Purple Rain Tracklist
Purple Rain, Prince’s sixth album, was released on June 25, 1984, and doubles as the soundtrack to his debut film released one month later on July 27th. Although 1982’s 1999 was the first to feature The Revolution, Purple Rain was the first album credited as Prince and The Revolution.
Purple Rain is considered one of the greatest albums of all time as it has achieved Diamond status in the US with more than 10 million copies sold and more than 25 million copies sold worldwide. The album also won an Oscar for Best Original Song Score as well as two Grammy Awards for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. Prince became the first artist in North America to have a #1 album, movie and song (“When Doves Cry”).
Purple Rain is a melting pot of styles, from rock, pop, R&B, funk, and electro, while balancing uptempo and mid-tempo dance songs with slow ballads. The album produced two #1 pop hits with the first two singles, “When Doves Cry” and “Let’s Go Crazy,” while “Purple Rain” and “I Would Die 4 U” were both Top 10 singles. The album’s final single, “Take Me With U,” peaked at #25 on the Billboard Hot 100. Purple Rain was involved in controversy as Tipper Gore, the wife of then-Senator Al Gore, included “Darling Nikki” in the “Filthy 15” in 1985 as she and the Parents Music Resource Center pushed for Parental Advisory stickers on explicit music.
Purple Rain is one of the definitive albums of the 1980s and it has been featured on several “best of” lists, including a rank of #8 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, inclusion on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 200 Definitive Albums list, TIME magazine’s All-TIME 100 Albums list, the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry and it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
In a 1986 interview with Ebony magazine, Prince made the following statement:
I think Purple Rain is the most avant-garde, ‘purple’ thing I’ve ever done.
“Purple Rain” Q&A
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How did this album do on the various Billboard charts?
The album debuted at number 11 on the US Billboard 200, selling 1.5 million copies.
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Did this album receive any accolades?
Yes, Purple Rain won a grammy in 1984 for ‘Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.’
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How did this do among critics?
The album received universal acclaim and a perfect score from many mainstream sources, including Pitchfork, AllMusic, and The Guardian.
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Rolling Stone magazine's "500 Greatest Albums" ranking
Purple Rain placed #8 in Rolling Stone magazine’s 2020 list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.”
It’s an incredible balance of contradicting impulses — from the pornographic “Darling Nikki” to the sparkling innocence of “Take Me With You.” When Purple Rain director Albert Magnoli asked for a good song to back a montage sequence, Prince came in the next day with “When Doves Cry,” a stark, eccentric-sounding brokenhearted song that became his first Number One single.
