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Parade One of my biggest regrets is sharing a Prince CD with a close friend. I debated over and over about which one to share. My naive self thought this friend was more musically inclined and decided on Parade. Much to my regret, he only enjoyed the “hit” songs. To this day I wished I would have shared Dirty Mind or my fav album 1999. This has made we wonder why I decided on Parade but I think I now understand this decision. While Parade is not his best, I think it is the most cohesive album he has made while also being the most difficult to appreciate. I think it must have taken me 20+ listens to truly understand and appreciate this album. While many fans can say what is wrong with me but I grew up in the grunge days and bought Prince cds that were made in the 90s first. What really made me appreciate this album is that while every song has its own identity it perfectly flows within the music. As soon as you really get into a song aside from a few, it flows into a completely different song with different music and possibly a different singer. The most amazing thing is that these are not the best Prince songs from 1985/1986….Come Electra Tuesday and many more…..but what makes this album so interesting is that he wrote and performed songs that would flow the best which no other Prince Cd has done this well. | |
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I wonder if he heard abbey road before he recorded parade Thats also a suite, well a good portion of it. |
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Parade is a great album, one of his finest, and everyone wants a Parade SDE. Surely nobody here could argue with any of that.... |
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Parade will always be my fave actually. Sorry PR/SOTT heads. |
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Parade from the start up to the end of venus de milo is the greatest sequence of any of his albums [Edited 7/7/24 5:41am] |
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I agree with this sentiment. Love Parade - for me, more than any of his other albums (though Lovesexy is close), it works far better as a whole than as individual tracks. I went on a long solo hike in the rain back in 2004. Set up my tent at night and it started leaking. It was cold up in the mountains (love that song!) and I was nervously pondering just how much danger I was in should I get drenched with a long night still ahead of me. In a moment of despair, I pulled out my CD Walkman - again, it was 2004 - and put on the one album I had with me, Parade. Buoyed my spirits instantly. And, by pure coincidence, it stopped raining! I stayed dry and awoke to a beautiful sunny morning. It was magical. This album has always been a fave, but it means so much more to me since that trip. |
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Absolutely love Parade, listen to tracks off it every week, easily my favorite album of his from start to finish. Would love a Parade SDE with a bunch of unreleased stuff by Prince and Clare Fischer. I was lucky enough to attend the Parade concert in Detroit Michigan back in the day and would love to see many more proshot concert videos from that period. Just a lot of fun overall. |
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I never really liked the abrupt ending of life can be so nice followed by an instrumental. A better ending of LCBSN followed directly by Love or Money would have been much better. |
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Quite possibly my desert island Prince album. IMHO, from top to bottom, the most cohesive and atmospheric Prince album. Talk about an album that just takes you away. |
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SDE Puh-leez already |
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Probably the 80s album I return to the most when I *just want to play an album* It's probably between Parade & Dirty Mind. Both are just great cohesive albums that I can listen to in their entirity without skipping.
An SDE would be amazing, but we'll probably be dust by the time the estate can be arsed to release it. blah blah blah |
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tomds said: I never really liked the abrupt ending of life can be so nice followed by an instrumental. A better ending of LCBSN followed directly by Love or Money would have been much better. The unreleased version ends abruptly and then it fades back in for about 10-15 seconds and then fades back out. |
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Oh no, the abrupt transitions are a big reason why the album is so fun to play straight through. |
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PJMcGee said:
Oh no, the abrupt transitions are a big reason why the album is so fun to play straight through. And the abrupt ending of that specific track is clearly a very deliberate artistic choice in order to mirror what actually happens in the film. blah blah blah |
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I think of the music as a separate thing. It almost never reminds me of the film. I don't even remember what happens. Is he in the car? |
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Parade is a classic, but not the album to give someone as a first introduction to Prince. Better to let them hear Purple Rain or SOTT first. Then maybe 1999, Controversy or Dirty Mind. Kiss, Girls & Boys, Mountains, Anotherlover…, are all great songs, but the rest is a little “conceptual” for a first time listener. |
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Yep | |
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This | |
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It's perfection to my ears... |
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My first Prince album, so Parade always holds a special place, but it really is one of his strangest albums. The first side segues smoothly together, but I rarely seek out indidividual songas e.g New Position to play in isolation. Side 2 is more conventional and Mountains, Do U Lie & Anotherlover...are high on my top Prince songs list.
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This thread ties nicely into paisleyparkgirl's thread on his "acquired taste" vocals from 85-87 to the extent the threads should be merged.
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noice, noice, CASE in point right here:
Nah, SOTT's a terrible intro. I would argue any Double LP from any artist is gonna overwhelm any "new" fan, but SOTT in particular with the one man band thing. New fans need to get acclimated to that first otherwise it's going to put them to sleep. |
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It's funny how Prince himself was so down on Parade. Maybe he struggled to separate it from the failure of the movie, or the trauma of ending the Revolution?
Personally, I think it is a kiiiinda weak album overall, but I still love it. It's interesting how rarely those 12 songs featured in his live shows since the Parade era, except the hits. I always loved his vocal performance on "Do U Lie?". |
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A Parade SDE could give the SOTT SDE a run for it's money. Just imagine what it could be like. Worth the wait, however long that wait will be... |
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For us old-heads, we call that Side A. |
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I like the album a lot more today than when it was released. At the time, with songs like "Venus de Milo", "Do U Lie?" and "Sometimes It Snows In April", I found it too artsy and very unfunky. I preferred the much more conventional Minneapolis albums by Jesse Johnson and Mazarati that came out that same year. For a short time Jesse even challenged Prince as my top artist. But now, Parade is my favorite album by anyone. | |
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. btw if you turn the LP you may discover the second greatest sequence of any of his albums |
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Parade is a good album, but not great. Songs taken separately are not that incredible besides the "hits", that is to say the last few songs. It could have sold a lot more had they been released Sometimes... As a single just after Kiss. |
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. I think Parade is working as cohesive-weird experimental album more than most of his works. But after almost forty years I don't have this great desire to convince anyone of his greatness. If you like it, enjoy it, if you think it's a secondary album skip it, life is too short to change people's aesthetic taste. |
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Parade is excellent, but probably not an album to introduce Prince to the noobs. I listen to it more often than PR or 1999.
I made the mistake of playing ATWIAD for a noob fan once. She didn't get it. Best to stick with the "popular" albums at first. See, conversation’s better than bein’ lonely… | |
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