Thirty years ago today, American rock music reached its peak when Prince and the Revolution, a regrettably short-lived band fronted by the ubiquitous multi-instrumentalist megastar Prince, released Purple Rain. No album produced by an American artist before or after this album has been as great.
Certainly, some will decline to categorize Purple Rain as a rock album because of its many non-rock influences (dance, gospel, R&B, funk, soul, even a little bit of folk in there for good measure), but it is precisely because Prince did not feel obliged to fit his work into an easy digestible genre that he was able to write and perform an album which holds up after hundreds of listens and which has stood the test of time like few others. The most frequent album of comparison to Purple Rain is one of the few albums ever made to have sold more copies than it--Michael Jackson's Thriller. But whereas MJ's blockbuster, released a mere 19 months before Prince's, has an overproduced and dated track for every "Billie Jean", Purple Rain sounds like it could have been released at just about any point over the last thirty years. In fact, if I had to compile a list of the nine best tracks from these two nine-track albums, I'd go with "Billie Jean" and eight Prince songs.
But that's enough of my general Prince adoration. There's plenty of tributes to this album out there. What I like to do is to make completely preposterous comparisons, and that's what I'm going to do here. It occurred to me today, while listening to Purple Rain, that the album is strangely like a baseball lineup. Okay, let me explain. Unlike in football, for example, where there are enormous differences between players of different positions, baseball players all play within what is pretty much the same general framework but there are still noticeable differences at play. Much as Purple Rain is nine songs united by the same spirit but still quite different in structure and overall sound, baseball operates in a similar vein. So here are some comparisons, for those of you unfamiliar with the album or the sport (because I'm sure people who don't know this album will be ALL OVER this).
1. Let's Go Crazy--"Let's Go Crazy" is a straight-forward rocker, but one which has everything you should want to have in a great rock song. It was a #1 hit on the pop charts and features two of the most blistering electric guitar solos on Earth--how this isn't a mainstay on classic rock radio is probably the best argument in the world that unless your name is Jimi Hendrix (and your band is predominantly white British guys), artists of color are artificially blocked from the playlists. But the song has it all--it's fast, it hits you hard, and particularly in the final thirty seconds or so, it is ridiculously flashy. And that is why the baseball equivalent is...
Mike Trout. The only flaw in "Let's Go Crazy" is the admittedly silly spoken-word intro, which is a bit similar to the opening track on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in that it *seems* to be setting up a high concept but doesn't even a little bit. Consider this the equivalent to Trout's banal Twitter account.
2. Take Me With U--This is a nice, fundamentally solid pop song. A late-run single, this song would be a low-level hit at any point in history: It's just too nice and too happy and too innocuous to not be. This isn't really a compliment nor an insult--keep in mind I do *like* the song. I just don't think it's anybody's favorite song on the album. If this is your favorite song on the album, you probably didn't care much for the album.
Meet Ben Zobrist. Like "Take Me With U", Zobrist is predicated on reliability--he is a consistent player most notable for his versatility rather than for being a superstar. Also, just as "Take Me With U" is unnecessarily a duet with Apollonia Kotero, Ben Zobrist is also part of an unnecessary duet--his Twitter account, which he shares with his wife, because apparently Ben Zobrist is of the belief that once you get married, you are no longer your own autonomous person.
3. The Beautiful Ones--The first two-thirds of this song is, frankly, pretty boring. It's a piano ballad that is more or less in the mold of a Thriller ballad (think "Human Nature"). But then, in the third act, Prince cranks up his vocals and LOSES HIS DAMN MIND. Every single word he utters in this song from "What's it gonna be, baby?" onward makes the hair on the back of my neck rise to action and bludgeons my feels. I suspect the only reason this song isn't the biggest karaoke song in the world is because nobody that isn't Prince Rogers Nelson can pull it off.
Like "The Beautiful Ones", Chris Carpenter's career started out pretty boring. It just kind of...was. Nothing you'd give a second thought to. And then, as seen above, Chris Carpenter lost his mind and became, in his own strange way, a legend.
4. Computer Blue--It didn't even dawn on me until after, I don't know, probably a couple hundred times hearing this song that the guitar is awesome in it. That's because, as is typical of many Prince songs, the guitar isn't really front and center. His virtuosity is different from that of the Steve Vai or Joe Satriani, dudes-loitering-at-Guitar-Center rock, in that it is often buried in the mix for the sake of the song's overall quality. But make no mistake--it's Prince's immense talents that make this song what it is.
Baseball fans have gotten to a point of at least knowing who Josh Donaldson is but not quite realizing just how good he is. It's like how people will make lists of the greatest guitarists of all-time and still put Angus Young or something above Prince, who gets left in the honorable mentions. But just as Josh Donaldson is a kind of boring, great defensive third baseman (he doesn't have the highlights of a Manny Machado but makes every play he should and positions himself to go beyond that), Prince's "Computer Blue" seems to fall by the wayside.
5. Darling Nikki--Not a single but perhaps the most historically significant song off the album, it was "Darling Nikki" that inspired Tipper Gore to form the Parents Media Research Council. And with reason--a song with lyrics as dirty as these doesn't usually end up on an album that goes platinum thirteen times. But beyond the words is a funky bit of hard rock. When Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor says he was inspired by Prince, I feel like this song had to be a big part of the reason. The claustrophobia and sexual angst exhibited by the feel of the music ends up saying more than the literal verbiage used.
Carlos Martinez, like the 5'2 Prince, has an awful lot of power in his small frame. You don't look at the guy and think he will fire a fastball around 100 MPH, and you don't see Prince and think industrial rock riffs, but that's just what you get. Also, sexual references.
6. When Doves Cry--This is Prince's biggest career hit and when you think about it, it makes not a damn bit of sense. The song starts with a wild guitar solo and then has another short guitar solo three or four minutes later, with zero guitar in the interim. There is no bass. The song is essentially an exercise in minimalism; it's arguably the weirdest song on an album that, while popular, wasn't exactly afraid to do its own thing.
Hunter Pence barely looks like a human being playing baseball. He has a weird, awkward stance and his swing looks unnatural and yet...he's one of the better hitters in baseball. You do you, Hunter.
7. I Would Die 4 U--Confession: This is my least favorite song on the album. It's not even that I think it's bad: It just feels so disappointing. Prince delivers vocally and he certainly is taking a stab at lyrical profundity--the song just can't live up to the expectations left when you consider that the three singles which preceded it had peaked at #1, #1, and #2 on the charts.
Cameron Maybin is a perfectly fine Major League Baseball player. That's just what he is. If you look at him in the context of Earth, he's a successful person. Not many people play Major League Baseball, let alone make successful careers out of it. But in 2008, Maybin was the #7 prospect in baseball. #8 was Clayton Kershaw. With the weight of expectations comes an objectively unfair standard by which we judge people and by which we judge songs.
8. Baby I'm a Star--God love Prince. You see, I see no reason to deny the popular perception that he is a raging egomaniac because, well, he is. He absolutely is. But I don't mind. It can actually be quite endearing when a guy backs it up. And on "Baby I'm a Star", Prince is leading The Revolution on a quest to show off everything they've got. Play spectacular guitar, talk about how great you are, go ahead and give your weirdo keyboard player who for some reason always wears scrubs his own little segment. It's all fun.
Carlos Gomez is baseball's embodiment of fun. I was going to just go ahead and talk about his bat flips and his trolling of Brian McCann and his use of Fun Baseball tenants like stealing bases and spectacular defense but, well, that picture came up. So there's that too.
9. Purple Rain--This is the song that in the most ways works. It is well-rounded and, other than not really alternating its speed, covers every base. "Purple Rain" is an exercise in musical beauty--its gospel flair is one thing, but the power of the all-time great closing guitar solo makes it a well-rounded finale to a tremendous rock accomplishment.
Like "Purple Rain", Troy Tulowitzki captures everything you could possibly ask for (with the possible exception of exceptional bursts of speed). He has contact, he is a superb fielder, and he can bring the power at will. It's terrific. Purple Rain is terrific. Baseball is fun.
Purple Rain forever.
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