Reading Entertainment Weekly's (B+) review of PE, the reviewer made allusions to Parade, and the reviewer said that, as of late, the album only now been perceived as "unapproachably awesome."

It kind of made me proud, and mad, at the same time. Where were these fools when critics were punking it in their reviews?

namepeace said:

second that

third that shit

"Parade" is and always was awesome.
[b]

That's just some asshole's opinion, why should it matter?

wlcm2thdwn said:

It's that the opinion is reflective of an overall re-evaluation of an album that was overlooked because of its association with a roundly ridiculed movie. It didn't deserve that fate, and now people are waking up to it, just as they are re-awakening to Prince's overall brilliance and importance as an artist and performer.

How's that?

I've been saying for a long time now that many view Prince and the 80's with rose tinted glasses. Retrospect vs. how it really was is different.


Consider: initial US album sales of his albums released from 1985-1988.

Fellow orger sthoudek had it right when he said:

...(Lovesexy) was a huge flop, and it wasn't well received, outside of some die hards like us...

It's easy to look back and see what he did back then as successful, but even Sign 'o' the Times wasn't loved by everyone, & didn't have hit after hit on the radio. Parade & the movie were not huge hits. Prince was struggling commercially at the same time he was making masterpieces.

Consider: A sample review of Parade upon it's release:

New Musical Express
April 12, 1986

Sometimes it pisses down in April

I TOOK 'Kiss' as a signal that we were being ushered back into the compressed, airtight funkworld of 'Dirty Mind'. Didn't flip over the song itself - slick metronome sexgospel - but what a relief to hear that funky, flecked, flicking guitar again.

It turns out we're not going back to that springy, spunky sound after all - 'Kiss' is on its own as a throwback to 'Head' and 'Party Up' and 'Do It All Night'. Not that Prince doesn't still have a filthy little mind, of course, just that these days he doesn't speak it quite so economically. It's all mixed he doesn't really know how to express, and that's become a drag.

A few things have changed since 'Around The World In A Day', it's true. For starters, there are no printed lyrics, so i don't have to pretend to have given his twee and icky poems my most careful consideration. Then for seconds there's no purple or paisley stuff on the sleeve - just plain ol' black and white narcissim (another throwback to 'Dirty Mind'). Most important, Prince isn't being such a sourpuss primadonna anymore. There I was thinking the little mulatto Amadeus was on the edge of a breakdown and suddenly he's all happy and relaxed and flirty in the 'Kiss' video.

Trouble is, i actually think 'Around The World In A Day' was the better record. For all its neo-psychedelic silliness it had three great songs, which is about three more than 'Parade' has - nothing here as witty as 'Pop Life', as mournful as 'America', or as anguished as 'Condition Of The Heart'. The worst thing about Prince's "maturity', if we can call it that, is that he has given up writing great songs - songs like 'When You Were Mine' - as a matter of course. I mean, if he can find time to bestow a morsel like 'Manic Monday' on four desperate California chicks who will probably never have another hit record in their lives, surely he could craft the odd decent tune for himself.

Prince, instead of writing simple, succinct, sexy songs, is always trying to save the world, which means that he is never content with anything but grandiose 'Sgt Pepper' albums where all the songs run into each onther and vast orchestras make a lot of superfluous noise. He is a master architect of sound but he will show off and spoil it all. His Rundgren-esque technosoup of Sly and Stevie Wonder is beginning to get very predictable.

The LP opens with 'Christopher Tracy's Parade', a typical fanfare for his highness 'Disneyland soundscape and pretty much a follow-through from the ambience of 'Paisley Park'. Who this tracy fellow is I don't know, though going by the closing elegy of 'Sometimes It Snows In April', I would guess that he is a deceased pal of the Minneapolitan midget's.

'New Position' follows with steel drums, a hard pop-funk beat, and yer basic lewd double entendre. Guitarist Wendy picks up for the strange, brief interlude of 'I Wonder U' (performances seem more democratically delegated this time around: P. isn't being such a spoilt-brat autocrat in his studio playpen) which slides swiftly into 'Under The Cherry Moon', title track of the unpromising-sounding flick for which this LP purports to be a soundtrack. I have seen many moons in my time, but never a cherry moon - how about you ? The song is a kind of kurt Weill lullaby co-authored by (Prince Sr ?) John L. Nelson.

Next up, 'Girls And Boys' is an adolescent 'Lady Marmalade' replete with "sauce" French bits and set to the beat of 'Take Me With U'. 'Life Can Be So Nice' bypasses me completely - a highspirited mess - before 'Venus De Milo' trails away at Side One's end as a slight sliver of mood-muzak, grand piano plus sweeping strings and reeds.

Flip the disc and we're straight back into Prince's booming sytnh beat on 'Mountains', which is a pounding Stevie Wonder/ Earth Wind And Fire epic. The Jazzy, smoochy 'Do U Lie ?' is a pleasant and slinky respite from such pomp.

'Kiss' then takes its isolated place in the remorseless parade of overdone semi-ideas, followed by the melodically beguiling 'Anotherloverholenyohead' (yes, it is a stupid title, isn't it). Finally, the showpiece ballad, 'Sometimes It Snows In April' (an even worse title) ends the record on a folksy acoustic noteand mourns the aforesaid departed Tracy. I feel that Prince is, on the whole, best at this most sentimental and foppishly despolate, but this is appalling kitsch and doesn't work at all.

I dunno. Is it possible, or even advisable, to take Prince seriously ? Do I have to watch Dynasty to have an attitude ? I find this record laboured and trite and self-satisfied and won't be listening to it again.

-- Barney Hoskyns

Many of Prince's albums are MUCH more appreciated later on than they were initially. That's even happening with later albums like Come.
[Edited 7/27/07 9:35am]

parade got mixed (not bad) reviews IN AMERICA, and one bad review from the NME. most of the US reviews were mostly irritated at his continuing explorations of psychedelia that he had famously canned the superstardom of purple rain with on atwiad (psychedelia and flower power being far from in fashion in the mid-eighties) and building off the tabloid media frenzy around him that time which sensationalised him as a introverted weirdo. anything that wasn't purple rain part 2 around that time would have got mixed reviews from the us press. despite the "mixed" reception, the record still got widely praised for being forward-thinking and original; per nilsen's dmsr biography has a breakdown of these on page 239.

america's post-purple rain attitude towards prince can at least be partly blamed for the reception of sign of the times and lovesexy, also. lovesexy's cover, the mindblowingly idiotic single-track cd idea, and the terrible alphabet street video can't have helped its fortunes either. and anyway, lovesexy, despite being good, is undeniably far from being as inspired as the albums before it. it's stylistically monotonous, somewhat muddled and not particularly catchy (in other words, not purple rain part 2).

in europe the reception was far better for these albums. parade won the album of the year polls in both nme and the face in 1986 and was second in melody maker's. sounds magazine and melody maker both gave it great reviews. sign of the times was near-universally acclaimed in europe, lovesexy was warmly received also.
[Edited 7/27/07 10:13am]

Skywalker, that was a great article about the "Parade" album. Contrary to org belief, "Parade" was not a favorite by the general public or a lot of Old Prince fans as well. People didn't see it as a masterpiece then and a lot of people still don't see it as a masterpiece today.

I'll give Prince credit. Yes, he was extremely creative and diverse with that album, much more than any other artist that was out during that time. However, I still don't see it as the masterpiece that so many people on the org see it as. To this day, when I run into old friends and ex-Prince fans I grew up with, when they find out I'm still a Prince fan, their reaction is....."You're still a Prince fan? Do you remember that damn album where Prince absolutely lost his damn mind with that classical shit and drove everyone away? You're still a Prince fan after that? Andy, I thought you were into funk, not Beethoven.".....We still have huge laughs over those days.

See, that's what pissed me off about Prince picking up European fans. We were pissed as hell with Prince here in the states and the Europeans loved the shit he was doing. Hell, if they had been pissed also, Prince would have had no choice than to go back to the hard stuff he was doing before "Purple Rain"....or either die being a "starving artist".