The Daily Spin, June 11
Prince | Purple Rain
Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023.
Each album will be given a rating on a scale from 0 to 10. You can look at the entire set here. Additionally, you can check out a list of my favorite song from each album right here.
If you want to suggest an album, good news! You can do so right here!
Album: Purple Rain (1984)
Artist: Prince
Link:
First things first - I’m undeniably biased here. Prince is a Minnesotan icon as much as Joe Mauer, the Jucy Lucy, Dairy Queen, or duck duck grey duck (which is the CORRECT term). He’s one of the state’s greatest exports, and the fact that he was proud of Minnesota in turn endeared him to the state forever.
That said, this music bangs beyond belief - if you were to put a gun to my head and ask for my top 5 Prince songs, three of them hail from this album (as does number six). It’s an unbelievable run of form from him, and on an album that runs just shy of three-quarters of an hour, it’s quite the achievement to give about half of that to outright 10s.
It’s the best of fully 80s-blazing material, wild guitar solos and synth progressions that wail into the night like they’re being played for the very first time - every time. ‘Purple Rain’ oozes a schmaltzy sort of crooner vibe that’s only really offset by the full orchestral backing that pulls you out of that mindset during the chorus, while ‘Let’s Go Crazy’ goes the complete opposite direction, whipsawing off of bombastic drums and keyboard in turn to work a crowd into a frenzy.
The iconic image I’ll always hold of Prince is playing Purple Rain while it rained at the Super Bowl halftime show - to the end, a showman, an icon, undefinable by language, transcendent in every sense - and this album is the pinnacle of that definition.
Rating: 9.7/10
Best Tracks: Purple Rain; Let’s Go Crazy; I Would Die 4 U; When Doves Cry
Worst Tracks: Darling Nikki