Prince

Prince Rogers Nelson taught himself to play every instrument in his high school band, signed his first record deal at 17, and spent the late 1970s building toward the explosion of 1999 (1982) and then Purple Rain (1984) — the album and film that made him the dominant pop figure of the mid-1980s alongside Michael Jackson. Where Jackson aimed at maximum pop crossover, Prince aimed at maximum everything at once: funk, rock, R&B, pop, gospel, psychedelia.

The Minneapolis Sound he developed with producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis — taut synthesizer basslines, live drums mixed hard, hybrid funk-rock arrangements — became a studio blueprint that shaped artists from Janet Jackson to countless pop producers of the 1990s. “When Doves Cry,” “Let’s Go Crazy,” “Kiss,” and “Sign ‘O’ the Times” represent different facets of his range; “Purple Rain” stands alone as arena rock reconceived as emotional catharsis.

He was also his own label (Paisley Park), his own manager, and his own rebellion: his fight with Warner Bros. over ownership led him to legally change his name to an unpronounceable symbol, scrawl “slave” on his face in public, and ultimately win back his masters. He died in April 2016, of an accidental fentanyl overdose, at Paisley Park — the compound in Chanhassen, Minnesota that had been his studio and home.