As of today, June 23rd 2017, Purple Rain Deluxe by Prince & The Revolution is released. You can listen to it here on Spotify. We at The Violet Reality will also be doing a video review, so please subscribe to our YouTube channel here.

It’s been a long and heartbreaking road since we first learned back in 2014 that Purple Rain Deluxe was a real project. Not long after that news broke, I saw Prince live in Birmingham, where he performed Electric Intercourse for the first time in 30 years. I was, in all likelihood, the first person to break this news to the wider fanbase, with a series of breathless, shocked tweets. For myself, and many other fans, Purple Rain Deluxe fever was probably at it’s peak at this point.

Perhaps somewhat predictably, problems followed. Following the release of the new albums, Art Official Age and Plectrum Electrum which were also announced at the same time, Prince’s relationship with Warner Bros once again seemed to sour, with tweets indicating he’d delivered the Purple Rain Deluxe project and Warners were refusing to release it. The nature of their conflict wasn’t clear, but Prince once again seemed to have moved on, signing a deal with Jay-Z’s company TIDAL to release Hit N Run Phase 1 and Hit N Run Phase 2, and embarking on the Piano & A Microphone Tour.

The whole world knows what happened in April 2016. One important thing (and perhaps obvious) thing to note about Prince’s untimely passing was that when it came to music releases, everything went out of the window. Everything was now different. I knew immediately that the promised “Black Is The New Black” album with MonoNeon, and the promised audio release from the “Piano & A Microphone” tour weren’t going to happen, and that the likely next releases were going to be a compilation and the cash-cow of a Purple Rain re-release. I was right.

So here we are in June 2017 with no Prince, and with Purple Rain Deluxe hitting shelves today. There’s been an insane amount of conversation since we at The Violet Reality first leaked the tracklist. Is this the same package that Prince presented to Warner Bros? Would Prince really have submitted a track like We Can Fuck, for example? Would Prince really have submitted tracks that don’t really have much to do with the Purple Rain era, and in some cases were recorded far later? Would Prince really have neglected to include the long-awaited extended version of 17 Days, which doesn’t appear on here? Are these tracks from the real vault masters or from mixdown tapes that WB have been sitting on for years, because they don’t have access to the vault? We may never get the answers to these questions, sadly.

The packaging is great — a high quality digipack with unseen photos, metallic foil to add that premium feel and liner notes from The Revolution going track-by-track.

So what we’ve got here is the remaster of the original album. I’ll spare my thoughts on that, because, well, there’s not that much to say. It’s the album we all know and love, remastered for 2017. Some will enjoy it. Some will prefer the original mixes. There’s a whole argument about brickwalling, dynamic range, etc, which audiophiles everywhere will be weighing in on right now. Likewise — having the vinyl edits on CD is cool, but not worthy of much discussion.

It’s the vault disc that everyone has been waiting for. Kicking off with Prince’s pristine quality vocal version of The Dance Electric — the song given to his childhood best friend and original bandmate Andre Cymone. It’s long been a favourite of mine, embodying some of the purest elements of the Minneapolis Sound, and it’s fantastic to have this in perfect quality with Prince’s vocal on it. What’s really interesting here is that this wasn’t what we were expecting. There’s been a bootleg circulating of Prince’s version of The Dance Electric for quite a few years now — however, that version contains quite prominent guitar, as well as backing vocals from Wendy & Lisa. We were expecting that same version in higher quality, but the version here lacks the guitar, the solo and the backing vocals. It’s a nice surprise, as we weren’t aware of this version existing, but it would also have been nice to get the other version.

Love & Sex kicks off with a classic Prince scream and then “Come on baby, HURT ME!” — it’s a fantastic upbeat jam. Recorded just two days before When Doves Cry and marking Prince’s first use of the Yamaha DX-7 synth, this track title did appear on one handwritten configuration of Purple Rain, but had been crossed out. Although I dig it, I think Prince made the right call leaving it off the album, as it doesn’t seem to fit with the other songs.

Handwritten Purple Rain configuration — Love & Sex appears crossed out underneath Let’s Go Crazy

The “Hallway Speech” version of Computer Blue is unquestionably a highlight of the set, and is now the definitive version of the song. It’s well known that Prince only edited the song down in order to fit more songs on the album, but this complete version adds additional dimensions. From now on, this will be the version I play most. The lust, the sex, the ecstasy, the wailing guitars and thick synths…..and that hallway speech of course! It’s crazy to me how minor details can almost make this version feel like a different song to the song we’ve known for 3 decades. Definite highlight. One minor detail that made me smile — the “Hoooo!” adlib that Prince does right after he sings “Somebody please please tell me what the hell is wrong!” is pure Little Richard style. It’s no secret that Prince was inspired by Little Richard, but it made me smile to hear. The extended ending with howling, wailing and distorted guitars is absolutely fantastic.

Little Richard (left) and Prince (right)

“Women are not butterflies, they’re computers too…. Just like you, Computer Blue”

Electric Intercourse (Studio Version) was the first track we heard from this set back in April, and like everything to do with Purple Rain has been the subject of much discussion and scrutiny. Some folks prefer this version to the infamous 1983 live performance, and others feel the studio version lacks some of the passion of the live take. Either way, now we have both and that’s a great thing. For me, this track will always be special due to seeing Prince perform it in 2014, in my home city, where I was in the front row.

Our Destiny / Roadhouse Garden is two songs edited together to form a suite. These had been leaked in decent quality for many years, but it’s great to see an official release. The latter song was clearly of great importance to Prince, as it was to be the title track of the long awaited but never released “Prince & The Revolution” reunion album in the late 90’s. Prince at one time was known to be working on this, and it’s unclear why it didn’t proceed. Prince had a very up and down relationship with Wendy & Lisa over the years after The Revolution split, and so it’s very possible that unresolved issues were to blame. Roadhouse Garden is a favourite of mine due to it’s psychedelic nature. Having been recorded just a few weeks before the original release of Purple Rain, it has much more in common, in my opinion, with the Around The World In A Day album. I’d personally have held this back for a re-release of that album, but others may disagree.

Possessed is another highlight of this set, and this is a song that actually was recorded for Purple Rain, and a short instrumental part of it does actually appear in the movie. It was also performed fairly regularly at this time and was part of the setlist for the released Purple Rain show from Syracuse. The studio version is a little more ambient and semi-psychedelic in it’s production (particularly the synth and drum pattern work) compared to the live versions, which were more in the funk-jam vein. This version is almost a little unsettling, which fits in line with the title! There’s a percussion line ran through filters which seems deliberately unsettling in particular and although musically the song has nothing in common, it reminds me of a track like Others Here With Us. I particular like the part where Prince pitches his voice down and spells out “P-O-S-S-E-S-S-E-D”. At this time, there were many who thought Prince was a dark force, there were whispers in religious communities of him being Satanic and obsessed with the Occult. Things like the back-masking (backwards vocals) on songs like Darling Nikki contributed to this. All I’ll say is this : It’s probably a good thing that this track didn’t get released at that time, as those folks would have had a field day with it! For me, it’s another great track!

“Why can’t I stop this Satanic Lust?”

Next is up is another heavily bootlegged song, Wonderful Ass. It’s thought that Prince originally wrote it about Vanity, but recently Lisa Coleman of The Revolution mentioned that it was actually about Susannah Melvoin (who Prince was dating) as well as Wendy herself (who Lisa was of course dating). It seems that the song was worked on in both 1983 and 1986 so perhaps both are true! Either way, it’s a bonafide purple classic and great to see it get an official release. I’ve played the bootleg version in DJ sets before and it always gets the dancefloor rocking!

Velvet Kitty Cat is next. This was bootlegged fairly recently (it showed up sometime in the last couple of years) and although it’s a great title, for me it’s somewhat unremarkable. Thought to have been considered for The Time, Vanity 6 and Apollonia 6 at different times, the track is fun and bouncy, although the metaphor falls a bit flat. More so than anything else on this set, this track feels unfinished.

Katrina’s Paper Dolls is a track that never widely leaked, and in fact there is a completely different, darker, more synth heavy version of the song that I once was played by a fellow Prince collector. It’s an ode to a girl who “makes paper dolls that all look the same” when her man is gone as she misses him. Not much is known about the origin of the song, although it’s thought that it might have originally been a collaboration with Lisa’s sister, Cole Ynda. It’s a great and atmospheric track.

We Can Fuck is unquestionably another highlight. Prior to this release, there were two well known versions — a live rehearsal take from 1986, and the eventually released We Can Funk duet version with George Clinton that came out on the Graffiti Bridge album in 1990. But this right here is the OG! The original, the raw, unfiltered, NASTY Prince that we all love. Interestingly, the 1990 GB version is closer to this original than the 1986 rehearsal take. Prince was clearly having a pretty great end to 1983, as this track was recorded on New Year’s Eve, and the day after he recorded Erotic City! Perhaps that’s why George ended up on the song — after all, it’s long been said that Erotic City was inspired by Prince going to see George and Parliament-Funkadelic perform. This track is 10 minutes of pure sexual purple funk bliss and will be getting many, many spins in my household. Where the track breaks down around 8 minutes in is absolutely sublime. This track is a true gem and my favourite from this set. However, it’s upsetting that the liner notes fail to credit the fantastic backing vocals from Jill Jones. As an artist myself, I know how upset I’d be in that position, and so this is a huge and upsetting oversight.

“I don’t usually have time to drink from your glass…..”

This disc finishes with the piano and synth instrumental Father’s Song which became the breakdown to Computer Blue. Thought to have been based on, or inspired by music written by Prince’s father John L Nelson, it’s a great, beautiful and atmospheric way to end the disc.

The set also includes a DVD of “Purple Rain Live” — the concert from Syracuse originally released on VHS in the 80’s. Most Prince fans have seen this a million times, but it’s fantastic to see a digital release finally. I haven’t yet watched the DVD so can’t comment on the quality but it’ll be nice to play an official release rather than the VHS rip which has been sitting on my hard drive for many years.

So the question is, does the set live up to the hype? For me — it does, although it’s not perfect and there’s several missed opportunities — the aforementioned 17 Days (Extended) being one of them. Furthermore, in 2017, a physical video release really ought to be on Blu-Ray rather than DVD. Overall, I think this is a great release and sets a decent bar for future deluxe editions. I hope that all members of the Purple Army go out and buy it, if you haven’t already. It’s up to all of us to keep Prince memory alive — so buy an extra copy for a loved one too 😀

We will of course, also be doing a full video review over at our YouTube channel — please go and subscribe if you haven’t already!

May U Live 2 See The Dawn.

love…. Casey Rain x