Prince performances highlight 'Saturday Night Live' tribute
The indelible mark Prince left on music rippled well into the weekend, with tributes and remembrances from the likes of Rihanna, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen and the sum total of Coachella. Saturday Night Live honored the late artist with an emotional clip show highlighting Prince's SNL appearances through the years.
"Other people may have been on the show more times or performed more frequently, but there was always something different about a Prince performance," Jimmy Fallon said at the start of the show.
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"It was special. It was an event. It was Prince."
The special SNL episode ran through some of the show's memorable Prince moments over the years, starting with the young 22-year-old artist's first appearance, way back in 1981.
Here's "Party Up," off the 1980 album Dirty Mind.
Prince returned to Saturday Night Live in 1989, joining the show's cast for their 15th anniversary celebration. He performed "Electric Chair," one of the songs from his Batman soundtrack.
Prince didn't return to the SNL stage until Feb. 4, 2006, when he performed two songs as the evening's musical guest. "Fury" and "Beautiful, Loved and Blessed (ft. Tamar)" both come from the 2006 album, 3121.
Prince came back to SNL one more time (not including the epic SNL40 jam), in 2014, with his band 3RDEYEGIRL. For almost nine minutes, Prince rocked out to a medley featuring "Clouds" (from Art Official Age), "Marz" and "Another Love" (both from PlectrumElectrum).
The SNL special didn't focus solely on musical performances, however.
The show's cast of comedians turned in all sorts of Prince impersonations over the years, but few are more memorable than Fred Armisen's. His series of "The Prince Show" sketches -- featuring Maya Rudolph as Beyonce -- poked fun at the artist's mysterious, gleefully weird persona.
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Adam Rosenberg is a Senior Games Reporter for Mashable, where he plays all the games. Every single one. From AAA blockbusters to indie darlings to mobile favorites and browser-based oddities, he consumes as much as he can, whenever he can.Adam brings more than a decade of experience working in the space to the Mashable Games team. He previously headed up all games coverage at Digital Trends, and prior to that was a long-time, full-time freelancer, writing for a diverse lineup of outlets that includes Rolling Stone, MTV, G4, Joystiq, IGN, Official Xbox Magazine, EGM, 1UP, UGO and others.Born and raised in the beautiful suburbs of New York, Adam has spent his life in and around the city. He's a New York University graduate with a double major in Journalism and Cinema Studios. He's also a certified audio engineer. Currently, Adam resides in Crown Heights with his dog and his partner's two cats. He's a lover of fine food, adorable animals, video games, all things geeky and shiny gadgets.
