(Photo: Richard E. Aaron/Redferns)
Once your master plan has succeeded and so many of your dreams have come true… so what?
It’s a question a 26-year-old prince may have asked himself after “Purple Rain” transformed him into a global superstar virtually overnight (or whatever passed for “overnight”). tomorrow” in 1984). Although his rise has been gradual – “Purple Rain,” released on this day 40 years ago, was Prince’s sixth album – there is no disputing the remarkable speed with which his fame has skyrocketed over the years. he summer of “Ghostbusters,” the Los Angeles Olympics and “Born.” in the USA”
Certainly, musical careers, like almost everything else, then advanced more gradually. But that’s also how Prince revealed himself. Launched as an R&B enthusiast with “For You” in 1978, he began incorporating pop, new wave, heavily NSFW lyrics and other influences over the next few years. As one of the first black artists to be featured on the then-new MTV, his epic album “1999” and its videos showed a Prince that few outside his fan base had seen: “Wow, did you know he could dance like that? And look, he can shred on the guitar too! That album’s slow build since its October 1982 release set the stage for “Purple Rain,” thanks to video gaming and intense touring, the pressures of which would illuminate the inter-band conflicts featured in the film – not to mention rock music flamboyant style that he created. would fit this phase of his career, and that brought him to mainstream white audiences.
“Purple Rain” launched with flying colors: “When Doves Cry,” its unique and unforgettable first single, debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 on June 2 at No. 57, then rose unusually quickly ( for the time) to No. 1 in just over a month, beginning its five-week reign on July 7 – a week after the album’s release. The album’s “Purple Rain” rise to the top was even quicker: Supercharged by the success of the single and the growing buzz around the upcoming film, it debuted at No. 11 on the Billboard 200 on July 14. and reached the peak on August 4 – a week after the film’s release in more than 900 theaters in the United States
The film, with its electrifying musical performances of The Prince and the Revolution and its themes of triumph over adversity (and one’s own demons), galvanized the entertainment world for the rest of the year, won an Academy Award and raked in nearly $70 million at the box office. – compared to its budget of $7.2 million. During that time, the album remained at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for six months, won three Grammy Awards and spawned five hit singles, including another No. 1 (“Let’s Go Crazy”) and a no. °2 (“Purple Rain”). . The album is estimated to have sold at least 25 million copies worldwide, although the real figure is probably much higher: it was certified 13 times platinum in the United States alone in 1996, the last time anyone bothered to count.
When Prince and the Revolution finally took the stage to kick off the “Purple Rain” tour in Detroit on Nov. 4, beginning a sold-out seven-night show at Joe Louis Arena, they were almost literally on top of the world.
But rather than embrace this fame – to which he had devoted his life and that of many others – Prince began to reject it almost as soon as it was his, with strange statements and behaviors, meandering speeches about scene about religion, thug activities on the part of his bodyguards. , a false retirement from concerts, and above all being the only major celebrity to decline an invitation to participate in the all-star charity single “We Are the World”. He capped it off, less than a year after the release of “Purple Rain,” by releasing “Around the World in a Day,” a new album that almost seemed designed to alienate as many fans as possible.
Prince had always cut an unusual figure and rarely played the pop star game. But even by his standards, it was a lot.
“Purple Rain” was “my albatross – it will be around my neck as long as I make music”, Prince said years later, adding in a separate interview that it was “in some ways more damaging as beneficial.” It pigeonholed me.
The claustrophobia of such fame was only part of the problem: far more important to him, it also made him feel creatively trapped.
“I almost had a nervous breakdown during the ‘Purple Rain’ tour because it was the same thing every night,” Prince told the Chicago Tribune in 2012, adding in a separate interview with Icon: “I was doing the 75th concert, I was doing the same thing over and over again, and I just lost it. I said, “I can’t do this!”
“Prince got tired of playing the movie every night,” said guitarist Wendy Melvoin. Variety in 2022.
The concerts of the “Purple Rain” tour reflect this uneasiness. Extravagantly staged, with elaborate lighting and costumes, fake flowers and props, the show was confusingly paced: it opened with a crushing volley of five of his biggest hits – “Let’s Go Crazy”, “Delirious”, “1999”, “Little Red”. Corvette” and “Take Me With U,” which most artists would save for the first encore — before quickly losing momentum (and often the audience) with an endless segment of deep cuts, unreleased songs, instrumentals or spoken word long and seemingly unnecessary. interludes, a meandering piano medley, and a slightly offbeat piece where he pretended to masturbate the neck of his guitar, eventually shooting water out of the neck.
He then re-energized the energy for the finale with a battery of tracks from “Purple Rain,” ending with a lengthy jam on “I Couldn Die 4 U” and a finale of the title song that could stretch for more than 20 minutes. There was plenty of enthusiasm during the show and tour – at the February 23 concert in Los Angeles, he was joined on stage by Bruce Springsteen and Madonna – but it made for an uneven and sometimes unsatisfying experience for fans, and critics alike have given the tour decidedly mixed reviews, often calling it self-indulgent, excessive, and disappointing.
The tour was also grueling, a set lasting more than two hours, an average of six nights a week, for six months – with only a ten-day break in the middle – and more than 100 concerts, as well as multiple afterparties and charity performances . , awards ceremonies and recording sessions.
After six months of Purple Mania, the cracks started to show. The biggest came in January, when he declined an offer to appear on the superstar-filled charity single “We Are the World” to raise money to fight famine in Ethiopia. He was the only major artist to refuse, and his response was poorly received, not least because he was in Los Angeles at the time (the recording took place immediately after the American Music Awards, where he and The Revolution had happened) and he went to a nightclub. instead. Although he donated an unreleased song to the song’s companion album (along with a video of it shown during the Live Aid broadcast that summer), the damage was done. Worse yet, as they were leaving the nightclub that night, his bodyguards roughed up a photographer – who, to be fair, was trying to get into Prince’s limousine – leading to a lawsuit.
Then, during a brief break from touring a few days later, he flew to London to receive an award at the British Phonographic Institute’s BPI Awards. Rather than a traditional awards ceremony down the aisle, Prince was ushered onto the stage bulldozer-style by one of those same bodyguards – 6’8″ Chick Huntsberry, who also appears in “Purple Rain” – and, by way of an acceptance speech, said only: “All thanks to God, good night This demonstration did not win him the affection of the caustic British tabloid press, which did.” reported that he was heard muttering as he left the country that he should have been “shown more respect.”
The tour continued through February and March – including nine nights in Los Angeles, six in San Francisco and New York – before culminating in a one-of-a-kind event, the March 30 concert. in Syracuse, at the Carrier Dome was broadcast by satellite to an estimated 12 to 15 million people across Europe (and later released on video). But despite the dazzling staging – and what the members of the Revolution said Variety was one of the best and most “concise” concerts of the tour – it is still quite indulgent and uneven: he played a verse from “1999” or “Take Me With U” before leading the group on long vamps or launch into a less familiar song; the piano medley seems to have more words than singing. On the other hand, the beginning and end arguably had too much of a good thing: he stretched “When Doves Cry”, “Baby I’m a Star” and “Purple Rain” so long that the combined length of the three songs is over 40 minutes.
“Hello Syracuse and the world,” he said at the top of the broadcast. “My name is Prince and I came to play with you.” Few people could have suspected that in three days he would say goodbye to her.
On April 2, just five days before the tour’s final date at the Orange Bowl in Miami – which takes place on Easter Sunday – Prince announced via a statement from his manager, Steven Fargnoli, that he was “withdrawing from the live performance stage for an indefinite period. time”, this concert being “his last performance for an indeterminate number of years”. Fargnoli’s statement continued: “I asked Prince what he planned to do. He said to me, “I’m going to get the ladder.” I asked him what that meant. All he said was, “Sometimes it snows in April.” “” (These two cryptic statements were the song titles of his next two albums, which were a few days and a year away from release, respectively.)
Before him…
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News Source : variety.com
