Happy 35th Anniversary to Prince’s eighth studio album Parade, originally released March 31, 1986.
On April 22, 1985, Prince made a purposeful statement with the release of Around the World in a Day: he would not repeat himself. The blockbusting success of Purple Rain (1984)—the album that officiated Prince’s inevitable transformation into a popular music super-power—afforded him the latitude necessary to pursue the lofty ambitions laid out on Around the World in a Day. However, the victory of its predecessor cast a very long shadow.
While his seventh long player certified double platinum in the United States and yielded four commercial singles, only two became “hits”: “Raspberry Beret” and “Pop Life.” It was a far cry from the anterior set which functioned as a tie-in to Prince’s feature film debut. Was Around the World in a Day a victim of its own resolute stylism? Possibly.
Largely unfazed by the mixed commercial reception that met Around the World in a Day, Prince steadied onward having already begun sowing the seeds for its follow-up—Parade—on April 17, 1985—just six days before his post-Purple Rain affair landed on the record store racks. Parallel to Prince’s time spent in the recording studio, principal photography had commenced for Under the Cherry Moon, the companion flick to Parade, on August 16, 1985.
The album was concluded in mid-December with the film wrapping in late November. Having proven to be a persuasive force at the box office with Purple Rain, Prince had no trouble getting the green light from his longtime label Warner Bros.—and its broader entertainment division—for his next motion picture exercise. The top brass at Warner Bros. hypothesized that whatever Prince was concocting had to be set in a similar mold to the rock drama that grossed over $70 million stateside—subsequently, Prince wasn’t pressured to reveal the direction of the script initially. Per Nilsen, author of the 1999 tome DanceMusicSexRomance - Prince: The First Decade, described Prince’s path forward with Under the Cherry Moon as “a light romantic comedy, evocative of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals of the Thirties.” A sequel to Purple Rain this was not.
Becky Johnston—the writer assigned to pen the screenplay—pulled from Prince’s concept notes to draw up the main thrust of the film’s story: two American gigolos compete for the affection of British heiress “Mary Sharon” played by (then) neophyte actress Kristin Scott Thomas. The aforementioned lotharios were charismatically portrayed by Prince (in the role of “Christopher Tracy”) and former vocalist/occasional percussionist of The Time, Jerome Benton (in the role of “Tricky”). The backdrop for Under the Cherry Moon was Nice, France, its opulence originally captured by one of the hottest music video directors of the era: Mary Lambert.
Lambert’s eye for detail was powerful, but that didn’t stop she and Prince from locking horns. After only sixteen days of shooting on location, Lambert exited Under the Cherry Moon—Prince’s directorial baptism of fire began when he took up its reins himself. The finished product—a black and white semi-period piece/rom-com romp—opened on July 2, 1986 to poor notices and tepid numbers. Under the Cherry Moon found its second life as a beloved cult classic years removed from its inception. As for the associated “soundtrack album,” Parade has endured.
Although there is some narrative overlap present between the motion picture and the long player it mined for its musical accompaniment, the selections on Parade had been carefully designed to only loosely allude to specific plot points. This let Parade function in a complementary context versus as a direct “track by track” recall of Under the Cherry Moon. What the two efforts had most in common is that of a shared tonal/thematic pulse. Much of Prince’s prior output was rooted in a gripping duel that pitted the carnal against the spiritual; Parade saw Prince shift into an affirming, fantastical—yet still sensually charged—mindset.
On cuts like “New Position” and “♥ or $”—a Parade outtake included in Under the Cherry Moon and placed opposite to “Kiss” as its B-side—Prince lyrically flits back and forth from optimism to whimsical flirtation. These ideas weren’t totally novel per se—Prince had explored “lighter” motifs on occasion with previous songs—but he had never enacted that type of vibe across an entire album. Even when tension comes to bear in the tales told on “Under the Cherry Moon,” “Do U Lie?,” “Anotherloverholenyohead” and “Sometimes It Snows In April,” an escapist air pervades them.
Prince’s joie de vivre also informed the collection’s bright, open sound. Funk, soul and R&B continued to sit at the core of Prince’s sonic architecture, as “Girls & Boys” and “Anotherloverholenyohead” attested. The two tracks announce themselves as the “signature pieces” on Parade and their eventual election as singles spoke to that appeal. But, with Prince at the apex of his producing, arranging and performing powers, he did not limit himself and left room on Parade’s sonic palette for jazz, orchestral and psychedelic colors too.
From the madcap carnival march of “Christopher Tracy’s Parade” to the tropical thrum of “New Position” around to the lithesome chamber blues of “I Wonder U,” this segued trifecta that introduces Parade demonstrated how deftly Prince dropped the wall which separated his recognized aestheticism and unexplored territory (compositionally). For the Prince devotee, the psychedelic textures abounding on Parade weren’t unfamiliar with him having tapped them on parts of Purple Rain and en masse via Around the World in a Day. Unlike their rawness on those LPs, the psychedelics on Parade are refined, utilized accordingly to further garnish the already lavish black pop exercises of “Life Can Be So Nice” and “Mountains.” And as much as all of this was down to Prince’s own inimitable tunesmithing, he did invite others into his circle to collaborate—at his discretion.
The classical composing touch of the late Clare Fischer brought a new dimension to the whole of Parade—specifically on the two instrumentals “Venus de Milo” and “Alexa de Paris.” Both were incorporated into Under the Cherry Moon, but only the former made its way onto Parade; the latter was tucked onto the flipside of “Mountains,” the long player’s second single.
Out of the twelve sides that comprise Parade, Prince went it alone on eight of them; additional scripting and arranging came courtesy of Prince’s jazz musician father John L. Nelson (on “Christopher Tracy’s Parade,” “Under the Cherry Moon”), David Rivkin—brother of Revolution stalwart Robert “Bobby Z” Rivkin—(on “Kiss”), and Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman (on “I Wonder U,” “Sometimes It Snows in April”). Prince’s partnerships with Rivkin, Melvoin and Coleman marked the ever-fluid interpersonal dynamics at play with his various side projects and his band The Revolution.
“Kiss,” the GRAMMY nominated centerpiece of Parade, got its start as a promising, but unfinished demo discarded by Prince and gifted to Revolution loyalist Mark Brown and David Rivkin; the two men were hard at work on curating material for the eponymous debut offering for Mazarati. The R&B clique (led by Brown) was sanctioned by Prince’s own imprint (and Warner Bros. subsidiary) Paisley Park Records. Tinkering with what he was given, Rivkin—reportedly with input from Brown—supplied “Kiss” with its arid drum machine groove and slinky guitar rhythms. Prince reclaimed and slightly retouched what was to become one of his biggest global smashes; Rivkin was given an arrangement co-credit, leaving Brown to politely maintain that he had not received his proper due regarding his contributions to “Kiss.”
More than anyone else in Prince’s orbit, Melvoin and Coleman had gotten closest to him when it came to the brass tacks of song construction on Purple Rain and Around the World in a Day—this continued through to Parade. The gift of “I Wonder U” to Melvoin—effectively a solo vehicle for her—spoke to the artistic intimacy the three of them shared. However, to their mild annoyance, Prince began tooling with the structure of the most widely recognized configuration of The Revolution: Matt Fink (keyboards), Mark Brown (bass), Robert Rivkin (drums), Melvoin (guitar, vocals) and Coleman (piano, vocals).
The altered line-up of The Revolution went “live” with the launch of the promotional campaign for Parade, albeit piecemeal—visually speaking. Their formal celluloid introduction came courtesy of the music videos for “Mountains,” “Girls & Boys” and “Anotherloverholenyohead,” where the member count ballooned to thirteen between the three clips, respectively. Prince gained two accomplished horn players, a trio of backing dancer-hype men, a third guitarist and another support vocalist in Eric Leeds, Matthew Blistan, Wally Safford, Greg Brooks, Jerome Benton, Miko Weaver and Susannah Melvoin. Benton, Weaver and Melvoin—Wendy’s twin sister and Prince’s (then) flame—were conscripted from the remains of the recently dissolved outfit and patented Prince brainchild, The Family. Their self-titled album had gone into the shops in August of 1985 to minimal sales fanfare.
Prince’s desire to push The Revolution to grow as a studio band and live act did not come without a few personality clashes within the group internally. Yet, when this deluxe iteration of The Revolution hit the stage on March 3, 1986—the first of several “Hit & Run” shows to be formally trailed by the “Parade Tour”—they mesmerized concert-going crowds.
After “Kiss” had stormed the charts in February of 1986, Parade impacted on March 31st; reviews ranged from glowing to frustrated. Respectable gold and platinum tallies were quickly accrued by Parade both domestically and abroad—but there was a creeping sense of fatigue with broader portions of the record buying public sans Prince fanatics. All three post-“Kiss” singles—“Mountains,” “Anotherloverholenyohead,” “Girls & Boys”—failed to gain any chart traction despite their obvious charms.
None of those critical or commercial consequences owed to Prince’s choices surrounding Parade or Under the Cherry Moon stopped him from giving his best on the concert stage that year. But, at the conclusion of the “Parade Tour” on September 9, 1986 in Tokyo, change was in the air once again. Prince disbanded The Revolution several weeks later—with only Fink, Leeds, Blistan, Brooks and Safford surviving the cull—in preparation for Sign O’ The Times (1987). In the wake of that lauded, dark masterpiece, Parade was semi-exiled to the fringe of any substantive discussions concerning Prince’s canon where it has resided through to today.
A transportive and imaginative musical paradiso, Parade is where Prince stepped into the full breadth of his abilities to shoulder his dichotomous appetites for uncompromising art and competitive commerce. Further, the album is a rare snapshot of this enigmatic man at his most joyful and curious—traits to gradually recede from his subsequent output. A seminal body of work in need of serious reappraisal, Parade is still waiting for its moment to shine.
LISTEN: