Inside

EDITOR’S LETTER

On the Purple Rain tour in November 1984

H July 27, it will be a quarter century since Prince’s Purple Rain opened in theaters and redefined what a rock’n’roll movie could be. Lusty, funny, with exhilarating concert sequences, it also introduced to the masses the electrifying performer born Prince Rogers Nelson 51 years ago. I remember devouring the soundtrack album upon its release the previous month, hanging up the enclosed poster on my bedroom wall, and the following March going to see him live during the Purple Rain tour, at Long Island’s Nassau Coliseum. What a spectacular show! I know I’ve got that parking-lot bootleg T-shirt around here somewhere.…

For this month’s cover story, longtime contributor Brian Ra tery spoke to nearly two dozen associates of the Artist Formerly Known as the Artist Formerly Known as Prince to offer a candid oral history of the entire Purple Rain phenomenon. Ra tery, too, has a long history with Purple Rain. “I was eight years old when it came out and desperately wanted to see it, even though it was rated R,” he says. “Instead, I tricked my mom into allowing me to join one of those eight-CDs-for-a-penny clubs, just so I could get a cassette of the soundtrack. Then the bill arrived, forcing my mom to spend the next few months waging a campaign to legally extricate her Prince-addicted eight-year-old from the agreement. Meanwhile, I le t the tape too close to a heater one night and it melted. In the end, everybody lost.”

But this month, everybody wins. As a bonus, we commissioned an amazing tribute album—dubbed Purplish Rain—from nine of our favorite artists, who graciously contributed their loving, o ten idiosyncratic interpretations of Prince’s classic songs. And—I’ve always wanted to type this—it’s yours free, absolutely free. All you have to do is turn to page 62 for details on downloading your copy. Consider it a soundtrack to the cover story. And let us know what you think about it by writing to feedback@spin.com.

GOVER T DE ROOS RE TNA PRINCE