I first encountered the realm of Prince

I first encountered the realm of Prince on the shelves of the record department at our local Venture, Venture having been somewhere on the department store spectrum between Woolworth's and Kmart. They suddenly had a Prince section, and his first three LPs. The cover of "For You" struck me as pretty cheesy and basically generic, the cover of "Prince" looked super cheesy but also sorta uncommonly fearless, and the cover of "Dirty Mind" looked dark and serious and obviously revealing & made me think - wow, this guy does whatever he wants.
A week or so later, right after my twelfth birthday (I know this now because it was released on my twelfth birthday, and as much as I loved going to Venture I would almost certainly have not gone on my birthday) they also had his fourth LP. That was it; the cover of "Controversy" made me certain: this guy has got to be great. I still wasn't ready to drop my scant allowance on someone who I had only heard of by way of seeing his album art for first time in past few days (I recall I bought nothing on either of those, nor on most, of my very frequent trips to that record department) but soon I heard "Controversy" and knew the record cover gave me the right impression, the music was amazing.
I'll admit a year later I was annoyed when kids at my junior high who I didn't particularly think were cool or had good taste were into Little Red Corvette, but what the hell. There was that preteen year there where I had learned of this mysterious, funky, vastly talented recording artist. My musical taste and recognition of artistry were just forming, and I think highly informed by just how incredible the title track to that album was. Thanks, dead fellow I never met. I mean it.