The Best & Weirdest Pictures Of Prince 4 U

The symbol for "scrumptious"...

​Today is Prince's 53rd birthday, making him just 4 days older than Rocks Off's dad, which puts things in perspective. When Prince was wearing an assless catsuit on televsion and writing "slave" on his face, Craig Sr. was teaching his son how 2 throw a baseball.

It's hard 2 put in2 words how influential and enigmatic Prince is. From his persona 2 his songs, he has helped shape the past 30 years of popular music. He's influenced people like Trent Reznor, Andre 3000, Michael Jackson, and even LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy, and has made some of the most entertaining musical movies out there such as Purple Rain. He was elected 2 the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame N 2004, the first year he was eligible.

Rocks Off has never seen Prince live, but hopefully he will be bringing his lengthy "mini-residencies" 2 the middle territories of the United States. We would even drive 2 Dallas or New Orleans 2 see him, and have the best time jamming his entire catalog on the way 2 the show. OK, his newer stuff is sketchier, but we can deal with it.

Our favorite Prince song is probably "Controversy," the title track from the album of the same name, and our favorite Prince album is a tie between the double Sign O' The Times or, of course, Purple Rain. And yes, we still have a cassette copy of his Batman soundtrack. Seriously, look back at that 4 a second and realize that Prince wrote the music 4 a Batman film.

That would have been like Kanye West doing the music 4 The Dark Knight, not that West is like Prince in any way, except they both have illusions of grandeur and can wear pink and purple with style.

We collected some of the best and weirdest Prince pictures we could find, from his early Afro days up to the most androgynously sexy pictures from the late '80s and everything else in between.

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