ABSTRACT
As highly ritualized events, replicating ordinary behaviour in the most spectacular ways, pop performances are disseminated in recorded or live form. Having fun is what pop music is all about. And in Prince’s performances the entertainment factor is high, resting on the sublime and the erotic. Fun is mediated through all his performances with great passion to a dramatic effect. Proceeding from this observation to an examination of his vocal sound, we want to consider in this chapter what makes his music so well-oiled, unrestrained and explicitly sensual.
