IGN reviews Purple Rain "20 years later it's still Prince's masterpiece."

http://music.ign.com/arti...915p1.html

Overall Score - 10

August 24, 2004 - It's always strange to revisit an album that is universally regarded as a classic. And it's even stranger to re-examine one that's just turned 20, yet still sounds fresh, invigorating, and above all cutting edge. Such is the case with Prince's seminal offering Purple Rain, which was originally released back on August 6th, 1984 and is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.

Following on the heels of the uber successful 1999, this album—and the accompanying film—proved once and for all that his purple majesty from Minneapolis was bona fide. No, Prince Nelson Rogers, esq. was not merely a flamboyantly sexual cross between Hendrix and Little Richard, but his own singular talent as guitarist, songwriter, and object of sexual desire.

Each and every one of the 9 songs (yes, there's only 9. Why? Because Prince understands the value of crafting a tight album, unlike many of today's pop stars who find it necessary to overload their albums with 17-plus tracks, many of which are nothing more than vapid filler) contained within is a gem, ranging from the rock infused anthem "Let's Go Crazy" to the nastication of "Darling Nikki" and the slow burn slink of "When Doves Cry." Not only is the album rife with classic hits, but it's one of those rare hit pop records that has been masterfully sequenced. In short, every track fits into place like a well-oiled machine, setting a mood and then carrying over to the following track. This is perhaps one of the smoothest flowing albums ever crafted. Period.

As if sonically foreshadowing his future Al Green-esque career path (from secular singer to Born Again Christian and then back to a permutation of the two) Prince kicks off the album with mock church organ and an uplifting sermon that commences with the words "Dearly beloved/we r gathered here today/2 get through this thing called life/electric word, life…" before grinding off into a guitar driven chug of fist waving and booty sashaying exuberance. In fact, Prince's six-string ejaculation is what holds the song together (and thankfully his axe wielding prowess will continue to rear it's glorious head throughout the album) cresting in a searing solo that will leave even the stoutest of air guitarists gasping for breath.

From this upbeat opening Prince and the rest of The Revolution (easily the best backing band he ever utilized) shift into the bubbling "Take Me With U." Featuring Prince's protégé of that moment in time, Apollonia, it's a bouncy pop number that shuffles along thanks to some kinetically spicy rhythms, faux string enhancements and Prince and App's cajolingly sexy counterpoint. With the next track, "The Beautiful Ones," Prince and company tone things down, at least musically speaking, for a low-n-slow tempo number that has the Purple one crooning, gasping, sighing, and vocally genuflecting with uber sensuality.

"Computer Blue" begins with Lisa (Coleman, one half of the duo of Wendy & Lisa and the Revolution's keyboardist) asking the following sultry question: "Wendy, is the water warm enough?" Naturally the answer is "yes" and the song kicks off into Prince's trademark sauciness, this time revolving around the seemingly rhetorical question "Where is my love life?" and then slipping into ambiguous phraseology regarding the titular computer blue. Buzzing guitars intertwine with sizzling keyboards and a clopping rhythm, keeping everything decidedly in the red before collapsing into a dizzying guitar driven aural melee.

In reality, "Computer Blue" was nothing more than a 3-minute and 59-second lead in to the album's centerpiece. "Darling Nikki" is the notorious grinder wherein Prince talks about meeting a woman in a hotel lobby where she is masturbating with a magazine. Those self-same lyrics ring with just as much controversy today as they did 20 years ago, capturing the musician's pure, unadulterated rock and roll bravado with a graceful sleaziness. Prince's accompanying whelps, yelps, and ecstatic screams only add more fuel to the fire. Brilliant, sexy, nasty, and dirty; everything a great rock song should be. That it culminates with a climactic guitar flurry is like the proverbial icing on the cake. Plus the back masked ending is classically nebulous.

The skirling spiral guitar crunch that signals the opening of "When Doves Cry" is perhaps one of the most recognized axe blasts ever laid to tape. Coupled with the loping rhythm track and Prince's restrained nasal vocal tang, the song is one of the seminal numbers in his vast canon. From the introspective (and rumored to be autobiographical) the album shifts into the speed shuffle of "I Would Die 4 U," in which Prince unveils the somewhat cryptic lyrical rush "I'm not your lover/I'm not your friend/I am something that you'll never comprehend…" The song more or less bleeds seamlessly into "Baby I'm A Star," yet another musically upbeat number propelled by spastic rhythms and Prince's yelping cat call vocalistics.

But the previous two songs, while catchy and infused with unbridled energy, are merely the set-up for the grande finale: "Purple Rain." The closing track is an epic 8-minutes and 41-seconds of slow burning intensity, initially beginning as nothing more than a stripped down drum beat, soft keyboards, and Prince's guitar, all flowing smoothly underneath his quietly calm tenor. The imagery instilled in the deceptively simple lyrics is wonderful (c'mon, purple rain? F@#kin' brilliant, if you ask me) and the song slowly builds up in musical and emotional tension, Prince's voice cracking and careening and screeching with wild, yet restrained abandon. Then the guitar kicks in, buffered by piano and swelling synth orchestration, all of which is just a precursor to the enrapturing "oh-oh-ohs" that lead into the squelchingly intense guitar apocalypse that shuts the song down. Sure, it's crazy '80s, but damn if it still doesn't resonate, both musically and emotionally, these twenty years later.

Given the quality of the songwriting and the almost uncanny timelessness of the music contained on Purple Rain, it's really hard to imagine somebody who has never heard a single note of this album. In fact the very thought of such a notion is nothing short of mind-numbing. At the risk of being over laudatory, Purple Rain is one of those albums that belongs in everybody's record collection. It's really that simple.
-- Spence D.

Overall Score -10

Each and every one of the 9 songs (yes, there's only 9. Why? Because Prince understands the value of crafting a tight album, unlike many of today's pop stars who find it necessary to overload their albums with 17-plus tracks, many of which are nothing more than vapid filler)

How old is this guy?! He doesn't know why albums only had 9 songs back then?! Especially when one was over 5-minutes and another was over 8-minutes long?

In reality, "Computer Blue" was nothing more than a 3-minute and 59-second lead in to the album's centerpiece. "Darling Nikki"

Whatever, dude!

But the previous two songs, while catchy and infused with unbridled energy, are merely the set-up for the grande finale: "Purple Rain."

There you go again. The writer starts off saying how each song is classic and then says things like one song is "nothing more" and another two songs are "merely the set-up"?!?

The guy can't even write with his own words -- I've seen a couple dozen of these same phrases and adjectives in a hundred other reviews. Sad. An orger can do it better, no doubt.
[This message was edited Tue Aug 24 22:00:35 2004 by Snap]

yum, more shits, giggles n'discrepancies:

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

The imagery instilled in the deceptively simple lyrics is wonderful (c'mon, purple rain? F@#kin' brilliant, if you ask me)

ohhhhh man.

Snap said:

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

ohhhhh man.

Only simple to simple minds. There's actually been some great research on the meanings behind the color purple and "purple rain" seen within different spiritual spheres of rainbow colors.

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

i hereby dub this review Best Review To Poke With A Stick!

Man, and I thought their game reviews were bad.

You can't spell ignorant without IGN!

One of the worst-written reviews ever posted here! Shame the content is even one notch below the style. Waste of cyber-space!

HobbesLeCute said:

Man, and I thought their game reviews were bad.

You can't spell ignorant without IGN!

wasitgood4u said:

I thought this review was good too...he is gushing all over the album. Sure, he doesn't seem to like Computer Blue which is a classic, but he says the whole album is a classic.

The quality of articles over on IGN is usually not great. But at least the writer's heart is in the right place

Consider the dazzling editorial prowess of Uptown. I'm still smarting over their assertion that Abe Lincoln was the first U.S. president....

Snap said:[quote]Each and every one of the 9 songs (yes, there's only 9. Why? Because Prince understands the value of crafting a tight album, unlike many of today's pop stars who find it necessary to overload their albums with 17-plus tracks, many of which are nothing more than vapid filler)

How old is this guy?! He doesn't know why albums only had 9 songs back then?! Especially when one was over 5-minutes and another was over 8-minutes long?

[i was thinking the same thing, if prince had his way purple rain(and every other album pre-cd) would have had 17+ tracks on it, and alot pf vapid filler ala emancipation, like someone else said, his heart is in the right place, but i seriously doubt he listened to anything after atwiad

Anxiety said:

Consider the dazzling editorial prowess of Uptown. I'm still smarting over their assertion that Abe Lincoln was the first U.S. president....

There was more than just 9 songs on this classic album those classic b-sides (I listened to it every day for a year and a half) and I wish Warners would release the album in it's entireitiy for the 20th aniversary of this groundbreaking release

1) let's go crazy
2) take me with you
3) the beautiful ones
4) computer blue
5) darling nikki
6) when doves cry
7) i would die 4 u
8) baby i'm a star
9)purple rain
10) god
11) another lonely christmas
12) let's go crazy (12 inch)
13) 17 days
14) erotic city (12 inch)

soulgroove said:

Do not hurry yourself in your spirit to become offended, for the taking of offense is what rests in the bosom of the stupid ones. (Ecclesiastes 7:9)