I always found it very interesting how Prince kept a healthy ongoing relationship with the Purple Rain era/album/material, even after taking drastic stylistic and aesthetic turns as his career progressed. This seems fairly atyipical in the context of pop/rock stars with a lengthy career - but a more finite apex of popularity.

Certainly, Springsteen will not perform much Born in The USA material unless it is drastically re-arranged, preferring to focus on more critically acclaimed earlier work or more recent later work. Madonna has slagged off material from her early career as somewhat lightweight, yet it's arguably some of her best work. Bowie spent much of the 90s - forward heavily critiquing his 1980s period that was more pop, but made his fortune. But not Prince.

Even at the 1996 MTV Emancipation kick-off party, when Prince was at the height of the symbol era, Purple Rain was the centerpiece of that short set. Played faithfully. During the early 2000s "comeback" era, he mentioned in several interviews that's purple Rain would be the song he'd most miss playing should he stop playing it. (Sheila E commented in recent months it was the song he would "most want to be remembered by".) Certainly in recent years, he had even more expressly embraced this specific period -- I.e, "this could be us" artwork, what look like Purple Rain gold albums on the cover of AOA, continuing to perform a good deal of the material live. His early years were "edgier" and conventional wisdom suggests that SOTT and other subsequent albums matched and/or Bettered PR's quality. Yet he never succumbed to slagging off/denying this work.

Do you believe Prince did indeed see the PR era as his greatest artistic (and obviously commercial triump), was the work perhaps more truly autobiographical than originally suggested, was the message sufficiently wholesome to comport with his later life belief system/life philosophy,or did he just really enjoy the music itself... his close association with this work is perhaps the one aspect of P's career in which she somewhat capitulated to his audience/engaged in crowd pleasing.

Thoughts?
[Edited 4/24/17 19:00pm]
[Edited 4/24/17 19:02pm]

benni said:

That must have been an awesome experience to witness that show. Perhaps the song took on even deeper emotional resonance for Prince as time passed. And to perform a song so entwined with its epic guitar solo on the piano tour also adds some depth.