Prince And The Revolution - Parade

A superb collection. Love him or hate him but Prince is a respectable figure in the music world for there is rarely such a genius daring to experiment with rock, funk disco and the avant-garde - the latter of which is most evident here on 'Parade'. Bizarre but fascinating sound experiment, a sonic mess as sexy as it is actually quite spooky.

... and 'Sometimes It Snows In April' remains one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

This always seems to be the most slated of Prince's releases (at least until he entered his sub-standard battle with the nasty record company stage) but it has always been my most favourite of his albums - he covers a lot of bases here - Clinto-funk style workouts on Kiss and Girls and Boys, upbeat 1999 pop-soul on Anotherloverholenyohead and Life Can Be So Nice (and check that break midway!), big upbeat dance tunes on Mountains and Christopher Tracy's Parade, odd little experimental songs like I Wonder U and New Position, slightly morose quiet storm ballads with Under the Cherry Moon and Sometimes in Snows in April. There is great musical moments which seem truly groundbreaking in here like the percussion break at the start of New Position and the guitar in Kiss which no one has ever seemed to be able to copy.
This was the soundtrack to Prince's movie Under the Cherry Moon which for some odd reason I went and saw during its only week of release before it bombed and I enjoyed it a lot. I watched it again when it came out on video and it sucked big time so whether it is actually good on the big screen or whether I was just enjoying hearing the music for the first time remains anyone's guess.
There is quite a bit of additional material from the same sessions that is worth tracking down - the Kiss 12" has a great funk workout on the b-side called Love or Money (plus the extended part of Kiss is great too) and Mountains is much extended. There is also a bootleg around called Charade that has alternate versions of tracks with different lyrics and a few extra tracks.

To me this is the Masterpiece of Prince (AND his Revolutionary Compadres). Experimental/Psychedelic, talented, innovative, perky, sexy, sad - great hit songs; Perfect! in short. It takes off in several directions, but never strays out of bounds. "Mountains" always put me in a real good mood (-the 12"-version is incredible, by the way) but all tracks earns their rightful place here! I got to love them all, and
I stand by my words. It's a Masterpiece.

Excellent album from TAKAP ...This was also the soundtrack to the movie "UNDER THE CHERRY MOON" - a black+white movie , musical playing in southern france . a fine movie , if you aks me.. anyway . side 1 is not so fantastic to me , but all of side 2 is excellent . KISS was the biggest hit of 1985 , i heard it first on the radio and really thought it was sung by a female , it took wekks till i learned it's by Prince . anotherloverlikeyouneedaholeinyourhead - very true statement sometimes .. great song , tas well . my favourite of course is "Sometimes it snbows in april2 Tis balld is so deep and heartfelt i go back to it evrey other year around the end of winter beginnning of spring and get moody . so true "sometimes i feel so bad.. so bad but all good things they say never last.." if you don't get the blues or feel moody listening to this song , you must come from a different planet . another proof of sheer greatness - after all this sexy and adventurous albums a more song orientated record with many a great songs , that went down the audience's ears very fine , probably showing Prince reaching his full potential , which culiminated the year later with his masterpiece the two LP (and 2 CD ) release of Sign Of The Times , following , which on the other hand offered probably just too much at once for many listeners .. if you think about buying one Prince album i recommend this.