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Purple Rain: 25 Years Later

MTV’s Kurt Loder takes a look back at the importance of ‘Purple Rain’ by Prince. Here’s an excerpt:

It’s not hard to grasp why Purple Rain was such an event when it was first released, 25 years ago this summer: The album was a dizzying synthesis of rock, pop and R&B, and it still sounds groundbreaking today. (Look back at MTV’s coverage of the “Purple Rain” premiere here.)

This was a defining moment for Prince and his greatest band, the Revolution (with which he shared, for the first time, both an unambiguous cover credit and, inside, some co-songwriting nods). The musicianship displayed on the record is exceptional: The arrangements are intricately structured, and the vocal work is dazzling; the electro-percussion is fat and beautifully ornamented, the guitars range from full-crush to feathery arpeggiation, and there are times when synthesized or actual orchestral beds drift off into stretches of harmonic abstraction that’s rare in music aimed at the pop charts. (Four of the album’s nine tracks were Top-40 hits; two of them — “Let’s Go Crazy” and the great “When Doves Cry” — went to Number One.)

Click on the following link for the full article: http://www.stumbleupon.com/s/#312eOM/www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1616928/story.jhtml/

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