2. PrinceParade
I grew up in a house with two older brothers, and my parents played music a lot. I remember that Prince just used to be on in the car. Parade is one that I remember from a young age more than the others. I remember bringing a tape of Purple Rain into school and playing ‘When Doves Cry’ and people dancing to that. I remember all of those records in a bit of a blur. I remember being in the playground at school, and singing to myself the song ‘Under The Cherry Moon’ from that album, and also ‘New Position’. Lyrics would just come into my head because I heard them so much at home.
Parade is just the one of all of them that I believe is the least dated to the time that it was made. It feels quite adventurous musically. I always thought it was Prince and the band, but actually, the first four songs he just sat down and made in one continuous go. He played the drum parts for the first four tracks in sequence, and then overdubbed the rest of the instruments. It’s a really amazing sequence. The rhythms are changing and the tracks speed up and slow down, but it has this great live feel to it. It’s really unusual instrumentation for what is essentially a funk record – it’s got double bass, it’s got strings and orchestrations There are some very short, odd songs, but they’re these real bursts of energy. His lyrics are really playful on ‘New Position’, but then it goes to something more melodramatic on ‘Under The Cherry Moon’, then there’s ‘Girls & Boys’ which is one of the biggest tunes on the record outside of ‘Kiss’. It doesn’t feel like a very mainstream or chart-orientated record. It feels like a very eccentric record that only Prince could have made.
