Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to sing the praises of one of the greatest movie soundtracks of all time. In the movie he may have simply been known as "The Kid," but to everyone in Minneapolis, this album and many of his others cemented Prince as The King.
This album's ingenuity and rockabilly-funk production was so prominent upon the musical landscape at the time that it gave birth to a (short-lived) subgenre called "The Minneapolis Sound." Prince was a man possessed during this time period. He wrote 100+ songs for this film/album concept, not including the ones he wrote for The Time and Appolonia 6.
Any praise I heap upon Prince's writing or vocal talents on the record would only be redundant at this point. This is one of the undisputed classic albums of our generation. It would be pedestrian of me to mention the hard-rocking and demented Computer Blue, the steamy sex of Darling Nikki, or the stripped-down symphony that is When Doves Cry. But damn it, I just have to.
Even Prince must wonder how he did it. Last year he showed his longing for these days. He released an album called "MPLSound." It was critically panned and his fanbase treated it with embarrassment. Prince is at his best when he's plowing forward and not reaching towards his past. He's at his best when he's thinking about the innocuous images that catch his fancy: purple rain, crying doves and dirty girls who never call you back.
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