Prince's Purple Rain came out on this day in 1984

Originally published at: Prince's Purple Rain came out on this day in 1984 | Boing Boing

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I think Purple Rain the album did a great job of musically coalescing what Prince was about up to that point and made a good introduction for beginners. (Musically. Lyrically it left out race and politics.) But even then I don’t think it was his best album.

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Purple Rain Movie GIF by Bounce

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I don’t think Purple Rain would have had the popularity and impact that it did if it wasn’t for the movie that introduced the music to a much wider audience.

Hm… I’d argue that it was MTV playing the videos pretty constantly. It’s pretty clear that by the late 70s, the radio landscape was pretty conservative, and as such certain artists could not break through. MTV changed the equation, and there are plenty of artists who could not get radio play, who found a ready audience on MTV. I think the movie certainly helped, but I think the videos were probably the driving force for both getting people to theaters and to getting album sales.

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True, although I wonder if the movie didn’t help establish the album (to modern listeners) as archetypal Prince. (Of course, just being released in 1984, a very powerful pop music year in retrospect, may be just as important.)

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Could be. I do agree that the movie might have had a major role in shaping his popular image, but I don’t know if that would have happened without the MTV airplay, especially for people who were not old enough to go see the movie, like me. Those videos are pretty seered in my brain at a time when I was not old enough to go to an R rated film.

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Yes MTV definitely had a huge impact. I think seeing 1999 on MTV was the first Prince song that hooked me to his music. As I recall, most of the Purple Rain music videos were comprised of clips from the movie, and may have even been what drove people to watch the movie in the first place.

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Sure… but also this…

the revolution prince GIF

when doves cry prince GIF

the revolution prince GIF

I Love Flirting GIF

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I like Dirty Mind, Sign of the Times, Diamonds and Pearls, [symbol], The Undertaker, 3121, and Plectrumelectrum as well as Purple Rain but all his albums have some great stuff on them.
Growing up, despite liking Prince generally and the radio hits, I never had any of his records. I was really lucky because in college, my friend I traded mix tapes with was a Prince superfan who made me a mix of all his favorite deep cuts from every album up to that time, which really opened my mind to what Prince was really all about. the Come album is pretty interesting as it’s material is brilliant but out-of-left-field, but it contains one of my favorites of his, “Letitgo.”

then of course there’s a ton of his material with the vocals are by other people or groups but which he wrote, played, and produced otherwise entirely, “Sex Shooter,” the original “Nothing Compares 2U” by The Family, most if not all of The Time’s output, and so on. All great.

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To be honest, I rank Prince’s Love Symbol album and 20Ten leagues above Purple Rain.

I have to agree—the Love Symbol album is essence of Prince and warranted more attention than it got. I still enjoy Purple Rain, as overplayed as it was; but the tight funk, silky crooning, and outright weirdness make the other album irresistible.

(I only struck 20Ten because I don’t know it!)

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“Oh no, let’s go!”

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