Milestones: Purple Rain by Prince & The Revolution
Milestones: Purple Rain by Prince & The Revolution
The soundtrack to Prince's 1984 film was the most precise implodement of his internal contradictions—sensuality, spirituality, compassion, and solitude—a product of emotional compression.
In 1984, a diminutive and seemingly unspectacular musician from Minneapolis could unleash a force of sound that changed the face of popular music forever: Prince. Already an ascendant star with a series of very successful albums that placed him primed to transcend genre and expectation, he didn’t just reach for the stars with Purple Rain—he became one.
Prince Rogers Nelson did not become the reigning monarch of pop music overnight. Born in Minneapolis in 1958, Prince showed extraordinary musical talent from an early age. By the time he released his debut album For You in 1978, he was already playing many instruments with virtuosity and had come out with a so-far unique sound that managed to meld funk, R&B, and rock seamlessly.
The early albums—Prince (1979), Dirty Mind (1980), Controversy (1981), and 1999 (1982)—shed light on the fast-growing artistry and vision beginning to develop in Prince. He kept raising the stakes musically and lyrically with each successive release, solidifying his position as one of the most provocative, popular music innovators.
Such success for 1999, along with its hit singles, “Little Red Corvette” and the title track, would set the stage for Prince’s next move. He had shown he could write pop hooks spun around his funk aesthetic, but he wanted more. He wanted a project that would launch him into superstardom, something that would capture every element of his musical genius.
By 1980, the musical scene started rolling. Image and visual presentation became important because MTV began its first aired programming. The lines among rock, pop, and R&B artistry had become blurred; thus, performers transcending genres were doubtless going to take those opportunities. Prince stood perfectly positioned to seize on these with his flamboyant style and genre-defying sound.
In this context, he began to conceive of Purple Rain. For him, this was not just an album but a multimedia experience, complete with a feature film. It was going to be an even bigger vision realized by having to extend his creative circle and himself being stretched in other directions.
Knowing that Purple Rain was such an expansive album, upon turning his attention toward the work, Prince needed a band that could help him realize his vision. Enter The Revolution, a small band of talented musicians who would prove instrumental in shaping the sound of the album, along with Prince’s artistic direction.
The core of The Revolution consisted of:
Wendy Melvoin (guitar)
Lisa Coleman (keyboards)
Matt Fink (keyboards)
Brown Mark (bass)
Bobby Z. (drums)
Each of them brought his special talents and insights into the group. Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman, in particular, would eventually have a deep impact on the psychedelic elements that would form a basic ingredient in the sound of Purple Rain.
Although Prince had worked with several of these musicians before, Purple Rain was technically the first album where they were billed as The Revolution. This was not some studio pickup group; instead, it was an integral unit that allowed Prince to elevate his creativity to new heights.
The Revolution helped further broaden Prince’s sonic palette. Though always an extraordinary multi-instrumentalist with a band, he was able to extend his musical scope to much greater extremes than as a one-man unit. Interaction between Prince and his band brought new textures into the music.
But the Revolution also lent to shape the visual look of Purple Rain physically. Their makeup, so mixed in gender, race, and sexual orientation, highlighted Prince’s view toward the world and challenged norms for what a rock band should look like.
The Revolution was electric in its chemistry with Prince through the live performance; they would replicate exactly the complex arrangements on the album yet still had room for spontaneity and showmanship, a quality for which Prince was known.
The Revolution’s contribution to Purple Rain cannot be overstated. They helped Prince hit upon a sound that was, at the same time, tighter yet more expansive than anything he’d done prior. Its result was an album that was, even as uniquely Prince, unmistakably the work of a band.
One of the most striking aspects of the record production-wise has to do with its genre fusion. They took elements from funk, R&B, rock, pop, and even heavy metal and combined them in such a way that it sounded new and unique, actually rendering it next to impossible for records to be placed under one type of genre heading. This is where something like “Let’s Go Crazy” comes in—a song that opens with a church organ before exploding into some rock-funk hybrid.
Synthesizers and drum machines have been taken into play on the album to merge with straightforward instruments and come out with an innovative sound. As one of the first artists to use the Linn LM-1 drum machine, Prince could establish mechanically precise but funky beats, as heard on “Computer Blue.”
Perhaps the most far-out production decision on the album was the decision not to have any bass line on “When Doves Cry.” That was gutsy; the song’s spare, haunting sound was undoubtedly unlike any other thing on the radio. It was a radical choice that brought to the fore Prince’s desire to shatter preconceived notions about what pop production should be.
The influence of psychedelia, brought to the forefront by Wendy and Lisa, added another layer of complexity to the album’s sound. It’s in the swirling strings of “Take Me With U” and the dreamy textures of the title track that a new level of sonic experimentation comes forward, separating Purple Rain from the rest of Prince’s oeuvre.
Prince’s approach to recording vocals on the album was equally innovative. He used a variety of effects and implemented processing techniques to create an enormous register of vocal textures—from the whispering intimacy of “The Beautiful Ones” to the raw screams of “Baby I’m a Star.”
Prince’s attitudes to love and relationships are multi-faceted throughout this album. On “The Beautiful Ones,” a more open, impassioned plea is given to a lover. Then comes something like “Darling Nikki,” which goes much too bold and leadingly provocative to come off with explicit details of a sexual encounter.
Spirituality swirls throughout the album, most radically in the case of “Let’s Go Crazy.” The song starts off with a sermon-like piece of dialogue that sets up the struggles of life against almost religious terms. This spiritual undercurrent flows into the title track, where color purple attains almost mystical importance.
Self-actualization and identity are themes also found within this record. “I Would Die 4 U” could be interpreted as a love confession to a lover, but the declaration makes it unmistakably messianic; therefore, it blurs lines of romantic love and spiritual devotion.
He toys around with witty and clever wordplay, besides double entendres, throughout the album, especially to give the words further meaning. His symbolism is so rich when it comes to creating a fabric of ideas for people to unravel, more so with the recurring theme of the color purple.
However, the lyrics to the title track demonstrate how Prince grew as a songwriter. Confessional but universal, they allow listeners to seek out facets of personal experience within them even as they remain in awe of their artistry.
Purple Rain became crystallized not simply as an album but as a cultural reference point for the decade of the 1980s. The effects of it spilled over onto areas beyond music and into fashion, film, and popular culture itself.
This was further enhanced by the film of the same name, which was released at the same time as the album. It gave a tangibly real dimension to the music by allowing people actually to see Prince’s magnetic stage presence and flamboyant style. The success of the film helped to push the album even further, and the two media merged in their effects.
It is through his film and stage costumes that the fashion taste of Prince made the stars shine for him. Purple suits, ruffled shirts, and high-heeled boots made anti-Sadducee to traditional views of masculinity; he also had imitators galore. Until today, the Purple Rain era set Prince as undoubtedly one of the greatest fashion icons of all time, whose influence can still reverberate greatly in the current pop and R&B aesthetics.
The success of the album also cut across the large racial barriers within music at the time. He helped to finally merge R&B with rock by being able to appeal to Black and white audiences, allowing other artists to have much greater crossover success in the future.
The commercial success was simply huge. It spent 24 consecutive weeks on the Billboard 200 chart at number one and has sold over 25 million copies worldwide. The popularity of this magnitude would ensure that music from Purple Rain became part of a generation’s shared cultural experience.
The performance was really phenomenal, provoking numerous discourses on sexuality, gender, and artistic freedom. Provocative in his lyrics and style and androgynous in his image, Prince challenged the status quo by opening up whole new spaces for expression in popular music.
Decades after the release of Purple Rain, it would still be an album for new waves of listeners and musicians to discover. For years, countless tributes, analyses, and retrospectives about it have been published and discussed—sealing the deal once and for all for its position within the canon of great American music. Its cross-generational longevity and incessant acclaim place it in the hierarchy of the most influential discs in American popular music, representing Prince’s invincible vision and artistry.
Masterpiece (★★★★★)