Purple Rain is by far one of the most electric albums of all time, and the title track’s inclusion in the final season of Stranger Things has brought it back to the foreground decades after its initial release. And it’s easy to see why it has so much staying power.
The buzzing whirr at the beginning of “Let’s Go Crazy” felt like a current on the brink of explosion or a heavenly glow in the darkness. Music hardly sounded like that before, and it set off a new era of musical exploration and creation in the mainstream. Indeed, in 2026, it’s hard to imagine a universe where those songs don’t define generations and become hits. Almost every song felt anatomically designed to be a big smash (maybe even one featured in a hit streaming show thirty years later). However, to make a hit was never Prince’s intention.
During a conversation with Ebony in 1986, he told the publication he thought it was too easy to go into the studio and make a hit. Anybody can make a record “just to make a payment on that Cadillac.” In his eyes, he was operating at an entirely different frequency than any other artist working at the time. Moreover, Prince felt like he was a dying breed, thankfully starting to come back around. He felt that art was fresher in the 1960s than in the mid-1980s, making his musical approach stand out as “avant-garde” amid commercial rock and pop.
Prince Slams Commercial Music in Vintage Interview
“I think Purple Rain is the most avant-garde purple thing I’ve ever done. Just look at ‘When Doves Cry’ and ‘Let’s Go Crazy’. Most Black artists won’t try a groove like that. If more would, we’d have more colorful radio stations,” Prince said at the time. “In the 60s, when everybody tried to be different, you had War and Santana, and Hendrix, and Sly [Stone], and James [Brown], and they were all uniquely different. Now, everyone just jumps on what they think are the hottest sounds.”
Prince argued that he didn’t say any of this to prop himself that much higher. Instead, he just felt like the talented artists of the world could afford to go even further. Don’t let radio dictate you, dictate what radio should sound like. Of course, the enticing allure of big paychecks nips all of this artistic purity away, especially at a time when artists could really bring in the dough.
Still, this didn’t dull his optimism too much. “A lot of the spirit is gone. When music became so commercial, and you could make so much money with it, people just started looking at it like that. Whatever the trend, clothes, food, toilet paper, whatever, everyone just jumps on it,” Prince shrugs. “I feel that we’re on the brink of something. It is going to be strict and wild and pretty.”
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