Tag: purple rain

2 Prince: Parade

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

Yeah, I was completely baiting you when I said that this 1986 stone cold classic and eighth stop on our annual trawl through the most interesting back catalogue in 20th century pop might have been named the best album of 2025. It isn’t, and no Prince album on this journey ever will be named as the album of the year: While these annual lists can contain records from all kinds of points in recent and ancient musical history (this year’s list already has ancient texts dating all the way back from 2022), the #1 album always needs to have been released in the qualifying 12 month period. I’m not saying that my personal favourite ever Prince album would have been named #1 if it could, all I’m saying is that it couldn’t. It also means the competition announced on Christmas Day is still open! Nobody’s won it yet! Nobody’s entered it, admittedly, but I assume that’s because all my millions (and millions!) of readers are still just thinking really hard about it.

By 1986, it had essentially always been Prince and The Revolution. Ever since Prince needed a backing band to tour his recently released (and completely self-composed) debut album in 1979, that group (Dez Dickerson on guitar and backing vocals, Andre Cymone on bass guitar, Bobby Z on drums and percussion, Gayle Chapman on keyboards and, obviously, Matt “Dr.” Fink on keyboards) may not have had an official name yet, but they were the first building blocks of what would soon become by far and away Prince’s greatest ever collaborators. When Gayle Champman was replaced by  Lisa Coleman in 1980 and Brown Mark replaced Andre Cymone the year after, this thrillingly tight and unbelievably exciting live band were considered at least enough of a part of the Prince package to be given… a hidden backwards credit on the ‘1999‘ album cover.

Goodness will guide us if love is inside us?

12 Kendrick Lamar: GNX

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

I did it with integrity and niggas still try hate on me, just wait and see
More blood be spillin’, it’s just paint to me
Dangerously, nothin’ changed with me, still got pain in me
Flip a coin, want the shameless me or the famous me?
How annoying, does it angers me to know the lames can speak
On the origins of the game I breathe? That’s insane to me
It’s important, I deserve it all because it’s mine
Tell me why you think you deserve the greatest of all time, motherfucker

man at the garden

Yeah, could not be arsed with this album last year. It was released on November 22nd, which was already pushing it very tight for the December 1st deadline for inclusion on Necessary Evil 2024. The circumstances and context really made it feel like it was a bit of a rush release to capitalise on all the publicity surrounding the feud with Drake that we’ll likely be telling our grandchildren about.

yeah, I guess we’ll go back to speaking olde time language in the future. And writing in script. I dunno, man, that meme’s all over the place

I also heard how ‘GNX’ was, rather than an expansive and hugely intellectualised dissection of the black male psyche and how that very identity is being exploited by capitalism to be sold back to those very same people – the type of Kendricking that meant ‘Mr Morale & the Big Steppers‘ was very much on-brand – it was a more back to basic, West Coast infused straight hip-hop album, I decided it probably wasn’t really worth the intense study it would require to see if it would make that year’s list. I’ll probably give it couple of spins after Christmas, I thought.

And I did. And holy shit this album’s incredible.

it take some tough skin just to deal with you

#5 Prince: Around the World in a Day

~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

January 28th 1985 was a shade over seven months since Prince had released one of the greatest selling albums of the year – which would eventually grow to a 25 millioner amongst the best selling albums of all time – ‘Purple Rain‘ – and He had ten nominations at that night’s American Music Awards that He was attending. There was a special buzz around that night’s particular AMAs, part of which revolved around Prince going up against His eternal rival Michael Jackson in several categories. This was a non event though, as Prince won awards for Favorite Pop/Rock Album, Favorite Soul/R&B Album and Favorite Soul/R&B Song for When Doves Cry, while Jackson (moon)walked away with nothing. Anyway, in a series of decisions that history was sure to look kindly on, neither Prince nor Jackson could compete with Lionel Richie, who walked away with six awards including Favorite Soul/R&B Male Artist and Favorite Soul/R&B Male Artist. Prince’s performance of Purple Rain that night – which Billboard would later name as the greatest performance in the awards’ history – would ensure those decisions would look immediately ridiculous.

But the 1985 AMAs were most notable for the fact that, right after the ceremony that night, this absolute royalty of popular recording artists would – rather than spend the night covered in so much gak that their face resembled Elizabeth I and being serviced by heavily narcoticised groupies whom IDs was encouraged not to be checked by the entourage, as would usually be the case for successful music artists in the 80’s – they would all be whisked off to the Hollywood AGM studios to record We Are the World, a song written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and produced by Quincy Jones to benefit ‘USA for Africa‘ (America’s version of Band Aid). It would become the fastest selling single in US history and serve as the climactic singalong at that July’s Live Aid Philadelphia concert.

Prince, though, wasn’t really feeling it.

Ahmed Alaa Abd Al-Majeed Issa

#8 JPEGMAFIA: I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

Ebrahim Raisi in the heli’, feelin’ foggy
Money, money, money, it made me feel like I’m targeted
Blowing up like I’m IDF, Netty warrants ain’t stoppin’ shit
Is you Harvey, Jeffrey, R. Kelly, or is you opposite?
Say that shit, say that shit
Say that shit, say that shit

Exmilitary

Despite the arrest warrants, the IDF is likely to keep getting away with its atrocious horrors while they still have support of the world’s most powerful people, similar to Harvey Weinstein, Jeffery Epstein and R Kelly. Maybe that should be the last word on the Gaza Genocide?

Except it obviously isn’t going to be – wait until you see what album is in 5th place!

Nisreen Mohammed Mohammed Al-Najjar

3 Prince: Purple Rain (Deluxe)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

In 1984, there was only one man in America more popular than Ronald Reagan. His name was Prince, and he was funky.

Had Prince run for president that year, he would have certainly carried his native Minnesota—the only state Ronnie lost—and he probably would’ve cleaned up most other places. The reason: “Purple Rain,” his groundbreaking, genre-blurring, utterly genius sixth album. It was a massive seller wherever there were radios and people with pulses.

Kenneth Partridge for Billboard

So, this is it. Our annual trawl through Prince’s albums reaches 1984 and His sixth release. His place in eternal pop culture, His position as music’s most influential figure of the past 50 years, His most abiding songs, His eternal iconography and His cultural footprint. They all come from this era. One of the best selling records ever. Prince said that ‘Purple Rain’ is what people shouted at Him in airports rather than His name. For forty years afterwards, if pop culture was going reference Prince, it would be this era, This album.

If you only own one Prince album, it’s this one. It was the first one I bought, as a spotty teen in Glossop Woolworths back in the early to mid nineties. It’s also your favourite Prince album. If you’ve only heard a couple more. It’s the non-Prince fans’ favourite Prince album. It’s massively overrated. It’s massively underrated. It’s impossible to rate at all. It’s just a bigger deal than almost every other record ever released. I was born six months before the album was released. It’s impossible for me to properly assess it because I can’t remember a reality before this record was released. And that isn’t too big a claim: for the last 39 years and six months we have all absolutely been living in a world, a reality where ‘Purple Rain’ exists. Me being expected to critically analyse it is like you asking my opinions on my own liver. I don’t really have an opinion. It’s just there. I can’t offer any opinions on it because I can’t picture life without it.

TOAST UP, SO WHAT? STREET SMALL BUT IT GO BOTH WAYS

The Best Film of 2023: Purple Rain

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

We thought we’d done an amazing job, and the first contract was coming due. Steve was with him in Atlanta, and I said, ‘Tell Prince we’re going to organize a contract with him for another five years.’ And Steve (Farnoli, co-manager) calls me and says, ‘You’re not going to believe this. The kid says he’ll sign if you get him a major motion picture. It has to be not from a jeweller or drug dealer but has to be from a major studio, and he wants his name above the title.’ I can’t tell you what an impossible task that was.

Bob Cavallo, Prince co-manager 79-89

They really had done an amazing job with His first contract. Back in 1977, they’d somehow manage to successfully argue that one of the biggest production companies in the world bow to this snotty little, precocious 18 year old midget’s ridiculous demand that He be given complete creative and production control over His own music when signing His first ever record deal. Now He wanted a movie made. A major motion picture. And not one made by jewellers or drug dealers either. I imagine he initially demanded it not be made by cocaine addicts or rapists either, but this was Hollywood in the 1980s and some things are just literally impossible.

“Tell that little cunt to wipe that smirk off his face”

It can be easy to be fooled by retrospect nearly 40 years later. Of course Prince had a movie made about Him! He was one of the biggest stars of the 80s! That album sold twenty five freaking million copies! ‘Purple Rain’ was one of the highest grossing movies of the year! Motherfucker was a sure ticket! And, yeah, sure, now we know that, but remember that at the start of 1984 (omg this is literally 1984) Prince had released five albums: two commercial nonentities, followed by one of the most critically adored and influential albums of the decade... and hat trick of commercial nonentities, one decent seller and finally the breakthrough with ‘1999’, his first top ten album and first real suggestion of longterm commercial viability. He was hardly some unknown Minneapolis bum trying to convince bingo halls to give him fifteen minutes before the midnight game, but these five albums had spawned two top ten singles in total. Giving Prince a movie in 1984 wasn’t like giving Beyoncé a squillion dollars to race-wash Disney while she pretends her skin colour doesn’t make her a crucial part of the capitalist machine that’s exploiting Africa. It would almost be like if the success of Heatwaves lead to the next Glass Animals contract included a ten part HBO series starring the band playing themselves in a fictionalised biography of their upbringing in Oxford. It’s insane that this movie was made. It’s insane that one of the biggest companies in the world simply trusted in the intuition of one of their midlevel artists due to their simple trust in His artistic legitimacy. It’s insane how Prince just said “Trust me”. It’s insane that Warner Brothers just greenlit a seven million dollar movie. Its insane how right He was.

“If you make this movie, I’ll become the biggest star in the world and make you millions of dollars”. And he did. And they did.

“Oh, and make sure there are loads of tits”

HONEY, I KNOW TIMES ARE CHANGING

My Life in Albums (part 1 83-96)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 8 Comments

Yeah, sorry, no more Bumble Rumble. Possibly… ever…? Listen, I’ve pretty much decided that I hate Zero Hour dating- I happen to still believe that I’m relatively attractive, so to have an app on my phone that frequently reminds me that I’m actually not is not good at all for my already inflated yet easily pricked sense of self-esteem. For now, my official stance is that I know that I’m a highly fuckable piece of hunky man meat who could grind genitals with pretty much any woman he wants, but I just choose not to, OK?? The official stance is that I’ve decided to concentrate on the more important things in my life, such as this blog- which has never been more popular- and my actual job- which I’m technically supposed to be doing now*. Remember this blog? It used to be about music, didn’t it? I mean… kinda… Let’s do that again. Basically, it’s time for:

image 241

Just wanted a photo with my eyes in it. Have they always been that colour? More after the jump!!

Continue reading “My Life in Albums (part 1 83-96)” →

1 Beyoncé: Lemonade

~ Lex Leeson ~ 21 Comments

Well… yeah… I mean, come on… yeah!

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lemonade.jpg

The sixth album by Beyoncé is so obviously the best album of 2016 that it’s near offensive to posit the theory that any other could possibly be considered superior

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‘Lemonade’ is legitimately one of the greatest records released in my… 29 years of age, of which maybe I was paying properly close attention for 13 (once you take away the times I was either too young or too drunk and suicidal). Both musically, artistically and due to wider cultural impact, few records can seriously compete with this immediate masterpiece

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Continue reading “1 Beyoncé: Lemonade” →