Imo everything after Purple Rain was bad.
Purple Rain album has several tracks that hold up to this day.
He should’ve kept that route but instead he went towards that lame unplugged CAC sound then went towards oldhead lounge funk.
I believe he said himself that he didn’t do the complex electric pop sounding kind of music on purpose because he said it made him “too popular”
Imo purple rain was so ahead of its time that it actually kept his career afloat for decades of mediocre throwaway albums.
Strongly disagree, my friend!
Prince actually IMPROVED after 'Purple Rain'. Let's consider the purpose of the 'Purple Rain' project. Prince wanted to accomplish a few things:
a) Break into mainstream (i.e. white) America with a more contemporary rock sounding album. In fact, the song "Purple Rain" was meant to sound like a Pete Seeger song.
b) Prince wanted to, "be like Elvis", with respect to starring in a major motion picture that had its own major-selling soundtrack
c) Obviously sell a lot of records
He achieved all of those things, but it was fairly easy for him. Up until the release of Purple Rain, since 1980's 'Dirty Mind', Prince embraced avant-garde challenging music which often took on new wave/electronic elements. Consider his 'Rude Boy' persona in 1981's 'Controversy' or the electronic dance music of '1999'. 'Purple Rain', the album, didn't do anything new. It just upped the ante of the pre-existing formula of 1999 so that it could break into a white audience.
Prince probably first stumbled onto this idea when 'Little Red Corvette' sold well. That's a catchy, guitar-heavy rock song. But nothing new compared to what he's done since 1979's "Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad".
After 'Purple Rain', Prince got bored. Really bored. He delved into 1960s psychedelica (1985's 'Around the World in a Day'), sparse baroque pop-funk (1986's 'Parade: Motion Picture Soundtrack for 'Under the Cherry Moon'), back again into funk with a James Brown/Jackie Wilson esque 'Sign O' the Times' album (which really was a mash up of a lot of his work) and the Black Album, which was cancelled but still got leaked before he had a mental break down which led to 1988's 'Lovesexy' (his gospel album).
All that to say, Prince got bored after 'Purple Rain'. In fact, all of the music for 'Around the World in a Day' was written in 1984, just as he was riding high with the number ONE album, the number ONE single, and the number ONE move in America - all in the summer of 1984. He had gotten to the mountaintop, looked around, and decided that it was dull. He could have made another 'Purple Rain', easily. But that's not him. He's an artist.
He once again challenged himself and become much more interesting, again, post-Purple Rain. Let's not discuss his 1990s materials. That's a tough discussion to address!
It's great that people like Purple Rain, but that was the point. It's a catch-all album!
Anyway, here's 'Raspberry Beret' - his most perfect pop song, written originally in 1982, but released post- 'Purple Rain'
