UAWIL #180: Prince - Purple Rain
Prince's 6th album, Purple Rain, featured the funky & sexy Revolution and propelled Prince into the stratosphere. As the soundtrack album turns 40, we reflect on what a huge cultural touchstone Purple Rain was and the importance it played in the career of Prince.
Coming off the success of his 1999 album, Prince took everything to another level with 1984's Purple Rain. The album featured 5 singles that would get major airplay on different radio formats (pop, rock, r&b, dance) and MTV. The album would sell over 25 million copies worldwide but it was also the soundtrack to the movie of the same name which grossed over $70 million. Prince not only won Grammys for the album but also earned an oscar for the title track. Prince's unabashed sexuality oozed from every aspect of his performance in the movie and the videos and was reinforced by his band, The Revolution.
From pop greats (I Would Die 4 U), rockin dance tracks (Let's Go Crazy), personal epics (Purple Rain) and emotional hits (When The Doves Cry), Prince saw his tunes go up the charts of different musical genres. But his overt sexuality, especially in songs like Darling Nikki, irked parents including Tipper Gore who included him among the Filthy 15 during her PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center) hearings before Congress. However, the extraordinary talent of Prince as a songwriter, instrumentalist, singer and performer won out in the end and this is the album that sent him to heights from which he never came down. It may not be the hard/prog/classic/heavy rock we normally cover but Purple Rain was hugely important in the development of our generation's understanding of what music was and we're happy to celebrate it's 40th!
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