Purple Rain

Prince and the Revolution unleashed Purple Rain onto the big screen in 1984. Co-hosts Jon and Mark try to make sense of some of the more bizarre scenes found alongside the rocking club footage at First Avenue in downtown Minneapolis. Was The Kid really just making music for himself? Could they really compete with Morris Day leading the Time? What about that water gun guitar solo at the end? 

Dearly beloved, the elevator may have broken down...  

Transcript

Jon (00:01)
Dearly beloved, today on the Rock and Roll Theatre Podcast, Prince's Purple Rain.

Welcome everybody back to the Rock and Roll Theatre podcast. The podcast where we take a look at movies, pop culture, music, all sorts of different stuff. Today we're gonna be tackling Prince's Purple Rain.

Mark (00:33)
Purple Rain was released on July 27th, 1984. It is categorized as a musical drama romance film. It has a rated R tag associated with it. It was directed by Albert Magnoli and it's notable as Prince's first starring role. The film was commercially successful.

It made over $68 million in the US and it grossed over $70 million worldwide against a budget of only $7 million. So what was really important in 1984 in terms of the cultural context is that MTV had just launched. There was a big rise of music driven films and music in video in general.

Jon (01:23)
I'm old enough to remember the summer of 1984 and Prince and this purple rain was everywhere. Number one at the box office, it was on the radio constantly, his videos were played non-stop, it was definitely the summer of Prince and it was a huge hit and a huge part of the culture of that year.

Mark (01:40)
Before filming got started, allegedly during their first meeting with Warner Brothers, some of the studio executives asked Prince's manager, Albert Calveo, if John Travolta could actually replace Prince as the film's lead.

Jon (01:56)
I can't possibly imagine John Travolta as the lead of this movie. I think if he had been the lead of this movie, we probably wouldn't be discussing it today, because I don't think it would have had the success of having Prince perform his own songs in the movie.

Mark (02:09)
Definitely. So another kind of interesting note before we start getting into the scenes is that Prince required other musicians in the film to actually take acting classes before filming began. And the antagonist in the movie, I guess, Morris Day, was supposedly kicked out of the classes for clowning around.

Jon (02:32)
And judging by some of Morris's scenes in this movie, maybe he should have stayed in class and maybe taken a few more acting lessons because he definitely has some odd moments throughout the film, which we're going to get into.

All right, if you haven't seen Purple Rain or haven't seen it in a long time and you don't want any spoilers, hit pause right now, go watch it, come back, we'll be right here, we're not going anywhere. And if you have a quick second, wherever you're listening to this in the world, if you'd like, subscribe, follow, comment, whatever the case may be, that would really help us out and we'd really appreciate it. If there's a comment, something you'd like to hear us talk about, find us on the socials, drop us a line and let us know. So without further ado, here we go, let's go crazy, Prince's Purple Rain.

So we kick off Purple Rain right away with Let's Go Crazy. The classic intro hits, Dearly Beloved, Prince and the Revolution are on stage. They're killing it. The place is packed. It's 80s culture like you would not believe. The outfits are outstanding in the crowd. And it really just shows, this is one of Prince's strongest songs. ⁓ The band sounds amazing. we start the hour as they're playing, there's a montage starting to happen there where we see a woman in a taxi getting out in front of the club. We see Morris Day getting ready.

we're assuming to hit the club. And the version is different from the album. It's about eight or nine minutes long. There is a 12 inch version out there somewhere. I mean, it was chopped down to be a single on the actual album. And the guitar solo in this song is just fantastic. If you've ever heard it, it definitely, really just shows Prince's skills and his diversity as a musician.

Mark (04:03)
Yeah, it's definitely an upbeat scene. There's a lot going on. It is a bit confusing at first if you're not totally familiar with what's going on here. Like you said, those scenes of, you know, a woman getting out of a cab. There's the scene where the club, club bouncers breaking up a fight. So the woman eventually sneaks in that type of thing. It is cool though, to see the first Avenue nightclub in Minneapolis. Apparently it was paid $100,000 for usage during the filming and it was closed for a total of 25 days.

Jon (04:34)
And this was one of Prince's haunts. mean, he got to start playing there. He played there before, during, after this movie. He was known to just go there and hang out with his posse. He would give unreleased tracks to the DJs there to play as well too. So First Avenue is definitely Prince's home and it shows he's on stage just owning the place.

Mark (04:53)
Yeah, it's definitely strong musicianship. It looks like really, really good players. Watching this movie though, still at this point, I'm really kind of unfamiliar with Prince and most of his music. So I still feel a bit cold going into it.

Jon (05:07)
And once the revolution is done...

The time takes over which is Morris Day's band who we see getting ready with his sidekick Jerome which is always with him with the mirror and They bumped into their huge hit jungle love and as they take the stage they take a little jab at Prince or should we say the kid? His character the movie is called the kid. We're gonna interchange it throughout this. He is Prince Everybody else has their real names for some reason Prince wanted to go by the kid But so the kid Prince whichever we say that's what we mean and during this we start to learn that Apollonia is

woman in the taxi and she's she's hitting the club trying to I guess shop her demo get some vocal work join a group so she's checking out the scene at First Avenue and she likes what she sees with Prince.

after Prince is done she makes her way over to him and she's definitely the vibes are strong she's feeling it but he just kind of circles around her does not say anything but you know gives her the vibe that yeah I'm into you too but he doesn't speak and then he just disappears into the night

Mark (06:03)
Yeah, kind of confusing, kind of hard to understand.

Jon (06:06)
As the kid makes his way home, things in his home life are not good. The parents are fighting. It's a bad vibe. It's a dark tone coming straight from the high energy that was the first two performances. We see that his personal life is not going so well.

Mark (06:22)
Yeah, I guess it's supposed to show some emotional depth or some sort of trouble past playing into his current role as an artist. The filming for these scenes, it's also very weird. There's strange cutaways and strange angles and it's kind of bizarre. I'm not into these scenes and they're not really tied to the music, so.

Jon (06:45)
And this may be a theme we explore here as we go along, is it jumps from one scene to the next without a whole lot of buffer or interpretation of where you're at. Like one second it's jungle of, the next second it's a full on fight. So a little bit, a little bit hard to follow. I I've seen the movie a couple of times, so I know what's going on. But if on a first cold view like you had, Mark, I could totally see why you'd be like, okay, are we forming a band or are we in a domestic dispute?

Mark (07:12)
Yeah, yeah, I'm going in cold. I'm not that familiar with Prince, not that familiar with the music. Of course, I know the names of some of the bigger hits, but that's about it. So at this point, I'm a little lost.

Jon (07:24)
Understandably. we move on to the next day, which is I think a really good scene in the movie, actually. Prince Kidd meets up with Apollonia. They go to a shopping center. They look around. They see different stuff and they spot a guitar in the display in the window. And the guitar is the shape of what became Prince's iconic shape of his swirly guitar. I don't remember Prince playing the swirly guitar before this movie. I could be wrong, but it went on to become the

that's Prince's guitar when you see it. So it's in the window and you know he clearly is loving that guitar.

Mark (07:56)
Yeah, that's definitely a memorable scene. They're walking through the mall and I guess it catches his eye and they do a good job of focusing on it, making it an important symbol in the film.

Jon (08:06)
And it does come back later on in the film as we will see.

So once they're done there, they decide to take a ride out into the country on Prince's motorcycle. Take Me With You is playing in the background, which is a song on the soundtrack. Another first, I think, is we know as Prince's symbol on the gas tank on his bike, which later on became his name when he legally changed it when he got in disputes with Warner Music later on. the symbols there, even back in 1984, long before any of that stuff happened. And so they make their way out to Lake Minnetonka. And one of the most iconic scenes.

lines in pop culture of the movie, you need to purify yourselves in the lake of Minnetonka. So basically this is Prince hazing Apollonia saying you want to get in the business, you need to do this. So basically she takes all of her clothes off and jumps in the lake.

Mark (08:53)
Yeah, I think the line is purify yourself in the waters is the kind of the memorable one. But it's still like even in this scene, the dialogue, like there's places where you think they're gonna speak and they don't. There's still more strange cutaways. So like it's very memorable scene obviously in some of the quotes, but it's still, I'm still a little bit foggy as a viewer, cause I'm like, it looks like there's pieces cut out or something.

Jon (08:57)
I've... you're right, yes.

Yeah, it's also like, what are we supposed to think of the kid? Do we like him? Do we not like him? Because he's not being super cool to her in this moment. I mean, once I mean, you can tell first of all, kudos to Apollonia for doing this. It was filmed in the fall. It looks really cold. And apparently it wasn't she nearly got hypothermia. But after after she's finished, does it jumps in comes back out. He gets on his motorcycle and drives away, basically stranding her at the lake, soaking wet in late fall, I'm guessing he does come

back but it's also a little bit strange you're like okay are you on a date do you like her or you're just gonna leave her in a field it's hard to judge where where he's at in this scene

Also, as he drives away, he says, don't get my seat wet to Apollonia.

So then we return back to First Avenue. Morris is scheming. He has a girl band he wants to start. He thinks it's going to take him to the big time. We get more fleshed out now some of who the members of Prince's band are. They focus mainly on Wendy and Lisa, two members of the Revolution. And I thought Wendy did a really good performance actually in this movie, since there was real life tension with her and Prince. And they're kind of getting the vibe that they want to write their own songs. And you hear a couple chords on the tape there of what will become her

rain.

Mark (10:32)
Even when Prince is meeting with Wendy and Lisa and you think that maybe he is gonna say something about he listened to the song that they were proposing or he's gonna outright dismiss it or something like that, it's still this vague aloof, like he doesn't really answer and he just says something to them like, just leave it, okay? Or, know, just let it be, okay? And like they're just like, fine.

And you're kind of expecting it to carry more significance if it's supposed to be the song that is eventually what the movie is named after. So, strange.

Jon (11:08)
It just shows that the frustration of being in Prince's band, maybe on film and maybe in real life too as well because the frustration from Wendy feels real.

Mark (11:19)
All right, so then in the next scene, we got a bunch of things happening here. We're back in the club. We're back at First Avenue. And take us through what we're looking at here.

Jon (11:30)
Well, it's the second performance part of the movie. It's only one song. They're doing the beautiful ones, more of a slower song. Apollonia is in the crowd. She's into it. It's not one of my favorite songs, but it's not a very long. I don't think they even play the entire song. It's not a super long moment, but Prince seems to think he's really hit a high note with this song. And then they go off stage and they're really proud of themselves. Then we realize they only played one song. That was the whole set for the evening. Then Billy, the club owner is obviously

annoyed with them saying hey one set like what are you doing i'm hoping billy didn't pay them for the night because that's really unprofessional one track come on

Mark (12:06)
Billy is actually one of the stronger characters in the movie though. Yeah, he's a good like tough club manager type. I think it works well.

Jon (12:09)
I do like them too as well, yes.

Mm

Yeah, it's exactly you get him right from the get go who this guy is what he is. This is his club. He's in charge and he is not happy with the one song set and I don't blame him.

So after their one song.

And there's several scenes like this where it almost reminds me of it's funny. You can't remind me is Batman came out afterwards in 1989, but there's these scenes where he's running around a fire escapes and it's rainy and it's dark and it kind of gives you that sort of Batman ish sort of vibe and he has a long coat on and It's almost like he's a vigilante like what's what's the kid out there doing? And of course, he's he's running to Apollonia is what he's doing And then they have a little bit of argument of you want to go to my place. Do you want to go to your place? Do you want to go to my place? They end up deciding

to

go to Prince's house. Which as we mentioned before the vibes are very bad at Prince's house. All the fighting and what have you. regardless they go there. They have a very good time and you mentioned at the start this movie had an R rating. Prince actually wanted an X rating for this movie which is incomprehensible because back in 1984 an X rated movie would not be played in major Theatres. Obviously that was never gonna happen but you can kind of get the vibe in this scene what Prince was going for if you know what we mean here. he drops

are off the next day and then Apollonia is off to do what Apollonia is going to do and we're going to talk about that in a second. And then yet again we go back to Lisa and Wendy are jamming Purple Rain again, this time actually playing it, and as soon as he walks in they switch to Let's Go Crazy.

Mark (13:41)
so again, another tease of the movie's namesake song, but we still don't know that much about it.

Jon (13:48)
I guess the vibe is at rehearsals, we do the hits.

but he does get the tape and he does go home and starts to listen to it. And there's a blatant, and this is in a lot of 80s movies, there's a blatant product placement shot of Prince holding a bag of Doritos. And I've seen a lot of 80s movies where this exact same thing happens where all of a sudden out of no, you know, I can think of a bunch of different movies and there are probably movies in the future we will cover where this happens. So Doritos got their product placement in there. Hey, we're talking about it today.

Then we move on to a scene, which is Apollonia and Prince again. She gives him the guitar. She has managed to save up, get the money, and bought the guitar. And of course, he's happy to get it. It's a beautiful guitar. He gives her an earring. I don't think that's a fair trade at all in terms of guitar for earring.

Mark (14:30)
It seems like a bit of a ripoff.

Jon (14:31)
Yeah, again, is Prince the good guy here? Is he a bad guy? don't think he's Apollonia all that well. And within seconds, this scene entirely flips where she says that she's going to be in Morris's band, his girl group that he's performing with.

Prince, kid, he loses it in a bad way. It's a bad scene. This is a very dark scene. We're not gonna get too much into the details of what happens, but you can imagine it's out there in pop culture. It seems, even in 1984, it seems odd that you would have your leading character act this way.

Mark (14:58)
pretty strange, pretty bizarre. Again, we're a good chunk into the movie now, but coming in cold, I'm still a little bit confused as to, you know, should I be rooting for Prince? Is this just sort of interpreted as you go type of film? I'm not too sure.

Jon (15:15)
And then we move into one of the classic songs from this movie, When Doves Cry. They don't perform it, it's just done more of a montage, almost music video style. There's a lot of Prince driving around his motorcycle. When Doves Cry was added last minute, apparently most of the music had already been written for the movie and the record company wanted one more type of hit, I guess you'd want to say. And he really knocks it out of the park. This is when you think of Purple Rain. A lot of people think of this song as opposed to Purple Rain itself. It was played nonstop in the summer of 1984.

is classic Prince is getting out of a bathtub at the start of it and there's doves flying everywhere it's something to see if you've never seen it and I do say it got banned in a lot of places but I remember as a child the video being on at least where I was at constantly so it is gonna be a very last-minute addition to the film but I can't really picture the film without this song in it

Mark (16:05)
It's understandable why this is one of the big hits. I'm familiar with the title, even as somebody who's not well-versed in prints, but yeah.

Jon (16:12)
It's kind of inescapable

So we move back to the club where Prince is performing, the revolution's performing. This time they start off with Computer Blue, which is a song that was around in some shape or form in Prince's orbit with his band. The entire band wrote this one. So it'd been around for a while. I guess this is the final version that they had for the movie. clearly the kid is in a mood tonight, shall we say? And Morrison Apollonia walk in and that does not help it.

Mark (16:35)
it looks like the kid is kind of pissed off, not too happy about what's going on. It's also a little strange because the crowd looks thinner than we've seen in the other scenes up to this point. So it's hard to gauge like, are Prince and the Revolution just playing this club too much? How many times have they played there in the past few weeks? We're not sure.

Jon (16:55)
It is confusing because in the first song, when they're doing Let's Go Crazy, the club's packed, they're going nuts. Like you think, okay, this guy is top dog at this club and he's killing it. But also from how Billy acts with them sometimes, you get the feeling that no, they're not like the top band at the club.

which is, it's a little bit hard to get your head around, is okay, are they, you know, are they bigger than I think they are? I don't know, it's a little bit confusing. And then from there they go into Darling Nikki, we'll talk about that more later on when we talk about the music afterwards, but it's a fairly raunchy song, put it that way. And as they're leaving the stage, obviously they're mad, didn't go how they wanted, and Jerome from Morris' Henchmen makes a couple jabs them on the way off the stage.

Mark (17:35)
Prince actually runs off the stage. He goes back to the dressing room. starts flipping out. We see Billy, the club manager again. He comes in, confronts him. He's telling him that no one likes his music other than him. He writes for himself. He's selfish. He might be wasting his talent. And his slot at First Avenue might be at risk. It's a pretty good scene, I think, overall.

Jon (17:59)
Yeah, I think it does show that, the club owner is like, Hey, I like Let's Go Crazy. I'm not so crazy about Computer Blue, or you doing a one song set. So it does show you kind of like, Morris is more probably like the corporate guy, he gets out there, he does jungle love, he does the dance, He wants he wants to start a pop group with a bunch of girls. He thinks that's going to be a hit. And that's where it leads us into Apple only a sixes debut.

Mark (18:23)
Prince originally intended to cast Vanity, who was the leader of this girl group called Vanity Six, but apparently she ended up leaving the group before filming for the movie was supposed to start. So they had to switch to Apollina, who was then pretty much unknown. So it was kind of a weird switch, I guess, but Prince had seen her on an appearance in 1983 on an episode of Tales of the Gold Monkey.

and she played a saucy island girl.

Jon (18:55)
I am not familiar with Tales of the Gold Monkey. If you'd like us to review it and leave a comment, we probably won't. Vanity was, I do believe, in a relationship with Prince. Things kind of got a little bit not good in that respect. She later on ended up with Nikki Sixx as well, and there's some crazy stories about that. Both of like to party a lot. And maybe down the road, we cover the Dirt Motley crew, Vanity may make another appearance here on the podcast.

But from this girl group, kind of get they're going for a pussycat doll sort of vibe like, one person is a star in the group. We got three or four other backup singers. Everybody's in lingerie. It's it's cheesy as hell. It's exactly what you think it is. And the song they're doing is called Sex Shooter. It's completely forgettable. I've watched the movie several times in the last week. I can't remember how the song even goes. It's exactly just generic girl pop group stuff. But the crowd and everyone else seems to think that, whoa, this is some

sort of revolution in music and the kids in the crowd of course he goes and he's not not at all feeling it he's not having it so he storms out and then we see Morris and Apollonia storm out the club they're really intoxicated they're drunk as hell and he kid goes full Batman mode again he's driving back and forth on his motorcycle the long coats flowing it's filmed all dark and gritty

And then of course, He wins her back over sort of, guess. Yet again, this happens so quickly that it goes from from point A to point B so quickly. And they, we think they're back on good terms, but then no, she takes Prince's earring and she throws it away.

So then we move back home to Prince and his parents and this is another very dark scene, but it's filmed oddly. But I also heard that footage for this scene that was originally shot was damaged somehow. And that's why a lot of it looks weirder. Like it just in terms of cinematography from the rest of the film, it looks different. Like when you, did you notice that Mark when you're watching it?

Mark (20:44)
Yes,

yeah, it's again, I probably mentioned that earlier in some of the strange cutaways. There's more of that going on here. It does make sense that maybe something got lost forever and they had to splice it together.

Jon (20:49)
Mm-hmm.

That's the vibe we're getting because it's kind of just all over the place. But basically, I mean, it's probably the darkest scene of the movie. And, his parents are fighting, his dad shoots himself, it gets really nuts. so he, Prince is, obviously upset. He trashes the whole house. He trashes his basement. And within the basement, he finds a bunch of sheet music, which is referring to the fact his father was a musician. And these are some of his compositions.

Mark (21:20)
so when I see this happen, I'm thinking, okay, this scene is planting some seeds for these songs to reappear later in the movie.

Jon (21:29)
It really sets the stage like, this is going to pay off in a major way. He's going to find these and go, ⁓ that's it. That's the sound we're looking for. This is, you know, full circle here. But doesn't really well, we're not going to spoil everything yet. It doesn't quite play out that way. So then we move back to the club and it's the second performance of the time. This time they're doing a song called The Bird, which I don't remember anywhere near as well as Jungle Love, which is an iconic song everybody knows. they're up there. They're doing their thing.

Excellent dance moves. I mean the song itself is whatever but excellent dance moves and I get the vibe like they pull off this slide near the end of the song in unison. That's something they did in their live shows all the time. So all the performances movie I don't get the vibe but they're super choreographed like this is how Prince of the Revolution played. If you watch their tour videos and I did live stuff that this is how they are. If you watch you know videos of them Morris Day you know doing his thing that's how they did it. So it is kind of impressive that they have very high level of skills whether it be dancing

music, what have you. The scene at this time in that area was obviously high, high level.

Mark (22:30)
I'm definitely getting the vibe. Strong musicianship, strong playing, really good dance moves going on. Looks tight, looks like everyone knows exactly what's going on.

Jon (22:42)
Mm-hmm. It's filmed beautifully. It's an excellent representation of what the club scene was in that area. once they're done, they hop off the stage. And of course, the guy takes some shots of the revolution as they're getting on stage. And someone does yell out, how's the family? Which I didn't catch the first time, but I was like, ooh, that's a hard one, man. The family's not doing well, buddy. Not well at all. Low blow. Low blow. You know?

Mark (22:59)
Okay, yeah.

Yeah, low blow, low blow.

Jon (23:07)
And now we're leading up to the big finale here. And maybe because of that insult, they take the stage and there's a very awkward pause where Prince doesn't do anything, the crowd doesn't do anything, everybody's just hanging out.

Mark (23:19)
again, going in cold, I'm not totally clear what's about to happen.

Jon (23:22)
Well, they're gonna launch into a new song and it's one that Wendy and Lisa wrote. we're gonna hear, he dedicates this to his father, you would think that he was gonna do a song that he found in the box of sheet music. But no, we're going back to the song that's been teased several times throughout the movie that Lisa and Wendy wrote and really wanted to perform with Prince. And so right off the bat, this begs a really strange question. When did Prince learn the song?

It's a nine, eight, nine minute song. There's a lot going on. It's a very intricate song. And it seems like for the movie you would get, they've never even jammed it together.

Mark (23:53)
When did he even agree that he was gonna play this song? We've never even heard that up until this point.

Jon (23:58)
you get the feeling that he just called it out like on stage like hey this is what we're doing right now.

Mark (24:03)
But by this point, the movie, up until now, things have been so confusing. I'm not totally surprised that I'm confused again, even in the climax scene.

Jon (24:11)
I mean, it seems perfectly in character for the kid Prince to spring this on his band. No warning whatsoever. It's like, hey, we were going to start with Let's Go Crazy, but let's do a nine minute song you've never heard before. so it is it does stretch the believability a little bit. But I guess at the end of the day, none of that matters because Purple Rain is a great song. It's the reason why the movie is called what it is. And this performance of it is excellent. It has all the feels, all the vibes of that song. I mean, Prince played at the Super Bowl.

the rain years later. It's a huge song for Prince. It's a huge song in culture basically and this is an incredible version of it. They really nail it. Yet again, you can tell of course it's made for a movie but there's very much a live feel to the recording of all the music in the concert scenes.

Mark (24:55)
definitely. mean, if you're into prints, I'm sure this is A1 viewing.

Jon (25:01)
Absolutely. so then so basically, even Billy, the grumpy club owner, he's touched. He's like, yeah, yeah, that's it, kid. This is what I want it. You know, not that computer blue darling, Nikki. No way, man. So and then at end of song, he kisses Wendy. She doesn't look very happy with him. Maybe that was real. I don't know.

Then he hops off stage via the Hello Cleveland route that Spinal Tap might know a little bit about. He runs through all the hallways of the club to eventually find himself outside. Crowd's still there, crowd's going nuts. And I think he realizes, ⁓ they do like me. And he runs his way back in up onto the stage.

So once he makes his way back on stage, they bust into I Would Die For You. Another very well-known song of, I would say the big four songs of this movie. This would be number four. Classic pop song, Justin Timberlake did it later on. It's a great song. And as they're doing this, we see a montage of his dad's okay, apparently, and things are better. They clean up the basement, Apollonia's back, she has her earring back.

Mark (25:55)
Yeah, I guess things are working out.

Jon (25:57)
And for the final song of the movie, we get Baby, I'm a Star.

Not a more well-known Prince song, but I think a very strong song, a very good song. I'm surprised it was never a single. It just ends on a high note musically. The whole band's killing it. The whole crowd's into it. The energy's right there. Full on James Brown dancing. He's even doing the mic stand thing that James Brown used to do. I know Prince was a big fan of James Brown. And yeah, and it ends a little bit strange, which I guess is perfect for this movie we've talked about. Prince's guitar shoots off like a water gun. And that's the end of the movie.

Like out of the headstock, like Ace Freely would do in Kiss when he was shooting fireworks out of the guitar. So that's how we end Purple Rain.

Mark (26:39)
so after it concludes, mean, again, the fact that I went into this cold, I can appreciate the plane and I can appreciate how tight everything was and the overall production that this film probably required. Still found it confusing. I didn't walk away with it with the feeling that I ever really wanted to see it again, but I could understand if you were a big Prince fan, why you would be into it.

Prince and the Revolution Purple Rain was released in 1984. It is considered a rock, funk, soul, pop, stage and screen album. One thing I will say, even though I'm not into Prince, I really do like the font and logo used on the cover. It's very sharp and almost sort of like an 80s thrash band kind of vibe to it.

Jon (27:30)
Yeah, I hadn't thought of it that way. I mean, I've just been seeing it my whole life since I was a kid. But yeah, you're right. it now I think about it, does kind of have a metal sort of logo to it. And he's on a motorcycle and he's kind of dressed like a glam rocker. But this is definitely not a thrash album. So if you if you got confused at the record store in 1984 because there was no Spotify or whatever back then, you might not know. And you bring this home expecting Metallica or Megadeth, you are in for a rude awakening.

Mark (27:55)
So in terms of an official motion picture soundtrack, there was one released by Warner Brothers in May of 2014, so much later from when the film was actually done. And it's a double disc, 27 song album. It's got all of the different B-sides and edits and single edits from all the songs in the movie. It's mostly Prince and the Revolution. There's a few from the time.

a few from Des Dickerson and Appalina Six. Fun fact here, it was originally pulled at the request of Prince's people. So I guess they weren't down with this edition being released. Then after his death, it was made available again as a free digital download. So I guess it went away and came back. So we all know that Purple Rain is an album.

So I'm going to open up the track listing for this and bounce these titles off of you, Jon, to see what you think. We kick things off with Let's Go Crazy.

Jon (28:56)
First song in the movie, first song on the record. My favorite Prince song, even though I'm not a humongous Prince fan, I think this album's a really strong album. It just shows the full band in all their glory. The guitar solo is amazing. It starts off so perfectly, dearly beloved. And just a great one to kick it off.

Mark (29:14)
Up next, take me with you.

Jon (29:16)
That was a song we heard in the movie when they were driving out to Lake Minnetonka. Yeah, it's good. It's kind of more background music and it was kind of used to that effect in the movie.

Mark (29:26)
the beautiful ones.

Jon (29:28)
That was the second performance that he did when he did the one song set with this. Not really a fan of this song. It's not my vibe. I don't think it's one of the stronger songs on the album. Let's just put it that way.

Mark (29:41)
computer blue.

Jon (29:43)
Like I said, this one was around in some shape or form for a while. All of Prince's band contributed to this song, which later on in Prince's career, that was not the case. So it shows where they were all at as musicians at the time. It's a very 80s song, but it's very much showing like, technology, music, this is where things are going. And sure enough, that's where things were going.

Mark (30:03)
Darlene Nikki.

Jon (30:05)
Darling Nikki is an interesting one.

The lyrics are pretty raunchy in the song and there was a thing in the 80s called the PMRC. It was led by Tipper Gore, who's later on Vice President Al Gore's wife. She heard this song in an aerobics class and she lost her mind. She couldn't believe that this dirty song would play during aerobics class. She won this massive campaign to get like explicit stickers put on CD, or like a CD's records back then, tapes. And it was mostly metal bands that got, and rap bands that got this like two

crew or Slayer those types of bands would get those no problem actually in the metal world and the rap world it was considered a badge of honor it was kind of like your album's not cool if you don't have the warning sticker on it but Prince also caught one too for Darling Nikki and he held a grudge about that forever apparently he was very angered by that and by like by even their standards today's standards the song's not that bad I don't think it shows a real overreaction and kind of censorship that was going on that was the PR Mercy's vibe

Mark (31:06)
Yeah, that's cool to know though, so I guess Purple Rain had some street cred. Up next is When Doves Cry.

Jon (31:14)
Like we said, the final song made for the album, maybe possibly one of the three, four really important songs on the record. basically lays out the narrative of the film in the song. So if you just watch the video from Doves Cry and listen to the lyrics, you kind of get the story of the movie. It's kind of all right there. the video was on nonstop when I was a child. Get Out of the Bathtub. I've seen it so many times. The video is worth a watch. If you're out there, if you maybe don't want to tackle Purple Rain, the two hour run

of Purple Rain, the video itself will do you a really good, summation of what we saw today.

Mark (31:47)
Next up is the shortest song on the album, one of the only ones under four minutes, I Would Die For You.

Jon (31:54)
really like this song. It's a classic pop song. It doesn't need to be any longer than it is. It's just a nice, catchy, good pop song. It will stick in your head for days once you hear it.

Mark (32:03)
Baby, I'm a star.

Jon (32:06)
Last song of the movie, yet again, it shows them at their full powers, I would say. It was never released as a single. I didn't really know it as well as the other songs, but I think it's definitely one of the stronger songs on the record.

Mark (32:17)
Closing it out, the title track, Purple Rain.

Jon (32:20)
I there's not much else I can say about it. It's an excellent song. It's a masterpiece. It's pretty much perfect. It's one of Prince's most iconic songs. But it started, when I was researching this, learned it started out as a country song that he wrote and he offered it to Stevie Nicks. And when she heard the eight, nine minute demo, she was like, I can't even handle this Prince and gave it back to him. So Wendy, the guitar player in real life and the movie, she reworked the chords and made it more electric and made it more into a pop song.

version we hear today, that's Purple Rain. The album itself did really really well. It sold 15 million copies in the US, 25 million copies worldwide. Like I said, it was played non-stop everywhere. It won two Grammys, three American Music Awards, two Brit Awards, number one soundtrack billboard for 24 weeks. I'm sure there's a lot more other awards too that I'm skipping, but when it comes to 80s albums, if there's a Mount Rushmore of 80s albums, this one is definitely on it.

Mark (33:23)
so let's talk about some of the reception that Purple Rain received. On Rotten Tomatoes, it currently has a score of 73%. That's based on 59 reviews and it has an average rating of 6.5 out of 10.

Jon (33:37)
Yeah, that seems about right. Six and a half out of ten. Seems right where it is, because if you take out the musical performances, it ain't even 6.5.

Mark (33:45)
so I think a lot of that is you might have people like me who went in cold, don't know much about Prince, would not rate this very highly. But then I'm sure you also have people who really love Prince and you know, we'll give it a high score no matter what. But moving on from that, this film actually did pretty well in terms of awards. I'll just read off a couple that it's won here. It has an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score, a Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal,

and another Grammy Award for Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television Special.

Jon (34:21)
I mean, we're just listening to some of the awards. I'm sure there's a lot more that we probably didn't even get to. It just shows you that this movie was a massive, massive hit.

Mark (34:29)
So I found this when I was doing some research on the film. Prince apparently said after the movie opened, he had a nightmare that Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel hated the movie and they tore it apart on their TV show. So in actuality, both of these critics loved Purple Rain and put it on their top 10 list of 1984. Roger Ebert was quoted as saying, one of the greatest

rock movies of all time.

Jon (34:59)
I mean, we're gonna cover a lot of rock movies here. So we'll see how that claim holds up. But I do remember Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel's TV show from when I was young. And I'm a little bit surprised that they did like it because they were really hard on people. Even movies that were big hits that people loved, they didn't necessarily like. kudos to Prince for winning those two over because they wouldn't they wouldn't have done it just to do it. So obviously they like the film. But not everybody is a fan. And we have a tradition here where, Mark, you go and find a one star reviewer

there of everything that we watch. And I think this week's take is a pretty good one.

Mark (35:33)
so we do have a pretty good one-star review for Purple Rain. This one appears on Internet Movie Database, and it was written by Hup234! in the June of 2000.

Jon (35:43)
Top 234.

Okay, long time after it came out. Ooh.

Mark (35:50)
One out of ten.

Purple Schmerpel Chop this into guitar picks and give him to Prince. Or whatever his name is this month. I was forced to see this schlock in 84 when I ran a movie Theatre. And we found the place trashed every night after the last showing. Adults and intelligent youth, beware.

Jon (36:21)
There's a lot to unpack in this five, six sentence review. ⁓ For starters, you left this review, you said 2000 is when this review was left. So 16 years after the movie aired, you went and found the internet movie database page to say this. Okay, you're right, you're right.

Mark (36:33)
Well, to be fair, Internet Movie Database did not exist in 1984 or 94.

Jon (36:38)
You're right. He's been holding this on in for a long time, clearly. So is the review that like I hated this movie because the kids wrecked the movie Theatre after it because I actually watched it. ⁓ Also, Intelligent Youth Beware, think it's a really funny thing to say. It would be a good name for a song. I don't know. So, yeah. So he held on to that opinion for 16 years. And I guess another 25 years after that, we're still talking about it.

Mark (37:04)
think that's a great review. So in terms of the film's lasting legacy, there's a few things we'll note here. So I've heard this mentioned a few times and I did see it when I was researching as well that Eminem's autobiographical film from 2002 called Eight Mile is often compared to Purple Rain.

Jon (37:05)
Me too.

We'll be tackling 8 Mile in a later episode and just with it, as soon as I read that I'm like, of course, of course, I've seen both movies. Yes, it's pretty much the same story. musician comes from a, not great home life. there's a club that's central where everybody is. there's, there's people mocking. There's, not going to get to, I don't want to spoil 8 Mile for anybody, but very, very similar vibes.

Mark (37:42)
After Prince died in April of 2016, Purple Rain was screened in cinemas throughout the world, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and hundreds of screens across the United States. It was also aired on TV again on MTV and VH1.

Jon (37:56)
And funny enough, actually, did watch it that weekend after Prince passed away. I did actually, me and my wife sat down and we watched Purple Rain.

Mark (38:03)
In 2019, Purple Rain was preserved in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. I was surprised to read that. I did not think this film would achieve such an acclaim.

Jon (38:21)
I think that's probably largely based on the music, not the actual movie. I think it's based more on the fact that Purple Rain, When Doves Cry, and Let's Go Crazy are just such, such hit songs and they're just so well done that I'm sure that's what got them the nod over Morris Day throwing a woman in a dumpster.

Mark (38:38)
Fair enough. So in conclusion, what do we think about purple rain?

Jon (38:41)
⁓ I've revisited now several times throughout my life.

I love the live performances. They're so well done. It really gives you a good glimpse in your, snapshot of that era and what was going on. I was I was young when that was going on. And I remember it very vividly how big of a hit Purple Rain was. As far as the entire movie, we've said so many times already in this episode. It's confusing. It jumps around too much. You don't know if you're in a happy upbeat scene. Sometimes within the scene, changes the vibe completely from, this is cool. And this is going to be no, this is awful.

Okay, so I think I forgot how dark a lot of the scenes are in this movie. not that that kind of storyline can't work, and we may talk about other movies where it does work better later on, but I feel in this one, it's just too thrown together of like, okay, now here's a really intense scene, now here's a funny scene, now here's a band playing. So it's kind of, as we said, it's all over the place, but.

I think it's worth a watch if you're a fan of 80s music, 80s culture, live performances, it's worth a watch. If you don't want to tackle all of the dark subplots, find the performances, watch them, and that will give you a good take on what Purple Rain is.

Mark (39:51)
I agree with most of that. Again, I went in cold, not knowing much about Prince other than a few of the bigger songs in terms of their titles even. And I thought the music scenes were really strong. The plane is really tight. it's definitely got the good 80s vibe. If you like movies from the 80s, I like movies from the 80s. But again, confusing, strange parts. I probably would not watch this again.

Jon (40:12)
this was not Prince's only foray into film. There's also Under a Cherry Moon, there's A of the Times, and Graffiti Bridge, I do believe. I think one of those is a concert movie. So yeah, so the Prince's acting career wasn't done there. None of those movies reached the heights that Purple Rain did. I don't think we'll be tackling them anytime soon on this podcast.

Well, thank you very much for joining us today in the Rock and Roll Theatre for Prince's Purple Rain. Wherever you're at in the world, like, subscribe, comment, get ahold of us on the socials, let us know what you think. Those things really help out a small podcast like us. We're trying to keep the Theatre as packed as possible for each show. So thank you very much for joining us today.