Two things about this post:

1. My wife doesn’t understand most of my music. Prince and CAKE top the list of artists she would just as soon see dead; as such, I find myself continually re-listening to them to see if they’re really as good as they seem in my mind.
2. I don’t listen to a ton of “new music”. I’m not the avant garde type. Thus, most of my music reviews will cover years- or even decades-old music. Hopefully, somewhere in there, I’ll cover a band or album that you might have missed the first time around—chances are, I did.

Prince personifies the pomp and circumstance of the mid-80s. His over-the-top productions capture the excess of the decade; the sexuality drips from his music to the point of absurdity. Many would write him off as an 80s act, signifying that his work belongs with the rest of the forgettable music churned out in the era that defined one-hit wonders. To relegate him to the trashpile with the likes of Kajagoogoo, though, is to ignore the impact his music had when it was released, and to deny the fact that he was a fabulous musician, irrespective of his contemporaries.

Purple Rain is arguably the last great album, chronologically, in Prince’s colorful repetoire. From start (the bizarre eulogy in “Let’s Go Crazy”) to finish (the haunting “Purple Rain”), the album is superbly varied. It evokes images of a fainting James Brown with his cape, an androgynous Little Richard… all mixed with something much darker.

Nowhere is the darkness more evident than in the signature song of the album, perhaps of Prince’s career: “When Doves Cry”. Amidst the typical sexual imagery, the chorus belies a creepy undertone:

How can you just leave me standing,
Alone in a world that’s so cold?
Maybe I’m just too demanding
Maybe I’m just like my father—too bold
Maybe you’re just like my mother
She’s never satisfied
Why do we scream at each other
This is what it sounds like when doves cry.

This is typical of the entire album: the sexual is mixed with the somber. Sandwiched between a song about a sordid encounter with a random dominatrix and a confusing confession of undying love is a song about an abusive home and its effects on Prince’s relationships. No offense, but this is no “She Blinded Me With Science”.

If your parents were anything like mine, there was no way they were going to allow Prince in the house, and certainly nothing like “Darling Nikki”. I’d say that unless you’re still morally opposed, Purple Rain belongs in your CD collection as the one of the best of the otherwise-mediocre 80s.

P.S. For the record, I adore 80s music, including stuff by Kajagoogoo and Thomas Dolby and the rest. My goal, though, was the differentiate the frou-frou stuff of the 80s from this album, which is absolutely epic.