Prince

The anniversary

A faint voice whispers “I never meant to cause you any sorrow…” and the whole club falls silent, on a sweltering Minneapolis night. It's August 3, 1983. The singer straps on a guitar, sports a Little Richard-style pompadour, and wears a purple jacket with a white ruffled shirt. His name is Rogers Nelson, known to friends as Prince. After a long instrumental intro from a guitarist who's just turned eighteen, Wendy Melvoin (one half of the legendary duo Wendy & Lisa), the Minneapolis Prince begins to sing a song that would go down in history, one that would go on to give its title to the album released just over a year later, on June 25, 1984. "Purple Rain", Prince's sixth LP, born from his fervid creative furnace. Just over a month later, on July 27, the eponymous film for which the album served as soundtrack would hit theaters. A bizarre movie, directed by Albert Magnoli, in which good old Rogers Nelson played The Kid, a young nightclub singer locked in perpetual competition with two other bands, doomed to vent on stage all the frustrations of a depressing family life, caused by his quarrelsome, violent parents. The Kid sings of a purple rain that belongs to the end of the world: “Blood and sky mixed (I know times are changin’/ it’s time we all reach out/ for something new…)” and that has to do with standing by the people you love, trusting them and relying on them. Rain is the purifying element, while purple is the dawn, a new beginning.

Soon after, the album and the film would launch Prince into the stratosphere of pop culture. The genius from Minneapolis would start filling arenas, on a par with Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, and above all that Michael Jackson with whom he would enter into a perverse (and partly misleading) rivalry.

A masterful synthesis of soul, funk and Hendrix-style rock (just listen to the title track's closing solo to be convinced), "Purple Rain" would go on to sell over 25 million copies worldwide, while the film would gross over $70 million at the box office against a budget of just over seven.

The rest is history. The history of an album, a song and a genius, who would go on dispensing gems of creativity for at least three more decades, until his tragic — and God knows how premature — passing, on April 21, 2016. "Sometimes it snows in April", he sang. And it was in April that he left us, leaving an unfillable void among his fans and among music lovers everywhere.

Now, exactly forty years after the release of that masterpiece, his hometown of Minneapolis can hardly wait to celebrate his genius. Besides a series of concerts that will take place, among other venues, at the very historic club where "Purple Rain" debuted back in 1983, fans will get the chance to see up close, free of charge, the costume Prince wore in the film. The outfit will be on display until July 27 in the lobby of the Gale Family Library inside the Minnesota History Center. The costume, designed by Louis Wells, Vaughn Terry, and Marie France, was acquired by the historical and cultural institution in 1987. Concerts and panel discussions will also be held at Paisley Park, the headquarters where Prince lived until that tragic day in 2016 when — according to the autopsy results — an accidental Fentanyl overdose took him from us.

"Purple Rain" will also make its way to the stage. The world premiere of the theatrical adaptation, ahead of its Broadway debut, will be held at the State Theatre in Minneapolis. The production, directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz, is based on the original screenplay written by Albert Magnoli and William Blinn.

Today, June 25, the original film is also being released in 4K and across various digital platforms, under the aegis of Warner Home Video. The new 4K UHD version of the film, which in 1985 won the Academy Award for Best Original Song Score, also includes bonus content featuring eight music videos.

(Claudio Fabretti)

The review

It was during the tour that took him across North America that Prince unexpectedly debuted some songs that would go on to make up his sixth album. It all happened one evening in August 1983, in Minnesota, when the crowd gathered at First Avenue for a charity concert found itself applauding, among others, "I Would Die For You", "Baby I'm A Star" and "Purple Rain". Things worked so well on stage that Prince decided to use the recordings for his new studio project. But there's more: during the long tour, the musician had seriously been considering a film script to turn into a full-fledged feature with an autobiographical flavor, telling the story of Kid, Prince's own alter ego, torn between a far-from-idyllic family life, with a despotic, violent father, and his own artistic ambitions, often thwarted. Thrown into the mix, the love story between the protagonist and the usual gorgeous girl, inevitable in a script of this kind. Filming, which began in Minneapolis in November of that same year, would lead to the rock movie "Purple Rain", entrusted to the direction of one Albert Magnoli, who found himself shooting a production that was anything but a big-budget affair. The soundtrack would be built from new tracks this time recorded by Prince in full collaboration with his band, named the Revolution. An ensemble that had welcomed into its ranks new guitarist Wendy Melvoin, who had stepped in for the departing Dez Dickerson.

The filmmaking experience confirms the expansion of our man's interests, but also his intention to broaden what was becoming a full-fledged clan. And among the musicians and artists who came and went alongside Rogers Nelson, there was of course no shortage of beautiful women, whose sensuality was often celebrated in the artist's raunchy, provocative lyrics. And while during the tour that followed "1999" his main companion had been Vanity (later leader of Vanity 6, produced by Prince himself, an actress and wife to other musicians), for 1984 the undisputed leading lady was the then-unknown Apollonia Kotero, even brought in front of the microphones during the recording of the imminent sixth album. And what happens over the course of the year celebrating America and the Los Angeles Olympics is nothing short of incredible: in an American season dominated far and wide by the second British Invasion (with Duran Duran, Culture Club, Eurythmics, but also Def Leppard, riding high), and in the face of the immense success of Michael Jackson and the nearly disbanded Police, Prince shatters nearly every record, edging out the concurrent comeback of Bruce Springsteen, born in the U.S.A.: "Purple Rain", in its LP version, tops the American charts for twenty-one consecutive weeks (only "Thriller" had managed better, with 28!), spawns two number-one singles, "When Doves Cry" and the title-track ballad, sells eight million copies (a figure that has since risen to 15 in the US market alone), and spreads out into an exhausting, spectacular tour. But the surprises are far from over: the film, which certainly didn't cost a fortune, becomes a massive hit and pulls in over $100 million at the box office, even earning the soundtrack an Academy Award!

Amid this whirlwind of events, Prince certainly doesn't lose sight of the musical side of things. The first noticeable change is instrumental: while the previous record had essentially been dominated by keyboard textures, on "Purple Rain" Prince decides to push the guitar to the forefront. And between the bends, the flourishes and the facial expressions of their owner, everything seems to circle back to the myth of Jimi Hendrix. The media don't hold back, fueling the comparison. One that Prince — often judged vain and conceited — resents and finds uncomfortable: "I'm closer to Carlos Santana's style, his more delicate, feminine way of playing", murmurs, more than once, a prince now determined to reveal nothing more to the press. But the album's opener leaves no room for argument: "Let's Go Crazy" is a bold, breezily agile burst of adrenaline-fueled rock; an opening entrusted to Prince's voice in preacher-like poses, his invitation to leave your worries behind and let loose in a cathartic dance. The Revolution build a framework always propped up by what has by now become the classic Minneapolis Sound, with the master's guitar leading the charge right up to the final, all-out sacrifice, the closing notes ripped out at breakneck speed with an evident Hendrix-style wah-wah assist. But there's no time to catch your breath: the fireworks of the drum rolls, the bewitching, almost psychedelic-tinged synth sounds, a driving pace fitting for describing the new love story between Prince and Apollonia, who is also called upon to contribute backing vocals on "Take Me With You". A passion that stops at nothing: "The Beautiful Ones", a spacey ballad graced by hyper-modern production, with slowed-down drumming and relentless use of delay, Prince's plea never tipping into mawkishness, thanks also to a vocal performance that swings between desperate, coy, and often hysterical. The return to fury comes courtesy of the insinuating guitar of "Computer Blue", but the stellar production, with its incredible layering of echo and overlapping vocals, erases any hint of rawness without stripping the song of its rock soul, and in the finale Prince even pays tribute to the school of heavy-metal screamers. The next episode, drenched in eroticism and at times decidedly hardcore, stars a ravenous femme fatale, that "Darling Nikki" whom our young genius meets in the lobby of a five-star hotel, catching her in the act of masturbating with the pages of a newspaper. Propped up by a daring harmonic structure and a futuristic groove, the woman seduces Prince and gives him a night of extreme sex, leaving him alone and limp in the rumpled bed.

The mega-hit "When Doves Cry" (over two million copies sold) opens with a distorted pentatonic sequence before sliding into a syncopated, oblique groove where there isn't a trace of bass to be found! Almost like the description of a story reaching its end, the author's ultimate confession in the face of the loneliness of a broken love. The finale is entrusted to a stunning, unexpected keyboard solo, lightning-fast yet poetic, a fitting close with an almost cinematic flourish. With "I Would Die For You" we enter live-show territory, with Prince confessing, over the usual thrilling Minneapolis-Sound groove of brushed drums, keyboards and echo, that he's neither man nor woman, just an understanding lover. The set continues with what is perhaps the most traditionally funky-soul-leaning track, "Baby I'm A Star", marked by a powerful, crisp, precise rhythm. The now-legendary closer is entrusted to the ballad "Purple Rain", the Prince's eternal evergreen, also the aesthetic manifesto of his purple period: solemn, romantic, with lyrical, Hendrix-style guitar work and a sprawling orchestral conclusion, nine minutes of pop ecstasy.

Thanks to the songs on "Purple Rain", Prince hits on just the right formula to finally break through on a social level too. The secret lies entirely in a pared-down songwriting approach, shaped into a more classic song form, at least in terms of individual track lengths, yet never compromised by the logic of the market — save for the logic of Prince himself.

(Davide Sechi)

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