The Most Interesting is where I take something that I’ve done some research on and describe what I thought was the most interesting thing I learned from that research.
I host a podcast with my friend Mike Joseph called 50 For 50 (which we’ve now brought over to Substack; give it a sub!) which celebrates us turning 50 years of age in 2026. We review one album for every year of our existence (beginning in 1976), and use that as the vehicle to also talk about the artist and their work. I’m using that research for this post.
The Most Interesting may also be about a movie, something in sports, or anything else that I’m interested in digging into.
Here, I’m going to break down something I found super duper interesting about an artist who I’ve never been all that big of a fan of. That artist is Prince. And the album is Purple Rain, which is the focus of our latest 50 For 50 episode.
Before I get there, I guess I have to answer the question: Why am I not a big Prince fan? I think it’s because I was five years too young when Purple Rain came out. Prince was way less safe than Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder. And in 1984, my musical tastes were mostly driven by whatever my dad was listening to. He wasn’t listening to Prince. He wasn’t really listening to MJ either, but MJ was so big that it didn’t matter. I didn’t have to find MJ. MJ found me.
Prince was for my older cousins. He was a little dangerous for me as an eight-year-old. And going back through his catalog of music, I would agree with that 1984 assessment. He’s singing about sex. A lot. And there’s even a song about incest in there.
But what’s great about doing a project like 50 For 50 is that it’s forced me to go back and dig through something I missed.
In the 1992 classic White Men Can’t Jump, the characters of Sidney Deane and Billy Hoyle discuss whether or not Billy is cool enough to really hear Jimi Hendrix.
I’d listened to Prince, but I didn’t hear him.
So what’s the most interesting thing I learned about Prince? The man had a different plan with Purple Rain than I had realized.
In 1982, he wanted to star in a movie. The Prince of 1982 wasn’t the giant superstar that he would be after Purple Rain. So it’s not like this was a sure-fire, no-risk opportunity for a movie studio. Then again, you had to not be paying attention to miss Prince coming.
What I didn’t know, and this is what I’m so impressed with after the fact, is that the movie was the priority and the album was there to support it. I’d always assumed that the movie supported the album because of how big and cinematic the album was.
But without Purple Rain the movie, we wouldn’t have Purple Rain the album as we know it. Supposedly, Prince was confident in his catalog of 100 unreleased songs sitting around from older sessions and knew he had an album in him no matter what. He sent some of the songs he imagined for the film to director Albert Magnoli, which helped shape the film’s narrative.
And here’s where his real genius comes in. As the story was being built, Prince tailored songs to fit specific scenes in the film. The most famous of those stories is that Magnoli needed a song for a montage late in the film, and Prince turned around one of his greatest songs ever, “When Doves Cry,” in a day.
The album Purple Rain is a juggernaut. But most of you already knew that. I think I can hear Prince now.
You can watch the full episode below.