Happy Birthday, Prince

Happy fifty-fourth birthday today (June 7th) to the one and only Prince Rogers Nelson.

Four years ago, I wrote a blog post all about how much I am a fan of Prince's music (click here to read that one...I'll wait). Since that post, his representation in my iTunes library has grown to over 430 songs and over 35 albums. That does seem like quite a lot; it is in fact just a hair under 2% of my whole music library. Still, he is by far the most represented artist in my music collection.

Prince - Graffiti Bridge (soundtrack)

Welcome to another edition of Soundtrack Sunday.

In 1990, Prince wrote, directed and starred Graffiti Bridge, the sequel to 1984's highly successful Purple Rain. The film follows the Kid (Prince) who is now a performer at his own club Glam Slam. Morris Day also returns, playing himself, as the owner of a number of clubs including Pandemonium. However, rivalry still exists between the two which culminates in a showdown between the venues. The film also stars Ingrid Chavez, Jerome Benton, the Time, Mavis Staples, Tevin Campbell, and George Clinton.

Critically, the film was panned. At the box office, it barely managed to recoup the original production cost.

The double-record soundtrack album, however, did fairly well. I went Gold in the US, the UK and Canada. It reached number 6 on the US Billboard 200 chart and the US R&B Albums chart, number 4 in Germany and the Netherlands, number 3 in New Zealand, number 2 in Norway and Switzerland, and number 1 in the UK. It also produced a number of hit singles for Prince and the other artists on the record.