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Sign O’ The Times Prince album
Warner Bros. Records
albumThe release of Sign O’ The Times heralded Prince’s return as a solo artist since his disbanding of The Revolution in October 1986 – causing the reworking of much of the album’s original content to purge the band’s input from the project’s original sessions. The Revolution do feature in the configuration of the finished album, in It’s Gonna Be a Beautiful Night recorded during a pre-show sound check at Le Zenith in Paris on 25 August 1986 during Parade Tour, a performance unbeknownst then was the band’s final recording with Prince together as a group. Prince’s vocal overdubs, along with backing vocals by Jill Jones, Susannah Melvoin were added to the track that November at Sunset Sound Studios. The rap by Sheila E was recorded when she was in Ohio while on the road supporting Lionel Richie, submitting her part via telephone.
I’m not saying I’m better than anybody else. But you’ll be sitting there at the Grammys, and U2 will beat you. And you say to yourself: Wait a minute. I can play that kind of music, too. But you will not do Housequake.
Sign O’ The Times has since been regarded as Prince’s best LP, and certainly his most critically acclaimed. Reviewing Sign O’ The Times Melody Maker remarked simply: “Truly, this man is a genius.” Yet believing Prince had strayed too far from his black roots, the album retailed only 1.8 million unit in the US but achieved 1.3 million in other markets. The album certified Platinum by RIAA on 2 July 1987. Despite peaking in the US at number 6, Sign O’ The Times is regarded as Prince’s most accomplished work and is a regular on lists ranking the greatest albums of all time. UK’s The Times newspaper place Sign O’ The Times 23rd in its top albums of all time, and it is 45th in Rolling Stone Magazine’s version of the list. Apple Music name it the 51st best album ever. Sign O’ The Times garnered three Grammy nominations in 1987 but no wins. Those nominations were for Best R&B Performance and Best R&B Song (U Got The Look and Album Of The Year – both Sign O’ The Times and Michael Jackson’s Bad losing out to U2’s The Joshua Tree. Bono was embarrassed to accept the award. Attracting no nominations from the AMAs at all, Sign O’ The Times marked the shift that Europe overtook the US as the largest commercial market for Prince’s music.
The supporting Sign O’ The Times Tour was staged entirely in Europe, Prince’s first tour not played in his home country. To placate his US fans, the final dates of the show were filmed to produce the concert movie Sign O’ The Times. Additional scenes for it were shot back at Minneapolis at Prince’s newly completed and personal studio complex Paisley Park. Sign O’ The Times was therefore a project spaning the most instrumental phase in Prince’s career – his journey between The Revolution, actor having completed his second movie, to establishing himself as a solo artist again, and the inauguration of his personally funded $10 million recording compound Paisley Park Studios that allowed him to ramp up his already prodigious output.
Also appearing in the Sign O’ The Times movie was the video for U Got The Look, shot onstage in Paris where Sheena Easton happened to be making a guest appearance at the live show. Prince had known Easton since 1984 and wrote for her the track Sugar Walls to spice up her public image; it became a top ten hit. In December 1986, she dropped by Sunset Sound Studios simply to call in on Prince, then to her surprise he invited her to add backing vocals to his new track, having no idea that it would be developed into a duet. U Got The Look was a late minute addition to the configuration and became the opener on the second disc of what was Prince’s first double LP since 1999.
In all, Sign O’ The Times was supported with four promotional singles, each issuing both 7″ and extended 12″ cuts of the A-side track. The title track was the lead single, issued one month ahead of the LP. Being Prince’s first release since disbanding The Revolution the previous October, along with its sparse sound, Sign O’ The Times was a highly unconventional choice as lead single, but became a hit charting at number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. Its cover also sparked debate as Prince’s dancer Cat Glover pictured on the single was widely mistaken as Prince himself. If I Was Your Girlfriend was the album’s second single, released on the eve of the European tour, it charted at 13 in the UK, but a lowly 67 in the US. The third single U Got The Look was the most commercial sounding of the album’s singles and met the greatest success, peaking at number 2 in the US and 11 in the UK, global sales amounted to 1.49 million units. The final single I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man was backed with Prince’s first release to contain a official mix by an external producer – Shep Pettibone’s remix of Hot Thing – as the B-side. Issued just after the theatrical release of the Sign O’ The Times movie, I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man scored the album its third US top-10 hit.
Evolution of Sign O’ The Times
Prince isn’t a star, he’s an event.
The album’s peak of 6 in the US chart belies its widely held acclaim as Prince’s masterpiece. Sign O’ The Times is the evolution from three projects created in 1986, Prince’s most prolific writing year. This is the story of its journey.
Dream Factory
The initial sessions for what was intended to produce the fourth LP for Prince and The Revolution began at their Washington Avenue warehouse studio on 30 November 1985, when what would become the project’s title track Dream Factory was recorded. The main recording continued until April 1986 at Prince’s newly installed home studio at Galpin Blvd, Chanhassen, and in July continued at Sunset Sound, Hollywood. Prince, with The Revolution, laid down an 18-track double LP titled Dream Factory. Prince had been unable to record at his new home studio for almost a year due to filming in France for Under The Cherry Moon and that on his return that November the Galpin studio was still not complete. Once operational in early 1986, Prince threw himself to work in his studio, producing what was to be the most prolific writing year in his career. With the home setup suffering spatial limitations, he ensconced himself at Sunset Sound throughout the summer laying down tracks for Dream Factory.
The Dream Factory sessions produced The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker, It, Starfish And Coffee, Slow Love, I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man, The Cross and Sign O’ The Times. The track Slow Love dates from July 1984, its lyrics written by former glamour model Carole Davis who developed a friendship with Prince, adding a verse – it was reworked in 1986 for Dream Factory. Shortly after Dream Factory was completed that July, Prince and The Revolution headed to Europe to stage what became their final tour. The expansion of the band’s lineup sparked disagreements and infighting on the road. Wanting also to take a fresh artistic direction, Prince felt doing so involved refreshing the band. Within a fortnight of returning to the US that September, The Revolution was disbanded, causing Dream Factory to be abandoned.
Camille
With The Revolution gone, Prince turned his attention to creating something entirely different and that September started writing tracks for stage musical he titled The Dawn. But the desire to craft a solo album proved too strong, The Dawn was aborted and that October, Prince set to work on an entirely new 8-track solo LP named Camille. He recorded this project at Sunset Sound over a short space that winter; producing the tracks Housequake, Strange Relationship and If I Was Your Girlfriend, as well as Rockhard In A Funky Place, Feel U Up, Good Love and Rebirth Of The Flesh. Also from this session came Shockadelica a track Prince created having discovered Jesse Johnson was working on a solo project of the same name and so foster the false impression Johnson had stolen the title from Prince – it would be released as the B-side for If I Was Your Girlfriend as both songs were credited to Prince’s new alter ego Camille.
The Camille LP was never intended as a conventional ‘Prince’ album but the work of his male/female pseudonym Camille; Prince would not even be pictured on the cover. The concept arose by accident when engineer Susan Rogers queued Prince’s vocal pitch too high. Rather than be annoyed by the error, it planted the idea in Prince’s mind to create the character Camille. The Camille LP got 100 test pressings printed and was even assigned a catalogue number by Warner Bros #(9)25543. Concerned by the absence of ‘Prince’, he suddenly decided to shelve it. The very few copies still in circulation since command near $60,000 today.
Crystal Ball
Come November 1986, Prince revisited Dream Factory and decided to reconfigure the tracks from both it and Camille to form a 22-track triple LP named Crystal Ball. This round of sessions introduced Play In The Sunshine, Hot Thing, Forever In My Life, Adore and It’s Gonna Be A Beautiful Night, with all the songs again credited to Prince under his pseudonym Camille. When presenting Warner its master tape, the label felt that the sheer scale of tracks proposed for Crystal Ball would meet better success pared down to a double album. The task fell to Warner executive Lenny Waronker to phone Prince and convince him to cull songs from the configuration. Prince reluctantly obliged and again reworked the project.
This phase led to the creation of U Got The Look a collaboration with Sheena Easton completed just before Christmas 1986, the final song recorded for the album. Easton set Prince the lyrical challenge which became La La La, He He Hee, it would miss the final cut of the album when completed in January 1987 and was B-side to the album’s title track, newly renamed Sign O’ The Times (stylised with the CND symbol in place of O’). Prince’s magnum opus was finally issued on 30 March 1987 under Paisley Park Records, precisely a year to the day after the release of Prince and The Revolution’s final LP Parade. When considered aside Prince’s canon of work Sign O’ The Times stands highest. In November 2016, the year of Prince’s death, Sign O’ The Times was confirmed to be inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame 2017.
Cover story
The cover photo for Sign O’ The Times is of a drum kit sat on a stage riser laid out for rehearsals for Sign O’ The Times Tour at Prince’s rented warehouse at 6953 Washington Avenue, Edina, Minnesota. The very warehouse the Dream Factory project was conceived in November 1985. Oddly included and positioned just above Prince’s left shoulder, close inspection will reveal a white box of Golden Dragon Inc. fortune cookies. This mishmash of instruments (Fender Rhodes, Peach Cloud Guitar, Parade Tour paisley speakers), houseplants, plasma ball (harking to the Crystal Ball project), flowers, trash, and items brought over from Prince’s home, symbolise the detritus of Prince’s career now at his ninth LP. Peach and black replace purple as Prince’s colour of choice as if to emphasise in visual The Revolution era was well and truly finished. Two colour schemes were considered for the cover; one with the drums and its mic stand drapes turquoise; and a whole other drum kit and matching drapes in peach – Prince wearing a matching suit in each (there was no colour treatment software in 1987).
The shot’s backdrop itself was borrowed from Chanhassen Dinner Theatres production of Guys And Dolls and while this was afterwards returned to the theatre, the concept was recreated as a real set with neon lights for the tour. Although Prince wears glasses in this photo and for his live shows in 1987, they were simply a fashion accessory and non-prescription. Despite how it appears, Prince is not superimposed in the foreground but sat on an apple crate positioned so close to the lens he is slightly out of focus. When photographer Jeff Katz captured this iconic image, even before seeing it Prince declared “That’s the cover”. Warner Brothers was reputedly unconvinced about the choice, however it is since regarded Prince’s most iconic cover.
2020 Super Deluxe Edition
The year 1986 is considered the benchmark of Prince’s creativity, a year in which he worked on no less than three albums of his own in addition to three others for his side-projects Jill Jones, Madhouse and Sheila E. To commemorate thirty-three years since of the original album Sign O’ The Times was remastered and reissued on 25 September 2020 by Warner Records. Titled Sign O’ The Time Super Deluxe Edition, the package, comprising an incredible nine-disc boxed set, is the most ambitious Prince release to date. Its sheer scale gives testament to Prince’s prolificacy in this legendary year of music which conceived a considerable volume of output and of such high calibre. The album’s reissue, available also in standard and Deluxe editions, returned Sign O’ The Times to the Billboard chart, resulting in the album’s reentry at number 20 on 10 October 2020. The Sign O’ The Times Super Deluxe Edition was rated by Record Collector, “The most generous single-album box-set of all time”.
Performers
- Vocals / all Instr
- Prince
- Drums
- Bobby Z It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night
- Shelia E U Got The Look
- Guitar
- Wendy Melvoin Slow Love
- Miko Weaver It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night
- Keyboards
- Lisa Coleman It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night
- Matt "Dr" Fink It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night
- Bass Guitar
- Brownmark It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night
- Saxophone
- Eric Leeds
- Trumpet
- Matthew Blistan "Atlanta Bliss"
- Orchestration
- Clare Fischer Slow Love
Data
- Producer
- Prince
- Label
- Paisley Park Records
- Distribution
- Warner Bros. Records
- Cover/Design
- Jeff Katz and Laura LiPuma
- Released
- 39 years ago on 30 March 1987
- Reissued
- 25 September 2020 as Reissued as Sign O’ The Times Super Deluxe Edition
- Running Time
- 79:58
- US Chart Peak
- 6
- US R&B Peak
- 4
- UK Chart Peak
- 4
- Prince Album
- #9
- Orig. Formats
-
Tracklist
Disc 1
- Sign O' The Times (5:02)
- Play In The Sunshine [feat. Susannah Melvoin] (5:05)
- Housequake [Prince as Camille] (4:34)
- The Ballad of Dorothy Parker [feat. Susannah Melvoin] (4:04)
- It (5:10)
- Starfish And Coffee (2:51) 1
- Slow Love (4:18) 2
- Hot Thing (5:39)
- Forever In My Life (3:38)
- Running Time
- 39 min, 33 sec
Disc 2
- U Got The Look [Prince as Camille; duet with Sheena Easton] (3:58)
- If I Was Your Girlfriend [Prince as Camille] (4:54)
- Strange Relationship [Prince as Camille] (4:04)
- I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man (6:31)
- The Cross (4:46)
- It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night [feat. Jill Jones, Susannah Melvoin & Shelia E] (8:59)
- Adore (6:29) 3
- Running Time
- 30 min, 15 sec
Released as a single
1 Co-written with Susannah Melvoin.
2 Co-written with Carole Davis.
3 Co-written with Dr. Fink and Eric Leeds.
Singles from Sign O’ The Times
Sign O' The Times
Paisley Park Records
- Released
- 18 February 1987
- Distribution
- Warner Bros. Records / WEA Records
- US Chart Peak
- 3
- UK Chart Peak
- 10
- Cover/Art
- Jeff Katz and Laura LiPuma
- Format
-
- Sign O' The Times [Edit] [duet with Sheena Easton] (3:42)
- La La La, He He Hee [feat. Sheila E] (3:21)
Sign O' The Times
Paisley Park Records
12"/Maxi-Single
- Released
- 18 February 1987
- Distribution
- Warner Bros. Records / WEA Records
- US Chart Peak
- 3
- UK Chart Peak
- 10
- Cover/Art
- Jeff Katz and Laura LiPuma
- Formats
-
- Sign O’ The Times [duet with Sheena Easton] (4:57)
- La La La, He He Hee [Highly Explosive] [feat. Sheila E] (10:32)
Also available as a 12" picture disc.
If I Was Your Girlfriend
Paisley Park Records
- Released
- 6 May 1987
- Distribution
- Warner Bros. Records / WEA Records
- US Chart Peak
- 67
- UK Chart Peak
- 13
- Cover/Art
- Jeff Katz and Laura LiPuma
- Format
-
- If I Was Your Girlfriend [Edit] (3:46)
- Shockadelica [feat. Jill Jones] (3:30)
If I Was Your Girlfriend
Paisley Park Records
12"/Maxi-Single
- Released
- 13 May 1987
- Distribution
- Warner Bros. Records / WEA Records
- US Chart Peak
- 67
- UK Chart Peak
- 13
- Cover/Art
- Jeff Katz and Laura LiPuma
- Formats
-
- If I Was Your Girlfriend (4:54)
- Shockadelica [Extended Version] [feat. Jill Jones] (6:12)
Also available as a 12" picture disc.
U Got The Look
Paisley Park Records
- Released
- 14 July 1987
- Distribution
- Warner Bros. Records / WEA Records
- US Chart Peak
- 2
- UK Chart Peak
- 11
- Cover/Art
- Jeff Katz and Laura LiPuma
- Formats
-
- U Got The Look [duet with Sheena Easton] (3:46)
- Housequake [Edit] (3:24)
U Got The Look
Paisley Park Records
12"/Maxi-Single
- Released
- 21 July 1987
- Distribution
- Warner Bros. Records
- US Chart Peak
- 2
- UK Chart Peak
- No Release
- Cover/Art
- Jeff Katz and Laura LiPuma
- Formats
-
- U Got The Look [Long Look] [duet with Sheena Easton] (6:45)
- U Got The Look [duet with Sheena Easton] (3:46)
- Housequake (4:38)
- Housequake [7 Minutes MoQuake] (7:15)
U Got The Look
Paisley Park Records
12"/Maxi-Single
- Released
- 3 August 1987
- Distribution
- WEA Records
- US Chart Peak
- No Release
- UK Chart Peak
- 11
- Cover/Art
- Jeff Katz and Laura LiPuma
- Format
-
- U Got The Look [Long Look] [duet with Sheena Easton] (6:45)
- Housequake [7 Minutes MoQuake] (7:15)
- U Got The Look [duet with Sheena Easton] (3:46)
Also available as a 12" picture disc.
I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man
Paisley Park Records
- Released
- 3 November 1987
- Distribution
- Warner Bros. Records / WEA Records
- US Chart Peak
- 10
- UK Chart Peak
- 29
- Cover/Art
- Jeff Katz and Laura LiPuma
- Formats
-
- I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man [Fade] (3:39)
- Hot Thing [Edit] (3:40)
I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man
Paisley Park Records
12"/Maxi-Single
- Released
- 23 November 1987
- Distribution
- WEA Records
- US Chart Peak
- No Release
- UK Chart Peak
- 29
- Cover/Art
- Jeff Katz and Laura LiPuma
- Formats
-
- I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man (6:31)
- Hot Thing [Edit] (3:40)
- Hot Thing [Extended Remix] [remix by Shep Pettibone] (8:32)
Also available as a 12" picture disc.
I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man
Paisley Park Records
12"/Maxi-Single
- Released
- 19 December 1987
- Distribution
- Warner Bros. Records
- US Chart Peak
- 10
- UK Chart Peak
- No Release
- Cover/Art
- Jeff Katz and Laura LiPuma
- Formats
-
- I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man (6:31)
- Hot Thing [Edit] (3:40)
- Hot Thing [Extended Remix] [remix by Shep Pettibone] (8:32)
- Hot Thing [Dub Version] [remix by Shep Pettibone] (6:53)
Supporting tour
Sign O’ The Times album review
Sign O’ The Times documents Prince at the pinnacle of his music making career. This double LP, Prince’s second since 1999, produced not only his most diverse work, which comprise his unsurpassed masterpiece, that in addition to being an extraordinary musician Sign O’ The Times confirmed Prince also as a master lyricist and producer. If any such proof was needed Prince was the rarest of artists – full package – then this album is it. Oh and yes, the best live act also. I risk discrediting this entire website had I not rained considerable paeans of praise on this pan genre, defining album. Thankfully bucketing heaps of approval could not be more easier a task. The lyrics to the title track is a work of art in itself. Serving as the quintessential time capsule of social commentary to modern day woes. Absorb yourself into the beat of It, the power of The Cross, the pop of U Got The Look, the silkiness of The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker, the electricity of Housequake, the charm of Adore, energy of Hot Thing, then marvel at the crescendo of I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man. There are too many favourites to list here, but save If I was Your Girlfriend until the early hours, listen to it loud and in complete darkness and awaken to its majesty.
Sign O’ The Times is a mature, thoughtful and majestic tour de force of an album, the one album embodiment of Prince’s brilliance. From the first and haunting notes that cut so deep into your soul Sign O’ The Times delivers a listening experience like none other. If Sign O’ The Times is the final album you ever hear consider your exploration complete. This is Prince’s finest achievement.
Sign O’ The Times is rated 5 out of 5 by Goldies Parade.
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