Album title Purple Rain
Released as: Prince and The Revolution
Label: Warner Bros
Recorded: August 1983 - March 1984
Release Date: June 25 1984
Producer: Prince
Studio(s): First Avenue (Minneapolis), The Warehouse (St. Louis, Minnesota), The Record Plant (New York), Sunset Sound (Hollywood)
Chart Position* 1/7
Singles Released: “When Doves Cry”, “Let’s Go Crazy”, “Purple Rain”, “I Would Die 4 U”, “Take Me With U”
Singles Chart Performance: WDC: 1@BH100, 1@USBR&BHHS, 1@USDCS, 4@UKC; LGC: 1@BH100, 1@USBR&BHHS, 1@USDCS, 7@UKC;
PR: 2@BH100, 3@USBR&BHHS, 1@USHRS, 6@UKC; IWD4U: 8@BH100, 11@USBR&BHHS, 50@USDCS, 58@UKC; TMWU: 25@BH100, 40@USBHBS, 7@UKC
Sales: 25,000,000 worldwide (yeah, that's 25
Million)
I expect most people in the world have heard this album (or at least the singles) and perhaps in ways it’s like trying to review
Dark Side of the Moon or
Hotel California or something, but I’m going to approach it in the same way I’ve done with all his albums so far, and assume someone reading (there’s someone
reading?!)
has not heard it. So…
The first sound we hear is a warbly, almost off-key organ before Prince’s voice declaims “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to get through this thing called life…” and slowly, as he talks on, taking the persona of a preacher and the organ rises and falls, with the odd
glissando, the percussion comes chugging in, then he lets loose on the guitar as “Let’s Go Crazy” kicks this monster off. A high-tempo, somewhat manic song (in keeping with its title) it rips and roars and bounces all over the place, and I guess it has to be said that he sort of emulates his great rival here with a few screams that sound right out of the Michael Jackson playbook, but he makes them his. That’s the only real similarity to the King of Pop though, as this is very much a Prince song, and you couldn’t see Jackson singing “Let’s go crazy, let’s get nuts/Work for the purple banana till they put us in the truck!” Great guitar solo here too - Prince don’t need EVH ripping off riffs on
his album!
There’s a big powerful finish and a clever link as he screams “Take me away!” and we pile into the next single, the much more restrained and yet uptempo “Take Me With U”, originally supposed to have been on the Apollonia 6 album. It’s a simple enough song with for I think the first time a duet, Prince sharing vocal duties with Apollonia, the synths squeaking and bopping away, though as on the previous album this is the only song on which Prince allows another person to sing lead with him, and in fact it’s Apollonia’s only contribution to the album. Wendy and Lisa do provide backing vocals for some of the other songs, but from here on in Prince takes it, as usual, solo. A lovely stilted little piano and sweeping synth takes in “The Beautiful Ones”, Prince at his most Smokey Robinsonesque on the first ballad on the album, slow, bouncy drumbeats and almost orchestral strings. Prince seems to emulate James Brown near the end with some real screamed histrionics which I’m sure the Godfather of Soul would have approved of.
Prince pays tribute to his father on “Computer Blue” by including part of a riff John wrote, and affording him a writing credit on the song, which is new-wave electronic mixed with funk and disco, a bouncing drumbeat as the tempo rises again, though not to the levels of the first two songs, and has never been one of my favourites. I wouldn’t say it’s the weakest track by any means (that’s next) but in terms of what I would skip when listening to this album it’s on the list, though that list is admittedly quite short. A sort of Lizzyesque guitar solo merging with an idea of proto-prog in ways and even a little AOR thrown in, “Computer Blue” certainly has a lot of ideas in there, but for my money they’re all jumbled up and the song comes out as confused and incoherent. Or not cohesive, at least.
“Darling Nikki” slows things down, not in a ballad-like way, and as I intimated above, if there’s a point where the album starts to flag, it may have started with “Computer Blue” but reaches its nadir with this track. Just never liked it. Lots of sharp growling guitar, a sparse drumbeat and plenty of howling, but not the kind of thing I enjoy personally. The backwards masking at the end is just ridiculous and entirely unnecessary. Luckily though that’s the end of any track that’s even less than perfect, and if you wanted this album to finish strongly, you need have no fears on that account as we kick off what was side two with the number one smash “When Doves Cry”. Who doesn’t know this song, or hasn’t at least heard it? One of the few pop or rock songs ever recorded without the assistance of bass, it’s a sparse, drum-machine-driven ode to a breakup that truly established Prince as a remarkable artist and a real hitmaker.
Even people who had somehow missed “1999” or “Little Red Corvette” sat up and took notice when this hit the charts, and it has hit single written all over it. The vocal harmonies - all sung by Prince - the references to his parents, the sexual imagery, the Depeche Mode-like drumbeat, all marked this as a real step forward in the evolution of Prince, and the addition of string-like synths really add something to the track, to say nothing of the rocking guitar solo and the screams at the end. Superb. Couldn’t be anything else, really. After that, it’s hard perhaps to rate “I Would Die 4 U”, but it’s a good uptempo pop song that rushes along breathlessly, with rolling drums and handclaps, nodding back to the best of seventies soul like Earth, Wind & Fire and Chic with another irresistible hook. Prince’s vocal here is quite understated, certainly compared to his screeching and howling on the previous song.
You know, it seems to me (and I never noticed this before: odd) that the melody for “I Would Die 4 U” segues directly into and mirrors the next track, “Baby I’m a Star”, making it sound quite similar when it gets going. It is different, but there’s a definite sameness about the two. There’s certainly a real sense of exuberance about it, and you get the feeling Prince realises that this is the album to make him that star he’s been dreaming of being. And so it will. A really effusive guitar solo rounds this track out and takes us to the closer. You know what to expect.
Perhaps not the ballad to end all ballads, but certainly the ballad to end all Prince ballads, and a power one into the bargain, the closer and title track is pure blues and rock, a big echoing guitar chord opening it, drumbeat slow and steady, Prince’s voice soulful and sad, but triumphant too. The strings are used to gorgeous effect here, and for once I’m going to say that its nine-minute length is justified, very much so. It’s very much a song of testifying, an apology and an invitation, a statement of intent, proud and humble somehow at the same time, with a vocal delivery from the main man that just quivers and shivers with emotion, and feels, well, real. The beautiful, evocative solo at the end goes on for almost five minutes, and I could listen to five more, and then some. It’s telling that as I listen to this on Spotify it shows as having almost three hundred million plays, the most of any track on the album, including the singles, and I’m sure would have more if Prince had not been so cagey about allowing his music to be released to the streaming platform. As it is, it’s clearly the favourite song people listen to from this album, and by some considerable way. I wouldn’t argue against that. Possibly one of the greatest album closers of all time. Prince, to use a football analogy, leaves nothing on the field, gives it his all, and sounds drained, physically and emotionally by the end, which I feel I am too. Almost a religious experience, and I don’t even believe in God.
But perhaps I believe in Prince.
TRACK LISTING
Let’s Go Crazy
Take Me With U
The Beautiful Ones
Computer Blue
Darling Nikki
When Doves Cry
I Would Die 4 U
Baby I’m a Star
Purple Rain
With this album, Prince had finally, emphatically arrived, and he had done so in his way, on his terms, and by following his own instincts and believing in his own talents. The public backed up his confidence in himself: the album sold so well it remained not only in the charts, but at number one for six months, easily outstripping the sales of
1999 in a few weeks. It was the biggest success Prince had had with any recording, and with “When Doves Cry”, released in advance of the album five weeks earlier, nestling comfortably at number one also, he really had the world at his feet.
And the movie hadn’t even been released yet!
However, as per usual, all was not well in Paisley Park Paradise, and Apollonia was getting tired of Prince’s controlling ways. She even claimed he ordered her to eat what he did, promise not to date anyone until the movie came out (even though technically their own relationship was all but over) and do as he said. She revealed later “he wanted to make everyone a clone of himself.” He wanted her to study the Bible, and made her give up the relationship she was having with Van Halen’s Dave Lee Roth. Cracks were showing, and widening, when the movie was previewed to a special audience, among whom numbered somebody called Jackson. Typically stealing the limelight and focussing all the attention on himself, he was late, and left before the movie ended. Questioned outside by reporters as to what he thought of it, he shrugged.
“The music’s okay, I guess. But I don’t like Prince. He looks mean, and I don’t like the way he treats women. He reminds me of some of my relatives. And not only that,” he added.
“That guy can’t act at all. He’s really not very good.”
You have to wonder, when Jackson says “he”, is the King of Pop referring to the character or the actor? If the former, he
does realise this is a movie, doesn’t he? I mean, he knows this is
fiction, even if based loosely on truth? He knows Prince isn’t actually like that, as such? If, on the other hand, he is talking about Prince, in a context outside of the movie, and just saying generally that he doesn’t approve of how Prince, and not the fictional “kid” he plays, treats women, then why bring that up in an interview about how much he enjoyed, or didn’t enjoy the movie? Would you, for instance, say, having seen a Mel Gibson movie, “yeah I enjoyed it but I don’t agree with his comments about Jews”? Why would you? And “He looks mean”? That’s the voice of a child speaking. Mean is a word usually used to describe a badass (“that dude looks mean, I wouldn’t cross him!”) but when children say it it’s a pouting sulk (“You’re mean, I hate you!”) and again, Mister Jackson, it’s a fu
cking movie! He has to be talking about the Kid here, and yes, the character is moody and withdrawn and sullen, but so fu
cking what?
That could, I guess, be read as jealousy, as Prince was upstaging him by doing something he had never done (the video for “Thriller” was a mini-movie, yes, but this was a full one, a proper one) or he could have been remembering the embarrassment Prince put him through at the James Brown gig. Maybe he resented
Purple Rain taking top spot and emulating his
Thriller. Either way, his comments read to me as petulant - nobody would ever claim Jackson could act; dance, yes, certainly, but act? Not sure why he felt qualified to criticise Prince’s acting when he himself couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag. Remember the opening for “Thriller”? Hardly Academy Award material, was it? They also go to show that while in another world they might have been friends, even collaborated on something (how cool would that have been?) they were now not enemies, but certainly rivals, and would work to best one another.
It surely would not have helped matters that Prince later attended one of the Jackson 5 (now simply The Jacksons) reunion concerts, labelled “The Victory Tour”, and proved to be almost as popular as Michael, with girls screaming and running after him when they realised who he was. Warner had now released the second single from the album, and people had taken the message in “Let’s Go Crazy” to heart, and sent it to number one, making it his second record to hit the top, and both from the same album. Jackson may have had coverage with his brothers and his own top-selling album, but Prince was about to have his movie released.
And there was nothing the King of Pop could do about that.