Purple Rain (1984) - Prince & The Revolution

It’s honestly hard to fathom a time when Prince wasn’t an absolute superstar, yet in 1984 he was only a legend to those in the know. Sure he’d had some chart success with all time classic hits like “1999”, “Little Red Corvette” and “I Wanna Be Your Lover” but none of those loomed quite as large on their original release as they do today. In Minneapolis, the city he called home, he was second to none. If you loved funk music, he was already an icon, but to most of America he was still a relative unknown, or an also-ran at best, unable to compete with Michael Jackson or any other dominant pop star. But, Prince was easily the most ambitious musician of his era, perhaps of all time, and after being an underground sensation for six years, with this album he made his play for big pop stardom, and he did it his way. Remarkably, instead of selling out, he made the pop scene bend to his will and after 1984, a lot of pop songs would bear the Prince sound, whether they be written by him, his proteges or his countless imitators. In fact, this album was a bit of a rebirth for Prince. After five albums, most of which were performed in their entirety by Prince alone, here he debuts his backing band, The Revolution, an air tight outfit that would take his synth-funk sound and give it the elasticity and grit of a live band as well as add more pop sensibilities to the mix. While Prince’s previous album, the double LP synth-funk opus 1999 (1982) which would write the book on great Minneapolis sound funk music had featured an early version of The Revolution, the band’s line up had solidified on this one, with Wendy Melvoin joining on guitar alongside Prince and providing the band’s new secret weapon, and for the first time they are given equal billing. Prince had paid his dues, creating five albums, the last three of which could all be considered timeless classics cementing him as a musical genius, but the commercial breakthrough had evaded him, always being a bit too sexual and avant-garde for the mainstream. Rarely is it that a performer can fully break into the mainstream with their most successful album while still retaining all that made them great, making almost no concessions to the charts, yet Prince achieved that handily, just making his songs a bit shorter and less explicit. In fact he adds to his sound in ways that were unimaginable before, adding in more rock, pop and soul textures than ever before while still remaining the funkiest musician on the planet. His sonic palette had never been this wide, pointing to future triumphs like his next four records, but with the best pop hooks of his career. To be perfectly honest, it can be hard to view this album objectively as it is definitively my favorite album of all time, but judged by any measure this is clearly one of the most consistently brilliant and groundbreaking albums of all time, pop or not. It deservedly rocketed him to the top of the charts and made him music royalty overnight. Prince was a one of a kind star and this album proved that in spades.

The record kicks off with what could be considered the greatest album opener of all time, the masterful rock and roll ecstasy of “Let’s Go Crazy”. Prince had opened all of his previous albums with a certified classic track with “1999”, “Controversy” and “Dirty Mind” all setting the tone for each respective album, yet “Let’s Go Crazy” is different, not only because it isn’t a title track, but because it is far afield of the synth-funk workouts he typically chose to start with. This is, instead, one of the most fiery guitar rock songs of all time, with nasty fills, riff and a face melting solo that would make Eddie Van Halen jealous, definitively proving that Prince was the guitar god of the decade, following in the footsteps of Jimi Hendrix’s fuzzed out psychedelic wizardry while still being distinctly himself. The song opens with the iconic monologue that Prince delivers in a stirringly spiritual mode, blending the sacred with the profane in a way that he was so skilled at. The monologue has a sense of play to it, but when he rhapsodizes about the afterlife it never fails to send shivers down the spine over the chilly synth chords and gorgeous organ fills. Prince takes you to church for the song’s first minute, before the stuttering Linn drum backbeat comes in, giving it a funky flair and chunky, hair raising guitar licks and it builds to an early climax where Prince delivers his orgasmic shriek of “Go crazy! Punch a higher floor!” and the entire band falls in for maximum effect, turning the sermon into a ballsy rock and roll rave up. The song is an absolute monster showcase for the raw power possessed by The Revolution, with Bobby Z turning in a hard hitting, pulse pounding performance behind the drums, Lisa Coleman delivering her always melodic and bright keyboard work alongside the funkier keys of Dr. Fink and Brown Mark’s bass playing is as funky as can be, yet the song belongs to the utterly captivating dual lead guitar performance from Prince and Wendy Melvoin, who play off of each other to brilliant effect. Prince in particular delivers the most inspired, raucous guitar shredding of his career, completely obliterating any self-proclaimed rock band of the time, with this song making Van Halen sound like Sonny & Cher. The song is a face melting rocker, yet Prince doesn’t forget to pack in some of the album’s stickiest hooks in the bright, singalong chorus where he gets the whole band to chant along and harmonize, with Wendy and Lisa providing a sugary, sweet tone that contrasts beautifully with Prince’s manic rock screams. The song doesn’t lumber at all, feeling much more spritely than most hard rock due to its emphasis on the bouncy keyboard hooks to keep the groovy airy. The chorus’s off-kilter optimism perfectly offsets the apocalyptic verses which spotlight Prince’s paranoid, impressionistic lyrics, with this song feeling like an even more frenzied take on the “if I’m gonna die I’m gonna listen to my body tonight” theme of “1999” but in a more spiritually minded context. The song itself is brilliant, yet Prince steals the show from the band twice over by delivering two blistering solos, with the first showing off his skills at quick fire riffing that make Eddie Van Halen sound slow and methodical in the song’s funky breakdown before the ecstatic, nigh orgasmic bridge where Prince sees the light. The song wouldn’t be half as iconic though without the utterly enthralling solo Prince plays to close the song, which in a career full of show stopping instrumental performances could be called his best. He delivers a barrage of absolutely nasty, high notes over the rhythm section’s descending riff which sounds as if the entire band is crashing into hell in the best way possible, which alone would place him among the all-time great guitarists, but the closing blast of fuzz and his shouts of “Take me away!” are pure gospel in terms of sheer emotional catharsis. The song puts you through the ringer in four minutes, but not in a draining way, instead I always have to control the tendency to want to rewind the song and play it back over and over again. The song is a blast of musical endorphins that is hard to top. For any other artist starting with a track this monstrously good would be detrimental, making the rest of the album fall short, yet with Prince he vaults over this ridiculously high bar with ease, topping this performance twice over on the rest of the LP. A better track one can’t be found.

The album cools off for a moment with the sugary sweet ballad “Take Me With U”, a duet with Apollonia, who played Prince’s love interest in the Purple Rain movie, which this album is the soundtrack to, yet the song works even better when divorced from the film as both a brilliant, head over heels love song and as Prince’s first foray into the realm of psychedelic pop which would dominate his follow up album Around the World in a Day (1985). The duet is far from being equally weighted, with Apollonia being a relatively forgettable duet partner, with her coy sweetness missing the magic that made his other duet partners like Sheila E. and Sheena Easton shine, so she feels almost more akin to a backing vocalist with a few ad-libs here and there, but Prince absolutely shines vocally delivering one of his most tender performances. The harmony drenched choruses and bridges are like candy for any pop fan, yet the vocals play a secondary role to the gorgeously layered arrangement which is defined by the swirling string arrangement from Clare Fischer and Wendy and Lisa’s captivating psychedelic production touches from the chiming finger cymbals to the warm, plush keyboard work. This song would easily thrive as an instrumental, but Prince’s vocals and his lyrics which add more quips and asides than most love songs only add to the sheer joyful sugar rush that is this song. Wendy and Lisa’s influence looms large over this one, with their psychedelic additions making it soar, yet Prince makes it decidedly his own, being the force of personality he is. The song also makes for a marked change of pace for Prince’s writing which up to this point had focused much more on sexuality than romance, but here he switches into a more earnest side with ease, while still making room for a few clever asides. The song is one I used to overlook, but with every listen I find something new in the mix to fall in love with. A triumph of pop production.

The album delivers its first devastating emotional climax and staggering knockout performance with the captivating “The Beautiful Ones”, which is by far the best Prince non-single cut. The song is achingly sparse, opening with little more than atmospheric synth pulses, minimalistic piano trills and a low drum line over which Prince gives a dazzling, powerfully raw vocal performance which is pure, aural magic. The song is a masterpiece of building from raw, sparse elements to create a soaring climax. Prince’s performance is a thing of unadulterated beauty, where he turns in a fragile falsetto croon in the song’s opening moments, delivering platitudes of undying love for his partner, who is torn between him and another man. Lyrically, Prince is poetic as he’s even been, weaving a tale of domestic bliss in the lush dreamscape of music but with a desperate, keening edge that makes it feel particularly vital and vigorous. The song then transitions into a spine tingling spoken word interlude about the titular “Beautiful Ones” and how his quest for perfection is constantly thwarted. While the song’s first moments are gorgeous in and of itself, it is the final two minutes where it soars and becomes something almost otherworldly in nature and in terms of raw power. Prince lets his vocals rip in a way that embodies catharsis more than anything else I’ve ever heard, on the level of John Lennon’s primal scream album Plastic Ono Band (1970), yet his vocals remaining beautiful through the strain and ugliness of pushing for those screamed high notes. The pure, raw passion that Prince gives his vocal performance is unreal, it must be listened to in order to be believed. He hits unimaginably high notes in a full on unbridled shriek, pleading with his lover to choose him. The song comes to an even higher plateau when the entire band kicks back in, with Prince and Wendy’s churning guitar licks add even more drama to the whole affair, which pairs gorgeously with his ecstatic vocal runs, hitting a dizzying climax. His screams of passion cut right to the heart no matter how many times you’ve given it a listen. The song is a powerhouse in every sense of the word in both a performance and compositional sense. Prince has always been an unparalleled performer, yet this is earth shattering in its force. The song ends as quietly and unassumingly as it began, with twinkling synths and piano lines winding it down. The rise and fall of the song is masterful. A five minute tour-de-force that is the textbook definition of a well-earned musical and emotional climax.

The album segues into the raw, funk-rock workout “Computer Blue”, a rollicking piecemeal song cut together out of an over twenty minute Revolution jam into four minutes of pure guitar-driven magic from Prince. It lacks in comparison to the rest of the material because it is mainly an instrumental throwdown that sidelines Prince’s masterful vocals for the majority of its runtime, yet he still shines delivering multiple solos showing off his devilish guitar skills, ranging from face-melting shredding to chicken grease funk and even some jazz-inspired riffing inspired by Prince’s jazz pianist father. After the playfully erotic introduction from Wendy and Lisa the band comes crashing in, showing off their chops and cohesion as a monster unit with this infectious, chunky robo-funk groove. “Computer Blue” vaguely resembles a song in the first half, with Prince tossing off a hooky vocal melody which keens and swells with energy, but the real meat of the song comes in the sheer steamrolling funk instrumentation. The song effortlessly blends funky dance music with psychedelic rock in a way that only George Clinton and Sly Stone ever did as well as this, with the jazz touches making it even more of a gumbo of Prince’s best musical influences. While the song is masterful in its chopped up four minute edit, the song shines at its best on the “Hallway Speech Version” (a dazzling twelve minute workout on the recently released Deluxe version of the album). While I adore this song as the best showcase for The Revolution on the album, I can’t help but feel that a few of the B-Sides from this era, namely the more structured funk throwdowns “17 Days” or “Erotic City” would fit better. But if you take in all the material Prince cut during 1983-1984, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine Purple Rain having enough brilliant material for a double if not triple LP. Yet, no matter how hard I try, I can’t imagine anything else in its place. Quite possibly the song that’s grown on me the most after countless listens. Far from filler, this is Prince at his funkiest.

The first side ends with the album’s most controversial moment, the deliriously down and dirty “Darling Nikki”, a raw funk-rocker that has Prince as his most devilishly kinky, full of references to masturbation, sex toys and BDSM before that was remotely acceptable on a mainstream record. It was so scandalous that it elicited the wrath of Tipper Gore and almost single handedly gave birth to the Parental Advisory Label, made even funnier by the fact that almost the entirety of the 1999 album being far more overtly filthy. The song is a relentless, bludgeoning slice of guitar rock with Prince at the helm, delivering one of his funkiest, strutting, kinky vocal performances, dizzily recounting his kinky night in with Nikki, the song’s titular sex fiend. The lyrics on this song are outright lascivious and cleverly funny, while still remaining titillatingly sexy, never veering into cartoonish like many of his imitators. Prince was singularly good at toeing the line between sexy and funny while managing to keep the song firmly erotic. The song is an instrumental marvel featuring an off-kilter, throbbing groove with a backbeat that swoons and sounds as dizzy as the post-coital Prince, who can barely even walk after this blistering sexual encounter. While the rhythm section turns in a blistering performance, the song as always belongs to Wendy and Prince, who deliver some chunky funk-rock guitar shredding, reminiscent of early 70s Funkadelic’s heaviest psychedelic moments but less spaced out and more head banging. Prince’s goofy lust drenched vocals sport more of the orgasmic shrieks that only he can do. Other than the opener, this is by far the band’s best performance of the LP, with the ripping heavy, riotous rock and roll, jamming over the woozy, loping beat. The song comes to a staggering close with a raucous guitar fuzz drenched coda, resulting in some of the most electric music on the LP. The side ends with an out of nowhere outro with Prince back-masking his vocals to deliver a psychedelic quasi-spiritual message that sounds like something off of a late-period Beatles or Pink Floyd record. It feels more spooky than gospel, but the harmony-drenched vocals feel beautiful in an almost alien way. A fittingly forward thinking end to a perfect side of vinyl.

While Side One is a nearly flawless affair, Side Two somehow blows it out of the water in terms of consistency and ahead of its time brilliance. It opens with what could be seen as Prince’s defining statement, The Purple One’s true #1 breakthrough single, “When Doves Cry”, possibly the most uniquely weird song to ever top the Billboard charts, in a way that only Prince could do. He begins with a chunky blast of guitar fuzz before the slamming funk groove crashes in, laid down by the band with Bobby Z’s throbbing, tense drums playing wonderfully off of the bouncy, breezy synth and keyboard work from Lisa and Dr. Fink. It is easily the funkiest song to ever exist without a bass line, it truly doesn’t need one, it would only clutter the groove. The song is an exercise in layering and minimalism while still feeling full voiced, but never overwhelming. The song is ridiculously tight, with each distinct element adding to the one of a kind, off-kilter funk groove, with the drums locked in, the keyboard providing a lighter element and a wicked, nasty haze of guitar dominating the mix. The instrumental alone would be a knockout, but Prince delivers the album’s most evocative, imagery laden lyrics with the verses featuring these somewhat abstract, impressionist verses sporting some memorable images (I’ve always been partial to “An ocean of violets in bloom”, which paints a gorgeous picture in barely a sentence). The song is an opus, with Prince openly exploring how his dysfunctional family upbringing has affected his romantic relationship, which is on the rocks, and his burning desire to be loved and recognized for who he is. The song is a six minute tour-de-force, with each section delivering musical bliss that feels both satisfying and deeply unsettling, reflecting Prince’s state of mind during the song. It is almost difficult to write about due to its utter uniqueness, you can’t compare this to anything else, even in Prince’s vast catalog. He blends effortlessly singalong hooks and melodies, with the chorus features one of his most memorable melodies, ascending and descending along with its emotional arc in a gorgeous use of text painting, drenched in three part harmonies from Wendy, Lisa and Prince. The mix of hard rock muscle and spry, danceable funk is the perfect representation of Prince’s fusion minded approach to this album. The song is a masterpiece of composition and arrangement, with no detail out of place. It even wraps up nicely for a briefer, four minute single edit before exploding once more for delightful diversions from a distinctly European sounding synth keyboard solo flourish (reminiscent of his French touches and accordion that would inform the Euro-soul of Parade (1986)), a gritty, elliptical guitar solo that punches hard and rapturous vocal ad-libs, with more wordless vocal hooks than I can count. The song has an outro, laden with synths, as gripping as its guitar-centric introduction, but not before Prince expertly layers various vocal hooks and chants atop one another like George Clinton in its prime. Just describing it in words doesn’t do this song justice. This way, it sounds like a jumble, but if you give it a listen, and I urge you to, it is a masterpiece of fusion between pop, rock, funk, soul and something entirely unique to Prince’s genius. If you only make time to listen to a single song off of this album, I implore you to make it this one. Easily one of the greatest songs ever written. A perfect six minutes.

The album continues with another delightful hit single, the synth-pop meets funk trifle “I Would Die 4 U”, a light, airy ebullient song which might be the most immediately catchy, hook-ridden compositions on the album. The bright keyboards and insistent synth pulses provide a lush, yet propulsive, driving track over which Prince delivers a beautiful, upbeat performance. The contrast in this song between the lightness of the keys and synths and the absolutely insistent, hard driving bass and drum track, which might be the most pounding and propulsive on the record is what makes it soar. It’s perhaps one of the most aerodynamic songs ever recorded, with it barreling towards you at top speed. It is a thoroughly weird pop song when that is compounded with Prince’s abstract, spiritually tinged lyrics that liken him to a messiah like quality, bridging with the near obsessive romantic lyrics where he convinces his partner that he isn’t her lover, he’s here to take her to a higher echelon of consciousness, the first appearance of a concept that would be a mainstay in Prince’s 1990s work. He takes many cues on this song from the MTV conquering New Romantic style of pop, especially with the bright keyboard tones and synth solos, yet the bass line could raze a city, lending this airy pop song some real heft, blending funk with new wave in a way that would become far more popular in the latter half of the decade. Prince leans into the almost alien nature of the lyrics (“I am something that you’ll never comprehend” works just as well as a description of the man itself as it does as a lyric in this song) delivering a performance that is light and bouncy yet urgent, embracing the weight of the lyrics. This song might be one of the most influential on the album, with its prescient blend of gospel, funk and synth-pop in an endlessly engaging way, with acts like The Eurythmics and others following in its footsteps. This piece very easily evades genre categorization with it being too odd and angular for straight pop and too new wave-y for funk and too funky for MTV weirdness, particularly with the punchy dance breakdown that comes in the last half of the track. The song’s only flaw it that it’s barely three minutes in length, with other live versions drawing it out to the more epic status it deserves, but for being so short it punches well above its weight class and segues perfectly into the next song.

In a just world, the following song, “Baby I’m a Star” would have been this album’s fifth smash hit (the same applies to the similarly pop-ready “Take Me With U”), but as it stands it is a steamroller of an album track, radiating pure joy and optimism, mixed with Prince’s cocksure, in your face delivery telling you straight up that he’s gonna be the biggest star on the planet. The statement of purpose comes in the form of a sugary sweet pop meets slamming funk with the infectious blend of Lisa and Dr. Fink’s bright, soaring keyboards and the throbbing groove laid down by the rhythm section. The song practically screams “hit single” in a way that little else here does, with it being a wonderfully fun stab at a pop crossover, which is why it boggles my mind that it wasn’t a single release, yet as a blast of pop joy it is nigh unparalleled. Lyrically, this is Prince at his hungriest, showing off at every angle that while “you might not know him now”, you will soon, and judging by how assured and drenched in charisma his performance is here, it’s hard not to get swept up in the sentiment, as if you weren’t already acutely aware of that by this point in the album. The song is built off of another deliciously bright synth licks and keyboards mixed with an absolutely monstrous, cracking funk groove from Bobby Z and Brown Mark. The song’s charm is mainly due to Prince’s sheer star power, though the melodies are perfect to sing along particularly during the choruses which feature some blossoming, gorgeous harmonies from Wendy and Lisa, who also contribute the charming “Newsies” styled intro announcing Prince’s arrival on the charts. The song is hilarious too, from a lyrical perspective, with Prince playing a cartoonishly indulgent and cocky version of himself that sometimes feels like a less horny version of the caricature songs he’d write for Morris Day and The Time, but more focused on his hit-making prowise. The song might be the most deliriously fun, replayable four minutes on the record, and during my first listen it was one of my absolute favorites. It’s a great entryway to Prince’s deep cuts and while it doesn’t do anything drastically different than anything else on the album, it boasts several killer hooks and infectious musical passages and an effortless Prince vocal and is one of his most charming songs ever. A surefire smash.

Prince has always been great at closing albums and he’s always been great at picking title songs for albums, with all of them being great examples of the sound of that particular album, especially “1999”, “Dirty Mind” and “Controversy”, yet all of those tracks led off their respective albums. Purple Rain marks a new chapter in Prince’s career in more ways than one, but one of the most notable is how this record closes with its title song, the transcendent, gorgeous power ballad, which instead of closing the album with a steamy romantic number like 1999 it is an anthem unlike anything else he’d ever record, though he would try time and again to recapture its inimitable magic. It would really be unthinkable to believe that Prince could close this album on a stronger note than he opened it, but “Purple Rain” is a song like no other, a magnificent, powerfully gorgeous ballad, which is startlingly simple yet strikes a profound, deeply emotional chord that feels almost primal. Prince’s vocal performance here is spine tingling in its emotional resonance, but as opposed to “The Beautiful Ones”, he eschews vocal theatrics for a pure, uncut heart wrenchingly simple vocal, singing the melody with his crystal clear voice in a way that wounds every single time. The melody line is utterly breathtaking in its simplicity, with Prince’s vocals pairing beautifully with the central, achingly emotional guitar riff, minimal Linn drums and light, melancholic piano alongside the stirring, magical string arrangement that all comes together to create an arrangement that is full of sweeping grandeur without ever becoming saccharine. The song’s beauty comes in waves, with it only being three verses and choruses, all of which build in intensity and grace as Prince’s performance becomes more and more impassioned. The song is eight minutes long, yet it doesn’t feel it at all, it could go on for twenty more and it would still feel brief. The extended instrumental outro alone is a thing of beauty, melding orchestral strings and moving, emotional guitar work melded with the wordless vocal hooks from the entire band, weaving a tapestry of hooks. The song’s live performances would sometimes stretch up to twenty minutes in length, like the one on his recently released 1985 live record from the Purple Rain Tour, and while those are resonant and emotionally palpable, this version remains the best of the bunch due to its gorgeous production. The past three songs were all recorded live at a local Minneapolis club, but Prince’s production job elevated them to a higher level, mixing the electricity and energy of live performance with the perfectionism of the studio. The song is not only a perfect closer, with the strings sweeping you away just in time to press play on the album again, but a perfect encapsulation of how Prince effortlessly fuses rock, pop, soul and emotionally wrought balladry that is simple and streamlined, making it all the more gut wrenching. Prince delivers several more mind bogglingly beautiful guitar solos, but he never makes this song a showcase for his chops, it all adds to the song’s aural experience. The song closes more akin to a gospel song than a rock ballad with the angelic harmonies of the band flying away into the night, drowning in well deserved applause as Prince’s profound, extended guitar solo hits its climax, akin to the best work of Eddie Hazel or Jimi Hendrix in terms of raw emotion. The album closes just as it opens, with a truly perfect, inimitable masterpiece of a song.

Over his forty plus year career, Prince delivered countless albums worthy of praise and more masterpieces than nearly any artist in the history of pop music. Only Stevie Wonder’s 70s run and The Beatles’ 60s run can compare to the incredible streak of brilliance Prince experienced in the 80s, but this record stands tall above them. While 1999 may be a funkier, more fun listen, Dirty Mind and Controversy might be more thrilling and revolutionary, Around the World in a Day and Parade might be more innovative in terms of genre fusion, and the brilliant Sign ‘o’ the Times might be a more sprawling masterpiece with more highlights, Prince never made another album where every single second of music is utterly breathtaking and extraordinary. Forty five minutes of musical perfection. I’ve tried my best to be objective with this album, but I’m sure to an extent I’ve failed. I can’t divorce this record from how much it has influenced my love of music. Without this album I wouldn’t be writing this blog today. It is what elevated music from something I enjoyed to something that became a driving force in my life. One thing that can always bring me joy. I adore Prince, and this is the first taste of him I ever got, so for that it is special. Prince is special, and he knew it. He used this album to show the world how uniquely talented he was, and this breakthrough was well deserved. There aren’t many perfect albums, but this is definitely one of them. The album of the decade and the all time best piece of music I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing. A Purple Masterpiece.