If you want to get an idea of how many ideas, how many musicians, how many songs Prince had collected in 1986, you just have to take a look at his “Parade” tour. The stage was full, everyone was standing on each other’s feet.
His actual band, The Revolution, were the old rockers. They had to stand at the back now. At her side: Prince’s ex-girlfriend Susannah Melvoin, who was now also allowed to play an instrument. Saxophonist Alan Leeds and trumpeter Atlanta Bliss were the new guys, two people from the R&B department and from Prince’s projects “The Family” and “The Flesh”. They moved forward. And even then, the view of Prince was obscured. The so-called “bodyguards”, Jerome Benton, Wally Safford and Greg Brooks, three round dancers, did the co-singing. Right at the front, unreachable, is the boss.
That’s fusion, said Prince, that sucks, said his senior people. Things were simmering within this new formation, some were already packing their bags, and Prince was surprised: he just wanted to live out his life.
The only album released for the market in 1986 – which would have been more than enough for the careers of other musicians – was the “Parade” album. Twelve songs, and after nine minutes four of the songs were already over, melting like sand in your hands. And that with the record only playing for 40 minutes.
In a pre-internet world, there were rumors of more albums, there were bootlegs, but much of it remains unreleased to this day. “Roadhouse Garden”, “The Dream Factory”, “Camille”, “Crystal Ball” – Prince had juggled various configurations and discarded them all, some of which were saved on later B-sides or on “Sign ‘O’ The Times”. following year.
This type of quality control probably had nothing to do with pressure to succeed. Prince, who had risen to superstardom two years earlier with “Purple Rain,” knew no despondency. The 28-year-old simply believed that his muse would never run out, so many concepts, songs and alter egos fell by the wayside.
His most beautiful composition of the year, “Manic Monday,” recorded by the Bangles, failed to reach number one in America in February. The place was blocked by “Kiss” – the “Parade” piece he recorded himself. A crush of their own material that was reminiscent of the Beatles’ chart blockades.
Prince brought back “Kiss” for “Parade” at the last minute; he had actually given the song to his protégés Mazarati, but then recognized something in their recording that inspired him again. Mazarati, who never had a chance anyway, were finished. “Kiss” became Prince’s biggest hit: a slender guitar lounged on a fat drum machine rhythm, and the consistent falsetto gave encouragement to artists who struggled with the pitch for the rest of the decade, from Duran Duran to Michael Stipe.
“Kiss” was deceptive
Above all, Prince once again made it clear that for him sex is a power game; many funny couple dancers in the discos didn’t even notice that. The text does not consist of questions or even flirtations, but rather of commands. “Act Your Age, Not Your Shoe Size,” “You Don’t Have To Watch ‘Dynasty’ To Have An Attitude.” To this day, Prince has to be measured by the drum sound: none of his live bands have managed to make the song sound good on stage, the piece usually seems erratic, too fast, sometimes even like Benny Hill slapstick. The biggest surprise of 1986, however, was that although “Kiss” became THE dancefloor hit of the year, the album that accompanied it was all pop jazz with group work. Before “Kiss” there was even a chanson on the record called “Do U Lie”.
“Parade” opened with a four-part suite consisting of “Christopher Tracy’s Parade,” “New Position,” “I Wonder U,” and “Under The Cherrymoon,” all connected by the drums. Probably Prince’s best nine minutes. The alien-sounding drums are accompanied by Clare Fischer’s orchestra, and these four songs perfectly reflect Prince’s changes in mood: first the world is his oyster, then he wants sex, and finally comes the doubts, the fear of mortality, the clinging to romance .
After this gala it was clear that the man could no longer do anything wrong. It was announced to be one of the best albums of 1986. And the four singles, “Kiss”, “Mountains”, “Girls and Boys” and “Anotherloverkommenyohead”, were still waiting to appear.
Officially, “Parade” was named as the soundtrack to Prince’s second feature film, “Under The Cherrymoon.” Even if you haven’t seen the black-and-white drama set in the south of France, you at least know where to find it: in many lists of the “worst films of all time.” Prince played a gigolo named Christopher Tracy who falls in love with an American woman (Kristin Scott Thomas), whose rich father (Steven Berkoff) then puts him on the hit list. Prince has never appeared more vain than here – he directed it himself – and countless memes with the look in his eyes or the way he runs his hands through his cropped hair are flooding the internet today. “We had fun, didn’t we,” breathes Christopher at the end, dying. Honestly no.
You have to give him credit for the fact that – unlike in “Purple Rain” – he doesn’t hide behind instruments in a quasi-autobiographical story and explain his career path, but really wants to act in a role that is not his own. Prince only makes a single vocal appearance in “Under The Cherrymoon.”
Among fans, the tapes of the VHS cassettes were particularly worn out in two places: when “A Honest Man” and “Alexa De Paris” illustrated the film. You could listen to it over and over again. Both pieces, which Prince should be shaken for, did not end up on the “Parade” album. The former, the best song of the era, was found twelve years later as an a cappella version on Crystal Ball; The latter, his best instrumental piece ever, appeared as the B-side of “Mountains.”
Just 30 concerts, that’s it
The Parade tour lasted six months, included just 30 concerts on three continents, and unfortunately none of the performances have been released on video. In the eighties you couldn’t miss any of the concert tours, because Prince reserved a new look, new colors, new concepts for each one. The 1986 tour was supposed to take him back to Europe after a long time, here he was embraced, here he felt better understood than in his homeland, where the albums sold increasingly poorly.
The “Parade” gigs were of course a triumph, Prince was in top form, even if the band was grumbling in the background. In addition to material from “Parade” and “Around The World In A Day,” which had not had its own tour the year before, the setlists also included great songs that had threatened to get lost in the ever-growing back catalog. For example, the never released “The Dance Electric”, B-sides like “17 Days” and “A Love Bizarre” by Sheila E.
Everything was physically demanded of Prince, the almost 30 songs were staged almost entirely as a sequence without a break – he still decided to dance most of the time, or at most to sit at the piano. Unbelievable, but that’s how it was: Prince usually only strapped on the guitar for the encore, “Purple Rain”.
By October of that year it became clear that Prince would break with The Revolution; Many of the pieces they recorded together, such as “Strange Relationship”, were to be reworked and released under his own name the following year.
“Crystal Ball” was coming up, which would become “Sign ‘O’ The Times” – his most celebrated album to date. Hardly anyone could have believed that Prince could become even more popular after “Parade”.