Purple Rain (album)

Music from the Motion Picture "Purple Rain" (also called just Purple Rain) was a 1984 album by Prince and The Revolution. It was released by Warner Brothers Records and was Prince's sixth album. It sold 13 million units in the United States, earning a Diamond Award from the Recording Industry Association of America. According to Billboard magazine, the album spent an incredible 24 consecutive weeks at #1, becoming one of the top soundtracks ever. According to one source, the album sold more than a million copies on the day of its release.

In 1998 Q magazine readers voted Purple Rain the 73rd greatest album of all time; in 2003 the TV network VH1 placed it at number 18. Rolling Stone named it the number 2 album of the 1980s.

As was often the case, Prince wrote all of the songs on the album. Some of the tracks had portions recorded live when Prince performed on August 3, 1983 at the First Avenue club in Minneapolis. This show was a benefit concert for the Minnesota Dance Theater. It was also the first appearance in Prince's band "The Revolution" by Wendy Melvoin, his guitarist in the Purple Rain film and for a few years afterwards.

Prince won three Grammy Awards for Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group, Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or TV Special (Purple Rain) and Best R&B Song (songwriter) (Chaka Khan's "I Feel for You") and was nominated for Album of the Year (Purple Rain). "Purple Rain" (the song) also won an Oscar for Best Original Score in 1985. ^*

"Take Me With U" was originally written for the Apollonia 6 album, but was pulled for this album. An unfortunate result of this addition was making crucial cuts to the suite-like "Computer Blue", which circulates amongst collectors in a superior, though unreleased extended version (a portion of this second section of "Computer Blue" can be heard in the film Purple Rain as Prince walks in on the men of The Revolution rehearsing.) The song "Darling Nikki" is notable for its lyrical content, which eventually led to the use of "Parental Advisory" stickers and imprints on album covers by ways of Tipper Gore and the Parents Music Resource Center.