Prince and The Revolution - "Purple Rain"

Prince and The Revolution - Purple Rain, 1984 - Warner Brothers

There are some albums which are obvious shoe-ins for inclusion in this blog. "Purple Rain" is one of them. It is a legend, a box office smash, a hit factory, a cultural touchstone, a lyrical bombshell and a visceral portrait of a genius-in-the-making.

People assume that Prince was operating at his usual one-man-band status and writing everything himself. In fact, "Purple Rain" is one of the few times that Mr. Nelson's backing band, The Revolution as they were called then, gets their name on the record cover. There's good reason for this : the album is full of live-band performances that seem as tight as Prince's pants.

As the soundtrack to the film of the same name, "Purple Rain" does a marvelous job of capturing the excitement of the film, even injecting some longer takes of songs that are left hanging in the movie (see the sorrowful ending to "When Doves Cry", with its creepy backmasking).

The album is a blast from start to finish, flagging only in 2 very appropriate places. The killer jam to end all killer jams, "Let's Go Crazy" bursts forth (after the often-imitated Gospel opening) with no restraint, Prince's raw guitar grinding out the deadly riff and The Revolution rocking their Minnesota brains out. The only difference between the version here and in the film, oddly enough, is that the album version cuts the vamping done onstage by Prince and the gang, which extended it to a rock workout of James Brown-ian proportions.

Fluttering synths and crashing drums beguile the beginning of "Take Me With U" before it transforms into a wonderful pop duet with Apollonia. This song holds a special place in my heart because it is the textbook definition of love : "I don't care where we go, I don't care what we do. I don't care pretty baby, just take me with you"

"The Beautiful Ones" is a shuddering piano-driven slow groove, which rides along on its own weird energy, right up until the scream-therapy ending with Prince in full hysteria delivering "I want you!" more effectively than even Elvis Costello could. Having been reduced to an angsty, blustery mess, Prince then opens up his Weird Box and finds a new toy...

What can be said about "Computer Blue"? The song is a trainwreck. It makes no sense whatsoever, including Wendy & Lisa's only vocal moment on the record ("Is the water warm enough?" "Yes, Lisa"). The lyrics read like dream poetry and the music doesn't seem to match the mood. And yet, it is one of the best songs on the whole damned album. The musical interlude here is one of the better arrangements on this half of the record.

Listening now to "Darling Nikki" doesn't quite do it justice. You have to see it in the context of the film : Apollonia just starting singing for Morris Day's girl-band (singing the god-awful "Sex Shooter"). Prince feels betrayed, so he writes a song about a whore that he fucked just to mess with her head, because he knows when she sees him perform she'll feel the same thing. She comes to see him perform, he performs "Darling Nikki", complete with air-humping, she storms out. The backlash that Prince got over the lyrics to this song was unfortunate, because it's offensive for a reason. The sexy grind of the music really hit home the sexy vibe of the lyrics and because of that, this song screams sex sex sex. Delicious.

Then, the movie meanders and we're left without a song for awhile. Thankfully, the album is just heating up. We're hit with monster hit after monster hit, each song better than the last : "When Doves Cry", whose intro proves Prince a better guitar player than 99% of the world, and "I Would Die 4 U", quite possibly the sweetest song about dying for someone this side of The Smiths.

Then they switch it up on us. The order of the songs in the film goes "Purple Rain" then "Baby I'm A Star", which makes sense, because everyone sees what talent he has and everyone's a fan of his by the end of the film. But the album gets the thematic sweet spot even more correct. By following "Baby I'm A Star" with "Purple Rain", you get two things for the price of one : You get to end the album on a monster mega-hit and you get to extend the song to the full 11 minutes. No one, and I mean no one, will sit through an 11-minute song to hear "Baby I'm A Star." In an album full of hits, "Baby I'm A Star" is a rare misfire. But when we're talking Prince, even the misfires sound pretty damned good.

"Purple Rain" (the song) is one of the best pop songs ever written. Here's why : the song is dischordant. The guitar is not playing what the piano plays and vice versa. This is usually not good. Usually what happens when people do this is sonic chaos. And yet, the song is both so well written and so damned good that it defies this musical "law". Few, if any, songs have done that.

Overall, "Purple Rain" stands tall in the larger list of classic Prince albums. Not only is it cohesive, thoughtful and creative, but it's fun, crazy and loud. This album is, by far, my number one Desert Island Record.