Review: 'Prince and the Parade and Sign “O” the Times Era Studio Sessions 1985 to 1986'

Prince completed a wild amount of work in the two-year period it took to promote 1999, make the Purple Rain film and its phenomenal soundtrack, record the very different but stealthily complex Around the World in a Day, write and record a wealth of additional unreleased material, and mastermind successful projects by protégés such as Morris Day and the Time, Apollonia 6, and Sheila E. By 1985, Prince had definitely earned some time off. Instead, he spent the next two years doing more of the same. 1985 through 1986 was almost a mirror reflection of the two years that preceded it. Like Around the World, Parade is an under-appreciated, highly creative, and very unique record. There was another movie, though Under the Cherry Moon was hardly the commercial, career-making smash Purple Rain was. There was another masterpiece: the monolithic double-album Sign O’ The Times. And as 1983 began with the solidification of the band that would work in genuine concert with Prince during his most brilliant stretch, 1986 ended with that band’s dissolution and the beginning of the end of Prince’s most potent work and cultural impact. 

As he did with those fertile years of 1983-1984, Duane Tudahl tracks Prince through the next two with Prince and the Parade and Sign “O” the Times Era Studio Sessions 1985 to 1986. Like Prince and the Purple Rain Era Studio Sessions, this new book is a thick, tremendously detailed day-by-day account of not only Prince’s studio work but also his stage work, film work, and personal activities. So along with spending time with him as he creates and seemingly rejects Parade and tries to make a towering triple-album called Crystal Ball but settles for the double-LP Sign O’ The Times, we also get first-hand accounts of his souring relationships with the Revolution and long-time girlfriend Susannah Melvoin. We learn of the very hard work Prince put into all of his recording projects as well as the apparent effortless magic of his songwriting. We learn of the human behind the apparent superhuman, who could be petty, mean, and childish, but also generous, tender, and funny. This period is also when Prince fully became the superstar he’d only previously pretended to be and developed a rather unlovable celebrity complex that may have been more than a little responsible for the ends of his most significant personal and professional relationships. I certainly don’t think the fact that the Revolution’s end coincided with the end of Prince’s best work is a coincidence.

 

That fact seemingly sets up Tudahl’s next book as potentially disappointing or borderline irrelevant in light of his fascinating and wholly necessary two books that precede it. Yet I want to keep reading because even when he was working below his abilities, Prince is always fascinating and his dedication to none-stop creativity is eternally inspiring.

(Disclosure: Rowman & Littlefield, the publisher of Prince and the Parade and Sign “O” the Times Era Studio Sessions 1985 to 1986, owns Backbeat Books, the publisher of my books The Who FAQ and 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Minute: A Critical Trip Through the Rock LP Era).