370) Prince -Parade

I haven’t seen Under the Cherry Moon in nearly forty odd years and if I live another forty years, doubtful as I’d be ninety-five, I very much doubt I will have the urge to see it again as I remember it as pretty dire.

However, I certainly will be no stranger to his music if I do last another forty years as many of his records were magical.

Parade was his eighth studio album in nine years and the last to feature The Revolution. The question people obviously ask me all the time is what was Prince’s best single, okay no one has ever asked me that but depending on my mood you will get a different answer. Sign ‘O’ the Times or Kiss who could decide, both are two of the best singles of the 80’s. Kiss with no bass, a guitar riff to die for and a perfect falsetto vocal was one of those songs that stopped you in your tracks, magnificent on first hearing and still to this day, or is Sign O the Times better, see difficult.

Three other singles were released from this record each one has its merits Mountains was the follow up to Kiss and is a funky rolling beat of a song with added saxophone and Girls & Boys is added funk as it struts along with Susannah Melvoin matching Prince on vocals and she is upfront on Anotherloverholenyohead which was probably stretching it as a fourth single but has an incredibly catchy chorus.

The album opens strongly with Christopher Tracy’s Parade all percussion a fanfare of what is to come, its funky, lush, and dramatic.

I hope Prince went to a building site to hit a scaffolding pole for New Position; it’s throughout the whole song. He could dance in his heels so sure he could manage a ladder in them especially as he was looking for one on his previous album.I Wonder You the background is more interesting than the song and he delivers a dramatic vocal on Under the Cherry Moon and he’s back on the building site for Life Can Be So Nice, there’s too much going on.

Do You Lie? I feel should be in one of those 60s films you watched on a Sunday afternoon playing in the background where the main stars plan a robbery or a romantic night in Paris.

Wendy and Lisa had co-written Mountains, and they also assisted Prince with Sometimes it Snows in April, sometimes I find his ballads a bit too much, but this is a perfectly judged.

A mixed bag, the singles are magnificent as is Sometimes the rest are good, but he was preparing for the magnificent Sign O the Times and maybe I am unfairly judging these songs against that genius.

7/10

GIVE IT A STREAM: Kiss