Purple Rain (album)

Background

Purple Rain was released by Warner Bros. Records on June 25, 1984. Prince wrote all of the songs on the album, some with the input of fellow band members. "I Would Die 4 U", "Baby I'm a Star" and "Purple Rain" were recorded live from a show on August 3, 1983, at the First Avenue club in Minneapolis, with overdubs and edits added later. This marked the first time Prince included live recordings on any release. The show was a benefit concert for the Minnesota Dance Theater and featured the first appearance of guitarist Wendy Melvoin in Prince's band, The Revolution.

"Take Me with U" was intended for the Apollonia 6 album, a full band recording with the Revolution and Jill Jones on backing vocals, but Prince pulled it for his own album. "Let's Go Crazy" was also recorded with The Revolution while an unreleased version of "Computer Blue" clocking in at 14 minutes was a full band studio recording as well with various cuts some that are at least 14min long, but the final version of that song only featured Prince, Wendy and Lisa. "The Beautiful Ones", "Darling Nikki" and "When Doves Cry" are all Prince recordings.

Music

Purple Rain was the first Prince album recorded with and officially 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 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 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 of elements point towards the more experimental records Prince would release after Purple Rain. As with many massive crossover albums, Purple Rain's consolidation of a myriad of styles, from pop rock to 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". 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 AllMusic writes that Purple Rain finds Prince "consolidating his funk and R&B roots while moving boldly into pop, rock, and heavy metal," as well as "push[ing] heavily into psychedelia" under the influence of the Revolution. Erlewine 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 written for the Apollonia 6 album, but later enlisted for Purple Rain. The inclusion of that song necessitated cuts to the suite-like "Computer Blue", the full version of which did not earn an official release, although a portion of the second section can be heard in the film Purple Rain, in a sequence where Prince walks in on the men of The Revolution rehearsing. The risqué lyrics of "Darling Nikki" contributed to the use of Parental Advisory stickers and imprints on album covers that were the record label's answer to complaints from Tipper Gore and the Parents Music Resource Center.

"There's every emotion from the ballad to the rocker," observed Jon Bon Jovi. "All the influences were evident, from Hendrix to Chic."

Critical reception

Prince won two Grammy Awards in 1985 for Purple Rain, for Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television Special, and the album was nominated for Album of the Year. Prince won a third Grammy that year for Best Rhythm and Blues Song (songwriter award) for Chaka Khan's cover of "I Feel for You". Purple Rain also won an Oscar for Best Original Song Score in 1985.

Purple Rain sold 13 million units in the United States, including 1.5 million in its debut week, 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 albums chart (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. The album has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide. The album further established him as a figurehead for pop music of the 1980s. The album sold 69,000 equivalent copies (62,000 in pure album sales) in the week following Prince's death, thus allowing the album to re-enter the Billboard 200 at number 2.

Singles from the album became pop hits worldwide, with Prince scoring four US Top 10 singles from the album. Of them, "When Doves Cry" and "Let's Go Crazy" reached #1, "Purple Rain" reached #2, and "I Would Die 4 U" reached #8. The fifth and final single "Take Me with U" reached #25, but became a top 10 hit in the United Kingdom, meaning all Purple Rain singles became worldwide hits.

Legacy

Purple Rain is generally ranked as one of the greatest albums in music history, and is regarded as Prince's masterpiece. All five singles off of the album became worldwide hits, and with the success of the massively successful movie of the same name and tour, Prince would become arguably the biggest musical superstar on the planet, next to Michael Jackson. Rolling Stone ranked Purple Rain at No. 76 on the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and at No. 2 on the 100 Best Albums of The 80s. In June 2013, Entertainment Weekly listed Purple Rain at No. 2 of the Greatest Albums of All Time. According to Billboard magazine, Purple Rain stayed at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for 24 consecutive weeks, the 4th longest in the charts history. Purple Rain sold over 1.5 million copies its first week in stores, and has sold over 13 million copies in the United States alone, with a total of 25 million copies sold worldwide. In 2011, Purple Rain was added to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry list of recordings that "are culturally, historically, and aesthetically important". In April 2016, the album re-charted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 after Prince's death, selling over 69,000 copies in the following week, and one of the best-selling albums of the year in the US with 487,000 sold in 2016. According to Billboard, within less than a month after Prince's death, four of the top ten songs on the Hot Rock Songs belonged to tracks off of Purple Rain, with the title track coming in at No. 1. In October 2016, according to Billboard, it has been confirmed that Purple Rain will be re-released as a deluxe edition, although the exact content of this has not been confirmed. Confirmation of the release date however came in February 2017, with Warner Bros. sending out a press-release stating that on June 9, 2017 a deluxe edition of Purple Rain will be released, along with two albums of unreleased music and two concert films. No further details were announced, so more confusion and speculation were added to the matter.

Track listing

All tracks written by Prince except "Computer Blue" by Prince, John L. Nelson, Wendy & Lisa and Dr. Fink (uncredited).

Personnel

Early configurations

Prince configured at least two unique track listings of Purple Rain prior to setting the final running order. November 7, 1983 and March 12, 1984 configurations are listed below. The majority of changes are edits to "Let's Go Crazy" and "Computer Blue" in order to include "When Doves Cry" and "Take Me with U" in the final running order.

Singles

1. "When Doves Cry"
2. "17 Days"

1. "Let's Go Crazy"
2. "Erotic City"

1. "Purple Rain"
2. "God" (vocal)
3. "God" (instrumental) — UK version only

1. "I Would Die 4 U"
2. "Another Lonely Christmas"

1. "Take Me with U"
2. "Baby I'm a Star"