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Let's Go Crazy
Take Me with U
The Beautiful Ones
Computer Blue
Darling Nikki
When Doves Cry
I Would Die 4 U
Baby I'm a Star
Purple Rain
A maximalist magnum opus that’s sold 25 million copies and counting, Purple Rain catapulted Prince into the immortal pop pantheon with its audacious blend of machine-tooled sex-funk, heavy metal guitars, porno-suggestive lyrics and MTV-friendly, high-gloss showmanship.
The accompanying film may have been a polished turd of soapy melodrama, but it transformed its diminutive star into a towering icon of the video age. Remastered in 2015, the original 1984 album still sounds gloriously eclectic and mostly electrifying.
From the skeletal robo-funk and Hendrix-oid guitar eruptions of When Doves Cry to the controversial, overblown perv-pop wank fantasy Darling Nikki, the rifftastic, funk-heavy Let's Go Crazy and the epic blow-out finale of Purple Rain itself, this is Prince in his imperial pomp, cranking everything up to 11 with his tongue in both cheeks. Usually somebody else’s.
Every week, Album of the Week Club listens to and discusses the album in question, votes on how good it is, and publishes our findings, with the aim of giving people reliable reviews and the wider rock community the chance to contribute.
Other albums released in June 1984
- Hyæna - Siouxsie and the Banshees
- No Brakes - John Waite
- In The Studio - The Specials
- Breaking Hearts - Elton John
- Camouflage - Rod Stewart
- From Her To Eternity - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
- Goodbye Cruel World - Elvis Costello and the Attractions
- The Allnighter - Glenn Frey
- Born In The USA - Bruce Springsteen
- Mask - Roger Glover
- Discovery - Mike Oldfield
- Brilliant Trees - David Sylvian
- Sidewalk - Icehouse
- Rock Will Never Die - Michael Schenker Group
What they said...
"When an album opens like Purple Rain does, with what sounds like an effeminate preacher’s treatise on life as prison and death as release, it’s hard to know what to expect from the rest of the thing. And over the course of the subsequent nine tracks, Prince and the Revolution try their hardest to keep listeners both off balance and on their feet. A funk-pop-rock-R&B-psychedelic mashup, Purple Rain is the album that propelled Prince into the pop-music stratosphere." (Time)
"With the guidance of Wendy and Lisa, Prince pushed heavily into psychedelia, adding swirling strings to the dreamy Take Me With U and the hard rock of Baby I'm a Star. Even with all of his new, but uncompromising, forays into pop, Prince hasn't abandoned funk, and the robotic jam of Computer Blue and the menacing grind of Darling Nikki are among his finest songs." (AllMusic)
"With Purple Rain, Prince bursts forth from the ghetto created by mainstream radio and launches himself directly onto the Mt. Rushmore of American music. He plays rock better than rock musicians, composes better than jazz guys, and performs better than everyone, all without ever abandoning his roots as a funk man, a party leader, a true MC." (Pitchfork)
What you said...
Mike Canoe: I understand and appreciate the success of Purple Rain but its overfamiliarity makes it the least likely Prince album I would choose to listen to. Nonetheless, once I put the album on Monday morning, I immediately started singing the guitar riff to Let's Go Crazy. Once an earworm, always an earworm.
Purple Rain is a giant's ear worth of earworms. More than half the songs on the album were released as singles and immediately kickstarted my brain's hardwired memories of riffs and melodies - and choreography, thanks to repeated viewings of the movie and When Doves Cry video.
Some random observations:
- I'm not sure I ever noticed the female voice saying "thank you" at the 2:10 mark of Take Me With U so I guess there are still new things for me to pick up on after all.
- The Beautiful Ones is one of Prince's best ballads and is still the highlight of the album for me. I realize it's tied to a pivotal moment of the film but it also stands perfectly on its own.
- I have tried for forty plus years to will myself into liking Computer Blue but it's essentially filler.
- Similarly, were this any other Prince album, Darling Nikki would just be another Prince sex song. However, previous Prince albums didn't invade suburban teenagers' bedrooms the way Purple Rain did and the little ditty about a woman in a hotel lobby masturbating with a magazine helped kickstart the onerous Parents Music Resource Center and the accidental promotional genius of parental advisory stickers.
- Baby I'm a Star is an energetic showstopper and I prefer the way it ends the movie as a twofer with I Would Die 4 U more than the way the title track ends the album.
Prince didn't invent the racially integrated, mixed-gender lineup with the Revolution (that would be Sly & the Family Stone almost twenty years earlier) but the 1980s needed a lineup like this just as much as the late '60s/early '70s did.
Purple Rain is not in my top tier of Prince albums. I think Sign O' The Times from 1987 is his clear masterpiece with 1989's Batman and 1992's (Symbol) tied for the best Prince album you probably forgot about.
The cultural impact of Purple Rain is so enormous that it ultimately overshadows the music but this week has demonstrated it's still a fun and enjoyable album to listen to occasionally.
John Davidson: There's no denying the impact Prince had on the mid 80s to mid 90s, but with a few exceptions I never really cared for his style or his music.
He was revered by people whose musical taste i respected, but I never saw the genius in his work. Glossy, funky pop with occasional moments of rock just didn’t float my boat.
All the hype made it difficult to detach the artist from his art, and eventually Prince disappeared so far up his own artistry he lost his name along the way.
But what about Purple Rain?
You couldn't live through 84/85 without hearing at least the hits and i doubt many avoided seeing the movie too. Like the music it was glossy, overblown and ultimately hollow.
When Doves Cry and Purple Rain itself are decent enough pop songs but the rest of the album is largely forgettable. The keyboard tones and vocal ticks as well as the production and arrangements scream mid 80s . It's all hairspray and frills, even if there was substance its hidden beneath that cloying gloss.
Plenty people loved this album, and Prince himself was held in high esteem, but I never got it then and I still don't get it now. 5/10.
Greg Schwepe: Huge. Crossover. Album. How huge? Well, it was popular enough and had enough far-ranging appeal for me, a “rock guy,” to actually buy a Prince album. And a boatload of other record buyers did too. I finally found that Prince could indeed rock, and do it big time.
So, do you have an album written for a movie? Or a movie that needed a killer album soundtrack? Chicken or egg? Either way, Purple Rain was the perfect storm. You had videos all over MTV, some featuring clips from the movie. And songs from the album were all over the radio.
While I may have bought this for the obvious hits: Let’s Go Crazy, When Doves Cry, and Prince’s Freebird/Stairway To Heaven/Comfortably Numb lighter waving anthemic title track, Purple Rain, which are all superb... but other surprises exist.
It’s the rest of the album that intrigued me just as much. The swirling Take Me With U, the techno-ish The Beautiful Ones, and funky Computer Blue are just as good. I literally remember listening to this the first few times and finding something new I liked each and every time I listened.
And then, on top of that, when you heard the guy play guitar, well, that was just jaw-dropping.
This turned out to be one of those albums that the less committed music fan bought, unlike us weekly review writers and readers, who probably bought an album a week back in the day. That person you knew who owned maybe 20 albums at most (if that!) actually had this in their collection.
Prince may have opened the door to a wider audience with 1999, but Purple Rain ripped that door off the hinges. 9 out of 10 on this one for me.
Brian Carr: A perfect example of how one’s musical taste can change over time. I was a few weeks shy of my 12th birthday when Purple Rain was released as a soundtrack, and I have vague recollections of people around me talking about it. But 11-12 year old me was all about Ratt, Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe, etc. by that time, and I had zero connection to this, and what’s with all of the flowers on the artwork, anyway? By the time ten years had passed, Prince became one of my absolute favourite musical artists. Circumstances!
Though Sign O' The Times has for years been my favorite Prince album, Purple Rain is a masterpiece and it’s understandable why it is the best known album by the Purple One - it contains not only three of the most iconic Prince tunes, but three of the most iconic songs of the 80s with Let’s Go Crazy, When Doves Cry and the epic title track. Is that titanic trio enough to make Purple Rain a perfect ten?
For me, that’s an unquestionable YES. For starters, the big three aren’t and probably never will be songs that enter into my personal burnout territory - they’re just too good. Secondly, the album tracks - my wheelhouse - are high quality. Darling Nikki is infamous for its raunchy lyrics, but the groove might be even nastier. The Beautiful Ones, Computer Blue, I Would Die 4 U and Baby I’m A Star may fall on the wrong side of the synth-guitar ratio, but are still jams, especially if you watch that white-hot band play them live on the movie.
For this pretty major Prince fan, Purple Rain may not contain any personal favourite songs by the Artist, but the album as a whole is the epitome of a 10/10.
Philip Qvist: To say that Prince Rogers Nelson was huge in the 1980s would be one of the biggest understatements of that decade, and in terms of global popularity, he was right up there with the likes of Michael Jackson and Madonna. Of course, being big doesn't always necessarily mean being the most talented, but in Prince's case, that definitely was the case.
Here was a singer and musician who could write and produce his own music, was a pretty special guitarist in his own right and one who could play just about every instrument on an album if required. And he was also quite prolific in that decade, releasing an album a year throughout the 80s and starring in two movies as well.
None of his albums in that decade were duds, but in my opinion, his best three records were 1999, Sign O' The Times and this one, Purple Rain, which I believe still remains his biggest selling album, with sales approaching 30 million and all the awards to match.
The album starts off with the blistering Let's Go Crazy. The album slows down a bit with the likes of Take Me With U before you get to Side One closer Darling Nikki, the song whose lyrics caused the Parents Music Resource Center to choke on their cornflakes when they first heard it.
Side Two starts off with When Doves Cry; a song written near the end of the recording, one that doesn't feature the bass guitar, and where all the instruments were played by Prince. It is easy to forget these days how unique that song sounded way back in 1984. For me, this song is the highlight of Purple Rain.
The album concludes with the title track and a great and lengthy guitar solo from Prince. A nice way to finish off a great record.
It should be noted that while three of the tracks were in effect solo numbers from Prince, the other six tracks on Purple Rain all featured backing band The Revolution, especially Wendy and Lisa, who co-wrote Computer Blue and featured heavily with the song arrangements and backing tracks.
And finally, what did I think of Purple Rain, the movie? Despite its many faults, I actually enjoyed it, but it was no masterpiece. And that is not the case for Purple Rain, the album. It's a near-flawless masterpiece, so expect a very high score from me this week.
Nigel Mawdsley: Prince was a phenomenal guitarist and musician. When Doves Cry is a stonewall classic, wrought with emotion. I've even seen it covered by folk musicians, and it was still powerful!
Purple Rain starts off – despite the annoying introduction to the first track – with two good songs in Let's Go Crazy and Take Me With U, but apart from When Doves Cry, I found the rest of the album a bit bland.
I've never really rated the title track either, although I can appreciate the musicianship; however, a near nine-minute version on this album isn't what I wanted to hear again. Overall, 6 out of 10.
Chris Elliott: Prince could make truly great stuff that blurred genres. There are four great tracks here and two stone-cold classics, which isn't a bad hit rate. This album started that run of truly great singles and somewhat self-indulgent albums.
Steve Torrens: Let’s Go Crazy, When Doves Cry and the title track are the only songs worth mentioning… and I like Prince.
Final score: 7.75 (82 votes cast, total score 629)
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