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| Purple Rain |
Today, The Grandma has gone to the music shop to buy a new guitar for her. Her electric guitar is too old to sound well and she has decided to have got a new one. Choosing an electric guitar is a difficult task, because of this she has gone to visit the best experts in the city and she has followed their advice.
It has not a question of luck. The Grandma has chosen today, June 25, because she has wanted to homage one of her favourite musicians, Prince, on the anniversary of one of his masterpieces, Purple Rain.
Prince Rogers Nelson (June 7, 1958-April 21, 2016) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, dancer, actor and filmmaker. With a career spanning four decades, Prince was known for his eclectic work, flamboyant stage presence, extravagant fashion sense, and wide vocal range. A multi-instrumentalist, he was considered a guitar virtuoso and was also skilled at playing the drums, percussion, bass, keyboards, and synthesizer.
Prince pioneered the Minneapolis sound, which is a subgenre of funk rock with elements of synth-pop and new wave, in the late 1970s.
Prince was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and developed an interest in music as a young child; he wrote his first song, Funk Machine, at the age of seven. He signed a recording contract with Warner Bros. Records at the age of 17, and released his debut album For You in 1978. His 1979 album Prince went platinum, and his next three albums -Dirty Mind (1980), Controversy (1981), and 1999 (1982) -continued his success, showcasing his prominently explicit lyrics and blending of funk, dance, and rock music.
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| Prince |
In 1984, he began referring to his backup band as The Revolution and released Purple Rain, the soundtrack album to his film debut. It quickly became his most critically and commercially successful release, spending 24 consecutive weeks atop the Billboard 200 and selling 25 million copies worldwide. After releasing the albums Around the World in a Day (1985) and Parade (1986), The Revolution disbanded, and Prince released the double album Sign o' the Times (1987) as a solo artist. He released three more solo albums before debuting The New Power Generation band in 1991.
In 1993, while in a contractual dispute with Warner Bros., he changed his stage name to an unpronounceable symbol, also known as the Love Symbol, and began releasing new albums at a faster rate to remove himself from contractual obligations. He released five records between 1994 and 1996 before signing with Arista Records in 1998. In 2000, he began referring to himself as Prince again. He released 16 albums after that, including the platinum-selling Musicology (2004). His final album, Hit n Run Phase Two, was first released on the Tidal streaming service on December 2015.
Four months later, at the age of 57, Prince died of an accidental fentanyl overdose at his Paisley Park recording studio and home in Chanhassen, Minnesota.
More information: Prince
Prince's innovative music integrated a wide variety of styles, including funk, rock, R&B, new wave, soul, psychedelia, and pop. He has sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. He won seven Grammy Awards, seven Brit Awards, six American Music Awards, four MTV Video Music Awards, an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score for the 1984 film Purple Rain and a Golden Globe Award.
He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in 2004 and 2016 respectively.
Purple Rain is the sixth studio album by American singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Prince. It is the first to feature his band the Revolution, and is the soundtrack to the 1984 film of the same name. The album was released on June 25, 1984, by Warner Bros. Records.
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| Prince |
In the United States the album debuted at No. 11 on the Billboard 200 the week of July 14, 1984 with approximately 1.5 million copies sold. After four weeks on chart, it reached No. 1 on August 4, 1984.
Purple Rain was present on the Billboard 200 for a total of 122 weeks.
Prince and the Revolution won a 1984 Grammy Award for Purple Rain, for Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, the four composers (Nelson, Coleman, Prince, and Melvoin) won Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media, and the album was nominated for Album of the Year.
Purple Rain also won an Oscar for Best Original Song Score in 1985. As of 2008, it has sold over 25 million copies worldwide, making it the third-best-selling soundtrack album of all time. The album was certified 13-times platinum (diamond) by the RIAA. Purple Rain is regularly ranked among the best albums in music history and is widely regarded as Prince's magnum opus along with his 1987 double album Sign o' the Times.
In 2012, the album was added to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry list of sound recordings that are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important.
More information: Pitchfork
Purple Rain was released by Warner Bros. Records on June 25, 1984. Prince wrote all of the songs on the album, some with the input of fellow band members. I Would Die 4 U, Baby I'm a Star and Purple Rain were recorded live from a show on August 3, 1983, at the First Avenue club in Minneapolis, with overdubs and edits added later. The show was a benefit concert for the Minnesota Dance Theater and featured the first appearance of guitarist Wendy Melvoin in Prince's band, The Revolution.
Purple Rain was the first Prince album recorded with and officially credited to his backing group the Revolution, though he had teased the name two years earlier on 1999, writing and the Revolution backwards on the album cover. The band had been performing and recording with Prince without an established name.
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| Prince |
Purple Rain was musically denser than Prince's previous albums, emphasizing full band performances, and multiple layers of guitars, keyboards, electronic synthesizer effects, drum machines, and other instruments.
Musically, Purple Rain remained grounded in the R&B elements of Prince's previous work while demonstrating a more pronounced rock feel in its grooves and emphasis on guitar showmanship. As a soundtrack record, much of the music had a grandiose, synthesized, and even -by some evaluations- a psychedelic sheen to the production and performances. The music on Purple Rain is generally regarded as the most pop-oriented of Prince's career, though a number of elements point towards the more experimental records Prince would release after Purple Rain.
As with many massive crossover albums, Purple Rain's consolidation of myriad styles, from pop rock to R&B to dance, is generally acknowledged to account in part for its enormous popularity.
Musically, Purple Rain remained grounded in the R&B elements of Prince's previous work while demonstrating a more pronounced rock feel in its grooves and emphasis on guitar showmanship. As a soundtrack record, much of the music had a grandiose, synthesized, and even -by some evaluations- a psychedelic sheen to the production and performances. The music on Purple Rain is generally regarded as the most pop-oriented of Prince's career, though a number of elements point towards the more experimental records Prince would release after Purple Rain.
As with many massive crossover albums, Purple Rain's consolidation of myriad styles, from pop rock to R&B to dance, is generally acknowledged to account in part for its enormous popularity.
In the week following Prince's death, the album sold 69,000 equivalent copies, 62,000 in pure album sales, thus allowing the album to re-enter the Billboard 200 at number 2. The next week it dropped to number three with 150,000 units sold.
The album has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide. The album further established him as a figurehead for pop music of the 1980s.
More information: Sogna e Condividi
Purple Rain sold over 1.5 million copies its first week in stores, and sold over 13 million copies in the United States alone, with a total of 25 million copies sold worldwide.
April 2016, the album re-charted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 after Prince's death, selling over 69,000 copies in the following week, and one of the best-selling albums of the year in the US with 487,000 sold in 2016.
According to Billboard, within less than a month after Prince's death, four of the top ten songs on the Hot Rock Songs belonged to tracks off Purple Rain, with the title track coming in at No. 1. Purple Rain posthumously won Soundtrack of the Year at the American Music Awards in 2016.
Purple Rain was the thirteenth best selling album of 2016 with 487,000 album sales. After a deluxe edition was released in 2017, Purple Rain re-entered many top-ten charts around the world including the US, UK and Austria. It debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 with 52,000 copies sold.
More information: Voa News
To create something from nothing
is one of the greatest feelings, and I would
I don't know, I wish it upon everybody. It's heaven.
Prince
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