Video will appear as you scroll through the story
Prince · S5 E6
June 25, 1984
The album drops. The movie follows. Both hit number one simultaneously. Prince owns the summer of 1984
Late July 1984. Prince has the #1 album in America, the #1 single in America, and the #1 movie in America, all at the same time. Nobody has done this before.
"U Got the Look" (Prince feat. Sheena Easton, 1987). This is what total confidence sounds like. Three years after Purple Rain made him the biggest star in America, Prince is still making hits, still breaking rules, and still having more fun than anyone else in pop music.
U Got the Look, Prince feat. Sheena Easton (1987)
"U Got the Look" is a rock-funk hybrid built on a distorted guitar riff and a drum machine set to stun. The duet with Sheena Easton adds a playful tension: they trade lines like two people flirting at a party where they're the only ones in on the joke. Listen for how the production stays aggressive while the vocal delivery stays light. It's a party song wearing combat boots.
Sources
Thorne, Matt. "Prince: The Man and His Music." Faber & Faber, 2012.
Hahn, Alex. "Possessed: The Rise and Fall of Prince." Billboard Books, 2003.
The Triple Crown
The Purple Rain album is released on June 25, 1984, and goes straight to #1 on the Billboard 200. "When Doves Cry" is already sitting at #1 on the Hot 100. When the Purple Rain movie opens on July 27 and debuts at #1 at the box office, Prince holds the top position in music, singles, and film simultaneously. No artist had pulled this off before.
Sources
Hahn, Alex. "Possessed: The Rise and Fall of Prince." Billboard Books, 2003.
Thorne, Matt. "Prince: The Man and His Music." Faber & Faber, 2012.
TAP TO REVEAL: What award did Prince win at the 1985 Oscars?
The Dominance
The Purple Rain album spends 24 consecutive weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200. It sells over 25 million copies worldwide. Five singles are released, and all of them chart. Prince is twenty-six years old, and he is, for this moment, the biggest pop star on the planet.
Sources
Hahn, Alex. "Possessed: The Rise and Fall of Prince." Billboard Books, 2003.
Thorne, Matt. "Prince: The Man and His Music." Faber & Faber, 2012.
“He's a serious artist and a skilled craftsman who may become the biggest black star in rock since Sly Stone.”
— Robert Hilburn, "The Renegade Prince," Los Angeles Times, November 21, 1982
Purple Rain: The Final Count
Sign o' the Times, Prince (1987)
After the maximalism of Purple Rain, Prince strips everything back. "Sign o' the Times" opens his 1987 double album with just a drum machine and Prince's voice listing real-world tragedies: AIDS, crack, gang violence, the Challenger explosion. It's the opposite of a victory lap. Prince follows his greatest commercial triumph with his most socially conscious, artistically ambitious record.
Sign o' the Times, Prince (1987)
The lyrics are a news ticker of disaster: AIDS in the first verse, gang shootings in the second, the space shuttle Challenger in the third. Prince delivers them flatly, without drama, letting the facts do the work. After five seasons of watching Prince build toward the biggest pop triumph of the decade, these words hit like a cold shower. The party is over. Something new is beginning.
What award did Prince win at the 1985 Academy Awards?
Prince stands at the top of the world, but he's already bored. Next season: the war with his own label, the name change, and the moment Prince decides to burn everything down and rebuild from scratch.
0 XP earned this session