Ice Cream Castle

Warner Bros. Records

‘What’ is the password.

The Time’s third album, which again saw all tracks written by Prince (as Jamie Starr) – done during the 1999 Tour – but credited to Morris Day. Ice Cream Castle is the band’s first album to contain a song (The Bird) actually performed by The Time itself, hitherto all instruments were in the main performed by Prince himself. The album accompanied Prince’s own soundtrack to the movie Purple Rain in which The Time is portrayed as The Kid’s (Prince) musical foil. Ice Cream Castle reached number 24 on the US Billboard album charts. Selling 1m copies, Ice Cream Castle is the best-selling album, by double, of all Prince’s associated artists. It was certified Platinum by the RIAA on 10 January 1985.

Although a studio version of The Bird was recorded, Prince asked The Time to perform it live, recorded at First Avenue this became the version put the album. The remainder of the album was recorded at Sunset Sound in Hollywood, from mid-1983 to the spring of 1984.

Morris Day left The Time following an acrimonious fallout with Prince, with this and other disagreements, The Time disbanded. A spin-off Prince project named The Family with three of The Time’s band members was created in replacement. Prince’s production credit for Ice Cream Castle under the name of Jamie Starr (The Starr ★ Company).

Prince’s original demo version of Jungle Love with his guide vocals, was released by Warner Brothers on the Originals compilation album, in 2019.

Key Performers

All Instruments

Prince

Vocals

Morris Day

Drums

Jellybean Johnson ^{The Bird}

Morris Day ^{My Drawers}

Guitar

Jesse Johnson ^{My Drawers and If The Kid Can’t Make You Come}

Bass Guitar

Jerry Hubbard ^{The Bird}

Keyboards

Mark Cardenas ^{The Bird}

Paul “St. Paul” Peterson ^{The Bird}

Persussion

Jerome Benton ^{The Bird}

The Time

Vocals

Morris Day

Drums

Jellybean Johnson

Guitar

Jesse Johnson

Bass Guitar

Jerry Hubbard

Keyboards

Mark Cardenas

Keyboards

Paul "St. Paul" Peterson

Persussion

Jerome Benton

Data

Production

Prince (as The Starr ★ Company)

Label

Warner Bros. Records

Distribution

Warner Bros. Records

Cover/Design

Larry Williams, Jeffrey Kent Ayeroff and Jeri McManus

Released

36 years, 9 months ago on 2 July 1984

Running Time

38:16

US Chart Peak

24

UK Chart Peak

-

Orig. Formats

Tracklist

1. Ice Cream Castles [feat. Prince] (7:33) ¹
2. My Drawers [feat. Prince] (4:04)
3. Chili Sauce [feat. Prince] (5:45)
4. Jungle Love [feat. Prince] (5:29) ¹
5. If The Kid Can't Make You Come [feat. Prince] (7:33)
6. The Bird (7:40) ¹

¹ Co-written by Prince and Morris Day; released as singles

Ice Cream Castle – review

The Time was the perfect choice as Prince’s foil in the movie Purple Rain. Morris’s even more pimped-up now overcoat donning gigolo heads up The Time, are this time an actual band performing on the album rather than purely Prince – albeit for one song it’s a peach nonetheless. Ice Cream Castle is the third instalment for Prince’s most successful side-project. It opens with the title track albeit pluralised, Ice Cream Castles is a fun opener to The Time’s most well-known and most crowd-pleasing album. Although it contains the band’s two most successful tracks, Jungle Love and The Bird, its best track is If The Kid Can’t Make You Come. And although The Time is great at the big set pieces, their true mark of quality are their ballads. Yet it is two songs that stamp The Time’s hallmark. As much as Prince is remembered for Purple Rain, The Time is remembered for Jungle Love and The Bird. These two tracks alone has paid their mortgages ever since. The Bird recorded live, is the first track in which The Time perform on record as a band, and it’s a thrilling experience. Such a shame that after this album, when the band had reached its commercial height and was at its most established, friction and turbulence saw them part company. Thankfully, the parting was not to last too long.

Ice Cream Castle is rated 4 out of 5 by Goldies Parade.

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