Prince^†

Purple Rain hit the summer of 1984 like it owned the place. The album held the Billboard #1 spot for 24 consecutive weeks, 'When Doves Cry' sold more copies than any other single that year, and he became the first artist to simultaneously top US charts in film, album, and single. Six years earlier, he was playing every instrument on a debut album nobody bought. The crossover worked because Purple Rain landed on formats that had never touched him before: rock ballad radio, pop, even country.

He died without a will, which turned into a spectacular mess. The IRS valued his estate at $163.2 million; the court-appointed administrator said $82.3 million. Six certified heirs fought over the gap for years while Paisley Park became a museum run by Graceland Holdings. The cruel irony: he'd just won. After writing 'SLAVE' on his cheek for years to protest Warner Bros., he got his masters back in 2014. He died owning his catalog. The estate battle promptly made that fact irrelevant.

In 2003, a woman in Eden Prairie, Minnesota opened her door and found him standing there, wanting to talk about Jehovah's Witnesses. He'd converted in 2001. That same person wrote 'Nothing Compares 2 U' for Sinéad O'Connor, 'Manic Monday' for the Bangles, and 'I Feel for You' for Chaka Khan, then quietly knocked on strangers' doors in suburban Minneapolis. His legal first name was Prince, named after his father's jazz trio. He didn't invent the persona. He was born into it.

Investigators found counterfeit Vicodin tablets laced with fentanyl throughout Paisley Park after his death, but never established how he obtained them. Carver County prosecutors closed the case without charges in April 2018. His physician, Dr. Michael Schulenberg, settled civil charges for $30,000 after writing an oxycodone prescription in a bodyguard's name intended for Prince. Pantone released a custom purple called 'Love Symbol #2' in his honor in 2017.