Music would not sound the same if it weren’t for Prince. His music and himself as a person have influenced countless artists like Frank Ocean, Beyonce, Justin Timberlake, Janelle Monae, The Weeknd, and Alicia Keys to just name a few. There’s no possible way to overstate the influence and talent of Prince, and yet he managed to record more than almost any other artist of his caliber, so much so that his label would force him to not put out all his music. But even with the censors he had at the time, he managed to put together what many people consider his magnum opus with 1987s Sign O’ The Times.
Even with the 80 minute runtime that ended up being Sign O’ The Times, Prince had a lot bigger and different ideas for what this project was going to be. These songs were mostly recorded for three different projects he was working on simultaneously; his triple album Crystal Ball, the double album he was making with The Revolution called Dream Factory, and an album under his feminine alter ego called Camille. Each of these have plenty of songs that ended up on Sign O’ The Times, and their influence contributes to the all-over-the-place nature of this project.
But why I’m talking about this now is that the album was re-released this September as a remastered version with 92 total tracks. There are 45 previously unheard tracks across three discs of music from Prince’s vault, all remastered for 2020, as well as a disc of single versions of songs and multiple live shows. It shows the crazy genius of how Prince could record this many finished songs in a short period of time and still have it be regarded as one of his greatest albums ever! And I haven’t even mentioned the two jazz albums Prince released with his saxophonist Eric Leeds under the name Madhouse the same year Sign O’ The Times came out, both of which show that Prince was a competent jazz musician as well.
Back to the standard remaster, the album definitely benefits from the new version. It didn’t translate well to streaming services the way some other music from this time has, and this helped everything sound clearer and more pristine. Instead of everything sounding small, it now sounds like the large and grand masterpiece that it always was. For digital listening, the mixing and overall quality of this remaster is easily superior to the original that was on here.
For the album itself, it shows the wide range of talent and styles that Prince possessed, all over the 80 minute runtime. The title track opens the album with a solemn tone, but the song has become one of Prince’s most well known and classic songs. He tackles many hard hitting subjects ranging from the burgeoning AIDS crisis, to racial injustice, drug overdoses, and much more. It’s also one of many songs on the record that was written and played solely by Prince himself.
Moving on from that song, we get the party anthems of “Play in the Sunshine” and “Housequake”. “Housequake” in particular features Prince’s vocals being pitched up the entire song, which helps us know that it was supposed to be on his Camille album, another example of these songs being repurposed into the new project. That song also feels almost like a jam session created for a party atmosphere, like a more maximal and authentic sounding version of what Prince was doing on 1999.
The next few songs on the album show Prince mulling on his favorite subject matter, love and women. He does some storytelling about a love interest on “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker”, and it has a unique song structure, as the song has no repeating chorus and is just four minutes of the story. “Starfish and Coffee” shows Prince as his most concise with his songwriting, channeling his inner version of The Beatles with an under three minute song with an instantly catchy chorus. “Slow Love” is the traditional love ballad for this section of the album, and it helps Prince show off his great vocal range. He even still manages to try out new sounds in these songs, as evident with the “Forever in my Life” outro. As the track is leaving, he introduces an acoustic guitar melody, which is something I’ve never heard Prince do up until this point.
The second half of this project starts out with nothing but straight hits. “U Got The Look” proves that Prince could make an accessible rock song with the best bands of the time. “If I Was Your Girlfriend” is another Camille song, with Prince exploring his jealousy of his lover’s best friend, and how his romantic relationship could never be more intimate than if he were her best friend. “Strange Relationship” contains the most funk on the entire project with this hypnotic combination of drums, bass, and synth lines. “I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man” is pop Prince as his best! The chorus and melody is one of the catchiest on the entire project, and it shows off Prince’s guitar talents towards the end of the track, which features two different guitar solos.
Even in the final three songs on the project, Prince shows off his full range. He proves that he can do a more hardcore rock song with “The Cross”. The song starts out soft and slowly builds over the five minute runtime to Prince’s passionate and layered vocals over this sintar laced rock song. “It’s Gonna Be A Beautiful Night” is a nine minute long song that was recorded during a live show with some minimal overdubs after the fact. This is Prince as his most free, a song at this length with little structure that is somehow still extremely danceable and enjoyable. “Adore” gives this project the classic Prince ballad closer that his projects usually have, and it’s arguably one of his best and most iconic ballads.
Sign O’ The Times shows the true genius of Prince better than any of his other projects. He was forced to trim down his vision with this project, and it still came out as one of the greatest albums of the 80s. It may not be nothing but hits like Purple Rain, or 70 minutes of nonstop partying like 1999, but it’s still Prince at arguably his most unrefined during his classic period. It gave Prince the opportunity to show how diverse his talents really were for maybe the last time. Sign O’ The Times will forever be the maximalist opus by The Purple One himself.
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