Prince set aside his sleazy synth-funk to put forward his pop opus, "Purple Rain". This soundtrack to Prince's semi-autbiographical film of the same name would go on to become the third highest selling soundtrack (such as it was) of all time.
Prince lays down some catchy tunes with his usual ear for skilled and effective musical arrangements, overlaid with his wild, desperate vocals. This was Prince's shot at the bigtime so he even set about cleaning up his sex-heavy lyrics... mostly. He couldn't help himself, so the beautiful, melodic "Darling Nikki" features reference to masturbating with a magazine and (apparently) helped kickstart the "Parental Advisory" stickers that Al Gore's wife and her 'good taste' crusaders spearheaded.
Interestingly, the title track was originally aimed to be a country song, and a duet with Stevie Nicks. She said that Prince sent her a 10 minute instrumental demo with a request for her to write lyrics, but she balked at the task. It was eventually reworked as the epic psychedelic gospel pop rock track that it is.
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