Purple Rain did not immediately hit the heights when it was released in June, 1984, but once Prince’s classic sixth album gathered momentum and hit the top spot in the US charts, it took some shifting. It’s 40 years ago this weekend since it went to Number One on the Billboard 200 and it stayed there for 24 weeks. Speaking to this writer a few years ago, Bobby Z. and Brown Mark of The Revolution, Prince’s backing band at the time, said they could feel something huge was brewing as they made the record. It had been a long time coming, they said.
“It started from humble beginnings - at Mark’s first gig, we were booed off the stage supporting the Stones,” recalled drummer Bobby Z. “Lisa has a good comment that Prince had to win over that Stones audience that booed him off in order to become this crossover icon and he did. It had steps. The Purple Rain movie definitely paused his process, so it was a lot of lead up to the movie and then shooting a movie and then the rehearsal for the tour and then the tour. Purple Rain is a diamond because it had that three-year window that made him pause. Otherwise, as you know, the guy was on fire, he wanted to release an album a month and Purple Rain was when things finally got a moment to breathe in Prince world and look what happened, it was Purple Rain.”
