Video will appear as you scroll through the story
Prince · S6 E6
The Revolution Ends
Prince fires the band. Wendy and Lisa learn about it from the newspaper. The greatest backing group in pop is dissolved overnight
Late 1986. Prince picks up the phone and tells the members of The Revolution, one by one, that the band is over.
"7" (Prince, 1992). Prince alone, free of any band, making music that sounds like a prayer. The Revolution gave him a sound nobody else had. When he walked away from them, he proved he didn't need anyone to make something beautiful.
The Phone Calls
The Revolution has been Prince's creative backbone through Purple Rain, Around the World in a Day, and Parade. Wendy Melvoin, Lisa Coleman, Bobby Z, Brown Mark, Doctor Fink: the best band in pop music. Prince fires all of them by phone.
Sources
Per Nilsen, "DanceMusicSexRomance"
Alex Hahn, "Possessed"
Matt Thorne, "Prince"
TAP TO REVEAL: How did The Revolution find out they were fired?
7, Prince (1992)
Built on a lilting acoustic guitar and layered vocals that sound like a gospel choir of one. Prince creates a wall of harmonies by recording his own voice dozens of times, stacking them until the track floats like it's in a cathedral. Listen for how the production is completely organic: no synthesizers, no drum machines, just guitars, bass, and voices. It's the sound of someone who no longer needs a band because he IS the band.
Sources
Pitchfork
Rolling Stone
After The Revolution
Under the Cherry Moon, Prince and the Revolution
From Parade (1986). The last album The Revolution ever made together, and this ballad sounds like it knows. "Under the Cherry Moon" is quiet, intimate, and impossibly sad, like a love letter written to a relationship that's already ending. This is what goodbye sounds like when nobody says the word.
Under the Cherry Moon, Prince and the Revolution (1986)
"Can you feel it, it's so surreal." The lyrics float through a world of moonlight and shadows, and knowing this is one of the last things Prince and The Revolution recorded together makes every line feel heavier. They didn't know it was ending. The song did.
Which two Revolution members went on to form a successful duo after being fired by Prince?
The Revolution is gone, and Prince is alone with Paisley Park and a head full of ideas. Next: the vault, thousands of unreleased recordings, and the question that will haunt his entire career: why does he record so much music that nobody ever hears?
0 XP earned this session