Wed., Jun. 25, 2014 2:04 PM EDT
Thirty years ago Prince released what has arguably become his quintessential LP, the immaculate soundtrack album, Purple Rain. Dropped in the summer of 1984, The Purple One’s sixth album was the blockbuster that catapulted him to the forefront of pop music and culture. Purple Rain isn’t his boldest classic album (Dirty Mind), nor is his most influential (1999); and it isn’t a stretch to consider 1987′s Sign O’ the Times his most compelling and creatively-inspired artistic statement.
But Purple Rain is his towering achievement; an accessibly pop album that’s still somehow as unapologetically weird as what came before, a perfect recording that you can appreciate immediately but that also reveals impressive nuances after repeat listens. Understand, this was the first major creative release from Prince after Michael Jackson’s Thriller revolutionized the way we viewed pop stars and pop albums. Prince had been anointed “New Black Genius” status by rock critics as far back as 1980s Dirty Mind, but with the release of Thriller in late 1982, and the omnipresence of Jackson throughout 1983; he’d watched as MJ made the quantum leap from crossover R&B star to biggest star on the planet. And Jackson was doing so in the new age of multimedia — Jackson didn’t just become a megastar because of great songs; he did it with watershed TV appearances and music videos.
Prince was most definitely watching, and now, he was proving that he, too, could be that–with a quasi-biopic produced before much of the mainstream world even knew who he was; and he accompanied it with an album of perfect pop songs. If 1999 was Prince and the Revolution knocking on the pop door, Purple Rain was the sound of them knocking it down. In the 1970s, soul artists like Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder sold records and garnered tremendous critical acclaim; but that didn’t make them unequivocally the biggest stars of the era. Jackson’s 1983 ascendance proved that a black artist could be more than acclaimed-and-popular; they could be what Elvis Presley or the Beatles had been–the biggest, most iconic pop star in the world; and now, acts like Whitney Houston and Lionel Richie stood at the pinnacle of pop superstardom. Not only was Prince ready for the moment, the audience was now ready for Prince.
In recognition of the greatest album of the 1980s (yes, you read that right), here’s a breakdown of each classic track on Prince’s classic best-seller. Starting with the greatest opening song ever.
Let’s Go Crazy
It’s the perfect opening. From that churchy organ, to Prince’s goofy sermonizing about life and death — it epitomizes all that is brilliant about 80s Prince. He manages to successfully combine a Stonesy guitar riff with a hard dance backbeat — with some of the sweetest synths layered on top to give it that traditional Minneapolis feel. An amalgamation that works so well, you never notice how musically unique it is. It’s still one of the greatest songs he ever made and those guitar solos are as face-melting as anything Eddie Van Halen or Steve Vai put to wax in the mid-1980s.
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