan Silvertones – Inspirational Gospel Classics
- Missing Persons – The Best of Missing Persons
Right after his visit, Prince jumped onto his massive Twitter platform to support the independent shop. He sent out a happy tweet telling his millions of followers that he “ROCKED STEVIE’S TALKING BOOK ALL THE WAY HOME!” It was his last big shout-out to the power of a great album.
Why Was He Buying CDs Instead of Vinyl?
While the rest of the Record Store Day crowds were hunting for trendy vinyl reissues, Prince stuck strictly to compact discs.
The reason was wonderfully simple and practical. Prince wanted to listen to his new music immediately. His vehicle’s sound system was equipped with a classic CD player, so he needed physical discs to blast the music through his car speakers on the drive back to his mansion.
Prince was also a true, old-school studio purist. Throughout his entire career, he routinely listened to his own rough cuts, playbacks, and reference tracks on burned CDs. It was his absolute preferred format for mobile listening.
Remembering Prince – The Electric Fetus Record Store in Minneapolis
Opened all the way back in 1968, the Electric Fetus was the undisputed epicenter of Minneapolis counterculture. Prince loved this store for three big reasons.
First, he had immense hometown loyalty. Prince famously rejected the fake Hollywood lifestyle. He chose to live, record, and shop right in Minnesota. The Fetus was only a short, 30-minute drive from his legendary Paisley Park estate.
Second, the shop fiercely supported independent music. They ran a massive local consignment system that allowed underground local artists to sell their physical music. This anti-major-label philosophy matched Prince’s own rebellious spirit perfectly.
Finally, the store gave him the gift of privacy. The staff and the local shoppers treated Prince like a regular neighbor. He could push through the bins and look for deep cuts without being swarmed by crazy paparazzi. They gave him respect, and he gave them his loyalty.
Prince’s final outing reminds us of a beautiful truth. Before he was an icon, before he wore the purple sequins, and before he changed the world, Prince was just a kid who fell deeply in love with a song.
He started his journey as a nervous, talented boy in Minnesota, and he ended it in the exact same place, riding a bike to a local record store to buy a Stevie Wonder album. He showed us that no matter how big you get, you should never lose that simple and wild passion for the things that make your heart sing.