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Purple Rain (album)

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Music from the Motion Picture Purple Rain (also called just Purple Rain) is a soundtrack album by Prince and The Revolution. It was released by Warner Bros. Records on June 25, 1984 and was Prince's sixth album. Prince wrote all of the songs on the album. Some of the tracks had portions recorded live when Prince performed on August 3, 1983 at the First Avenue club in Minneapolis. This show was a benefit concert for the Minnesota Dance Theater. It was also the first appearance in Prince's band "The Revolution" by Wendy Melvoin, his guitarist in the Purple Rain film and for a few years afterwards.

Purple Rain regularly is ranked among the best albums in music history. Time Magazine in 1993 ranked it the 15th greatest album of all time, and it placed 18th on VH1's list of The Greatest Rock´n Roll Albums of All Time. Rolling Stone Magazine ranked it 72nd greatest album of all time and Zounds Magazine 18th greatest album of all time. The album was 4th in Plásticos y Decibelios list The Greatest Albums of All Time. In 2007, the editors of Vanity Fair labeled it the best soundtrack of all time and by Tempo Magazine it was named greatest album of 1980s.

Structure

Purple Rain was the first Prince album recorded with and credited to his backing group the Revolution. The resulting album was musically denser than Prince's previous one-man albums, emphasizing full band performances, and multiple layers of guitars, keyboards, icy electronic synthesizer effects, drum machines, and other instruments. Musically, Purple Rain remained grounded in the electro-funk and R&B elements of Prince's previous work while demonstrating a more pronounced rock feel in its grooves and emphasis on guitar showmanship. As a soundtrack record, much of the music had a grandiose, synthesized, and even—by some evaluations—a vaguely psychedelic sheen to the production and performances. The music on Purple Rain is generally regarded as the most pop-oriented of Prince's career, though a number elements point towards the more experimental pop/psychedelic records Prince would record after Purple Rain. As with many massive crossover albums, Purple Rain's consolidation of a myriad of styles, from pop/rock to urban R&B to dance, is generally acknowledged to account in part for its enormous popularity.

In addition to the record's breakthrough sales, music critics noted the innovative and experimental aspects of the soundtrack's music, most famously on the spare, bass-less "When Doves Cry", which was frequently identified as pop at its most avant-garde. Other aspects of the music, especially its synthesis of electronic elements with organic instrumentation and full-band performances (some, as noted above, recorded live) along with its landmark consolidation of rock and R&B, were identified by critics as distinguishing, even experimental factors. Stephen Erlewine of All Music Guide writes that Purple Rain finds Prince "consolidating his funk and R&B roots while moving boldly into pop, rock, and heavy metal" and identifies the record's nine songs as "uncompromising...forays into pop" and "stylistic experiments", echoing general sentiment that Purple Rain's music represented Prince at his most popular without forsaking his experimental bent.

"Take Me with U" was originally written for the Apollonia 6 album, but was later pulled for Purple Rain. An unfortunate result of this addition was making crucial cuts to the suite-like "Computer Blue", which circulates amongst collectors in a superior, though unreleased extended version (a portion of this second section of "Computer Blue" can be heard in the film Purple Rain as Prince walks in on the men of The Revolution rehearsing). The song "Darling Nikki" is notable for its lyrical content, which eventually led to the use of Parental Advisory stickers and imprints on album covers by ways of Tipper Gore and the Parents Music Resource Center.

Reception

Prince won three Grammy Awards for Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group, Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or TV Special (Purple Rain) and Best R&B Song (songwriter) (Chaka Khan's "I Feel for You") and was nominated for Album of the Year (Purple Rain). "Purple Rain" (the song) also won an Oscar for Best Original Song Score in 1985.

Purple Rain sold 13 million units in the United States, earning a Diamond Award from the Recording Industry Association of America. According to Billboard magazine, the album spent 24 consecutive weeks at #1 on the Billboard album charts (August 4, 1984 to January 18, 1985) becoming one of the top soundtracks ever. Purple Rain traded the #1 album chart position with Bruce Springsteen's Born in the U.S.A. twice, during 1984 and 1985. Two songs from Purple Rain, "When Doves Cry" and "Let's Go Crazy", would top the U.S. singles charts and were hits around the world, while the title track would go to number two on the Billboard Hot 100. The album has sold 20 million copies worldwide.

Track listing

All songs written by Prince, except "Computer Blue", words by Prince, Wendy and Lisa, music by Prince,John L. Nelson,Wendy and Lisa and Dr. Fink

  1. "Let's Go Crazy" – 4:39
  2. "Take Me with U" – 3:58
  3. "The Beautiful Ones" – 5:17
  4. "Computer Blue" – 3:56
  5. "Darling Nikki" – 4:13
  6. "When Doves Cry" – 5:52
  7. "I Would Die 4 U" – 2:56
  8. "Baby I'm a Star" – 4:24
  9. "Purple Rain" – 8:42

Nov. 7, 1983 test pressing

  1. Let's Go Crazy and dance in the moonlightBold text
  2. The Beautiful Ones
  3. Darling Nikki
  4. Wednesday
  5. Purple Rain
  6. I Would Die 4 U
  7. Baby, I'm A Star
  8. Father's Song
  9. When doves cry--Contributions/65.185.121.202 (65.185.121.202) 00:55, 12 March 2008 (UTC)Italic text

Chart positions

Chart (1984) Peak
position
U.S. Billboard 200 1
U.S. Billboard R&B Albums 1
UK Albums Chart 7
Australian ARIA Albums Chart 1

Singles and Hot 100 chart placings

U.S Sales

Period RIAA award U.S Shipments Total
Jun 25, 1984 - Aug 29, 1984 Gold & Platinum on Aug 29, 1984 1,000,000 1,000,000
Aug 30, 1984 - Nov 13, 1984 8x platinum on Nov 13, 1984 7,000,000 8,000,000
Nov 14, 1984 - Jan 16, 1985 9x platinum on Jan 16, 1985 1,000,000 9,000,000
Jan 17, 1985 - Feb 22, 1989 10x platinum on Feb 22, 1989 1,000,000 10,000,000
Feb 23, 1989 - Jul 11, 1994 11x platinum on Jul 11, 1994 1,000,000 11,000,000
Jul 12, 1994 - May 16, 1996 13x platinum on May 16, 1996 2,000,000 13,000,000

Personnel

Miscellaneous

  • This album was mentioned in a 2004 Chappelle's Show skit which parodied Prince.
  • In the popular video game Mortal Kombat, one playable character named Rain is given a curiously purple outfit. This is an obvious reference to Prince acknowledged by the character developers as a sort of red herring but in later games given a full background.
  • The term "Purple Rain" first appears in the song "Ventura Highway" by the group America in their 1972 album Homecoming, and refers to LSD. Prince's song does not.
  • Mariah Carey covered "The Beautiful Ones" on her 1997 album, Butterfly, assisted by R&B quartet Dru Hill.
  • Indie band Rilo Kiley played a Purple Rain clip at the end of their song "Spectacular Views" live.

References

External links



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