Purple Reign: Remembering Prince on the anniversaries of ‘Purple Rain’ and ‘Around The World In A Day’
This year marks the 41st anniversary of Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’ album, released mid-1984 but remaining a firm fixture on the charts right through 1985. ‘Purple Rain’, the movie, was released on August 2, 1984, celebrating its birthday tomorrow.
2025 also marks the 40th anniversary of ‘Around The World In A Day’, an album that defied pop and rock sensibilities to bring psychedelia to the fore once more. Cream magazine pays tribute to the wholly inspired and holy-like inspirational Artist Formerly Known As…
On 25 June 1984, Prince released Purple Rain, his iconic sixth studio album that within months went on to shatter all expectations, breaking records and making music history. The movie of the same name followed and that too proved majorly popular in the mainstream.
Prince’s Purple Rain went on to win two Grammy awards (Best Rock Performance by a Group and Best Album of Original Score Written For A Motion Picture), two American Music Awards, a Brit Award, and an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score.
It solidified Prince as not only a talent to be reckoned with but an all-round musical genius whose production style was sought after or emulated by countless other artists.
Purple Rain spent 24 weeks at No.1 on the Billboard album charts, sold over 25 million copies worldwide, and appears on countless ‘Best Of’ polls, most recently achieving the No.4 spot on Apple Music’s Top 100 Albums Of All Time.
Further albums never gained as much recognition as Purple Rain but did very well chartwise and radio-wise the world over. These included Around The World In A Day (1985), Parade (1986), and Sign of the Times (1987).
Around The World In A Day has always been one of my favourite Prince albums. It was never an obvious followup to the blockbuster Purple Rain, and that’s why I love it even more. Where the former saw grinding rock weave through many of the tracks, the latter possessed a certain psychedelic tinge that even Jimi Hendrix would have been proud of. Songs on the album run the gamut in theme, from politics and religion, patriotism to sin. There was America and the funked-up (Tamborine), the way trippy and poptastic Raspberry Beret and, one of my alltime favourite Prince tracks, Pop Life – an ode to the over-the-top lifestyle of pop stars – including himself perhaps.
Within a couple of years, though, things went somewhat south when Prince started to play around with his now world-renowned moniker.
We all knew he should never have changed his name to a symbol. It put us all in a tizz, and put a halt on the buzz that was Prince – musical whiz-kid of the 1980s. For the record, the name change had less to do with pretension and more to do with the artist wanting to make music outside of his contract with record company Warner Music.
Warner stipulated that Prince was not entitled to use his own name until he completed a certain number of recordings with them. Pop politics aside, Prince’s lyrical knack and musical mastery saw him remain a tectonic influence on popular culture for years to come. Decades, actually, when you consider all the artists today that site the man as influence.
The man’s music was always influlential, forever challenging, always motivating, and heck yeah, addictive stuff. And Prince’s celebrity was scandalous, even for the fact that you never knew if you were dealing with one of God’s chosen ones here or a dude who sold his soul to the devil.
Gospel. Rock. Club music. Soul. Rhythm and blues. Electronica. Even the occasional heavy metal (have you really listened to that guitar grind at the start of When Doves Cry?). Aside from country, there was hardly any musical genre Prince couldn’t turn his hand and mind to, creating hundreds of recordings – many of which sold like (raspberry) hotcakes, some of which have yet to see the light of day.
One of the most inspirational and acclaimed musicians of the 20th century, Prince Rogers Nelson may have appeared to have waned in the mindset of today’s MP3-infatuated generation, but realise this: his latter-day albums actually did pretty well. 2004’s Musicology, for example, debuted at number three on the Billboard Chart and garnered him two Grammys and a top-grossing tour.
In fact, Prince was one of the most prolific solo artists there ever was, having recorded and released 39 albums over a career that spanned 35 years. Who knows what else might be in the vault for us to enjoy in days to come?
To mark 40 years plus of Prince and The Revolution’s Purple Rain, a Dolby ATMOS mix of the album has been made available, plus vinyl version has been remastered.
For an in-depth read of what in his life inspired Prince to create such magical music, read ‘Prince: Purple Reign’ by Mick Wall, available through Hachette Australia (RRP $32.99).
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