“He had to have his privacy. He had to be completely alone. We did not have visitors in the studio”: After the brutal firing of his Purple Rain band, Prince worked in isolation to create a foreboding masterpiece

Prince in 1987.

There are key moments in most gifted artists’ careers when they instinctively recognise the need to make radical stylistic shifts in order to move forward creatively.

Throughout the ’80s, for example, certain artists stood out for defying convention and carving out their own unique creative paths – artists such as Peter Gabriel, Pixies, Kate Bush, Kraftwerk, Laurie Anderson, Run-DMC, Rakim, Cocteau Twins, The Cure, Brian Eno, Swans, Grace Jones, The Smiths, Sonic Youth and Talking Heads, to name just a few.