Prince – ”Parade” (1986)

During the period of my life when I listened quite regularly to Prince I thought this album was a bit difficult. Maybe it was the black and white cover? Album’s covers have often affected my experience of the music. Or maybe it was because the music is a soundtrack to a movie I hadn’t seen (and still haven’t seen)? The knowledge of unseen scenes that belonged to the songs maybe created a feeling that something was missing?

Today I don’t really know why I felt Parade was difficult. When I listen to it now I think it's a pretty groovy album, to be Prince at least. I have always had somewhat of a hard time with Prince’s funky and sometimes bare, dry sound. Just as on the previous album Around the World in a Day you get a lot of funk, sometimes with a psychedelic touch, mixed with some slender sparkling ballads. The psychedelic elements make the music more fun to listen to, I think anyway. Especially in the 80's such a touch in the music wasn’t especially common. Now and then Prince leaves the relatively dry and bare sound and goes to the other side, such as the B-side’s bombastic opening number Mountains.

Parade was Prince’s eighth album and he was 28 years old when it was released. As usual, Prince plays most of the instruments himself. The first four tracks can be seen as a suite, Prince first recorded the drum track to all four songs in a single take, then he recorded the bass, the guitar etc. in the same way. These first four songs flow nicely into each other. The album ends with the sad ballad Sometimes It Snows In April, that I somewhere read was about a dog Prince had, that died. I therefore thought it was a fitting song to listen to when my family's cat died, when I was still in my teens. Skuggan (The shadow) was her name. Parade also contains the hit Kiss, which I have never really liked.

This was the last album Prince released with the backing band The Revolution. The film the album is a soundtrack to is called Under The Cherry Moon, and Prince have a role in it.

Overall, I must say that this album is great craftsmanship, there are good songs with interesting twists, Prince is undeniably a musician and a composer of rank. That I have a hard time with his sound is another matter. Prince belongs to a past part of my life, and I think I'm done with him. But one should never say never.

Prince has some sort of hook-up considering the Internet and that his music is freely offered to mankind, Kiss was the therefore the only video I found on Yuutube (with sound). But there are better songs on the album.

 

 

Tracklist

Side A

1. Christopher Tracy’s Parade 2:11
2. New Position 2:21
3. I Wonder U 1:40
4. Under The Cherry Moon 2:57
5 .Girls & Boys 5:30
6. Life Can Be So Nice 3:12
7. Venus De Milo 1:54

Side B

1. Mountains 3:58
2. Do U Lie? 2:43
3. Kiss 3:38
4. Anotherloverholenyohead 3:58
5 .Sometimes It Snows In April 6:50