Track Listing

1. Christopher Tracy's Parade
2. New Position
3. I Wonder U
4. Under The Cherry Moon
5. Girls & Boys
6. Life Can Be So Nice
7. Venus De Milo
8. Mountians
9. Do U Lie?
10. Kiss
11. Anotherloverholenyohead
12. Sometimes It Snows In April

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27279 in Music
• Released on: 1990-10-25
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack

Amazon.com essential recording
Calling this one of Prince's most interesting albums doesn't do justice to how kicky and playable it is. The soundtrack from his failed romantic comedy Under the Cherry Moon, the disc often sounds like a preview of the supremely surefooted quirkiness of its follow-up, the classic Sign o' the Times. Marrying lean funk grooves to over-the-top orchestrations and trying his hand at Parisian balladry and a hushed, Pet Sounds-style instrumental, he triumphs as few other record makers did in 1986. --Rickey Wright

Customer Reviews

One of Prince's Most Rich and Colorful Releases!
This is one of Prince's richest and most colorful releases. He covers an awful lot of ground stylistically in a pretty short amount of time, so there's little consistency in tone and sound, and that ends up being both an asset AND a weakness on this album. The good thing though is that even the weakest material isn't so much bad as it is just really, really mediocre, so the album still ends up making for a pretty solid listen throughout (some people think "Venus De Milo" and "Do U Lie?" are really bad, I just think they're painfully mediocre--well, I guess "Do U Lie?" is pretty bad, but it has at least one major redeeming quality). There's a lot of airy instrumentation and the focus primarily is on bright, bold and colorful chords (that's one thing that's fairly consistent about the album). Prince really piles it on with the multilayered arrangements on many of the tracks, with rich horn sections being key and multipart harmony also frequently playing a significant part. He starts things off with the full blown orchestration of "Christopher Tracy's Parade" which features an absolutely magnificent multipart harmony with him, Wendy, Lisa, and Wendy's sister Susannah (who shows up a lot on many of the multipart harmonies throughout the album from what I've read). He gives a strong nod to Caribbean music here too in part of the horn section and I think this marks the first time that Prince delved into that area. He keeps it up on the next track too; a Caribbean style steel drum turns up on "New Position" (much of this album has a real celebratory feel, and what better way to express "celebratory" than to focus on parades and spending time in the Caribbean Islands :). "New Position" is a solid, bare, stripped down Funk number. Wendy, who seems to have really stepped into the forefront on this album, actually sings the lead on "I Wonder U"; it isn't as strong as the first two songs, but it at least still has a great groove going for it. The ballad "Under the Cherry Moon", with its obvious nod to traditional French music, (the movie was based in France so this soundtrack is sprinkled with both subtle and not so subtle French references throughout) is solid if unremarkable. The Funk track that follows it though is outstanding; "Girl and Boys" is a fully layered Funk number with a clever reference to the French theme in the chorus. He then goes from doing a little too much (the somewhat cluttered "Life Can Be So Nice") to doing a little too little (the flowery but borderline insipid instrumental piece "Venus De Milo"). The next track "Mountains" is another solid, fully layered Funk number (an interesting note about this track is that the music was actually written by Wendy and Lisa while the lyrics were penned by Prince). I don't know if Prince was trying to make up for the fact that "Mountains" is built primarily on a single chord or what, but there are constant changes in key on the follow up, the faux-early-French music schmaltz-fest "Do U Lie?". This song isn't exactly stellar, but being able to listen to Prince go through almost his entire vocal range in under 3 minutes makes listening to it worth it. I don't know too many people who aren't familiar with "Kiss", but this stripped down Funk number with the butt-kicking both lead and rhythm guitar work fully deserves to be the big hit that it is. "Anotherloverholenyohead" is just phenomenal. The arrangement is just brilliant and the chord progressions, especially in the second verse are just absolutely incredible. There's a multipart harmony with Wendy and Lisa singing the countermelody towards the end of the 2nd verse that just blows me away every time. Then he ends the album off on a really high note with the slow, affecting ballad "Sometimes It Snows In April". This album was a tough one to rate; it sags a great deal in the middle but even the weaker material usually has at least a few interesting ideas, and even the weaker moments don't really detract from it being a generally solid listen all throughout. So, even with the weaker material, I still think this is essential listening: it really helps in giving you an understanding of Prince's breadth as a composer, even when the results of his experiments aren't exactly staggering. All of the material here isn't great, but when it's good, it's *really* good ("Christopher Tracy's Parade", "Girls & Boys", "Kiss", "Anotherloverholenyohead", "Sometimes it Snows in April"..."Mountains" is really strong too), and even the weak material still at least has something interesting going on. So, taking the time to dig into this one should prove to be well-worth it.

Parade
Prince-Parade ***1/2

This is rare of a Prince album released in the 1980's. almost everyone of his albums from that decade broke new ground musically one way or another and this one really fails to do so, which is really disappointing. Parade is the soundtrack to Prince's second film "Under A Cherry Moon" which was meant to be a romantic comedy but came off as awkward and flopped horribly. They album however didn't flop because of the hit single 'Kiss' but with out that this album would have flopped easily.

The musicianship here is average, and for Prince that is, well, sad. He is easily one of the most talented musicians in history and here he just seems not to be trying. 'I Wonder U' is a awful song lyrically and vocally but musically I think it is great. The weird southern fried funk thing he does somehow works and sounds amazing. 'New Position' has potential but falls short. The slow grooveless piano driven 'Under The Cherry Moon' however is a breath of fresh air. 'Girls And Boys' should be a classic. 'Kiss' was the big hit and is one of Prince's all time great songs, especially since it is yet another groove without the essential goove instrument...bass. 'Kiss' especially stands out on this album because of the mediocrity it is surrounded by. The album closes with 'Sometimes It Snows In April' which is among if not the very best song that Prince has ever written, it is especially stunning when done live, and is the perfect song to close the album. The rest of the album is hit or miss and not very memorable making this album a disappointment.

Every song on parade had the potential to be a great song but I think Prince's focus was more on the film then on the album making the music suffer. It is not a total waste however, it is fun once and a while, and is worth owning for 'Kiss' but since you can get that on any hit collection this album is worth owning for 'Sometimes It Snows In April' as to my knowledge this is the only place it is available.

(3.5 stars) An odd duck
After Purple Rain broke Prince big, he made his first of many decisions that baffled fans and critics alike: he abandoned his signature funk-rock sound and put on a trippy sheen. This resulted in the "whimsical" personal displayed on Around the World in a Day. Then he filmed the infamous, widely panned vanity project Under the Cherry Moon (which I've never seen), and put this out as its soundtrack. It sure is a weird one - it opens with a good four part suite ("Christopher Tracy's Parade", "New Position", "I Wonder U", "Under the Cherry Moon") that has elements of jazz, R&B, psychedelia and experimental music, but not funk, and even the funky "Girls and Boys" has an endearingly eccentric arrangement, including a retro bari sax and a quacking keyboard. "Life Can Be So Nice" seems like a pop song, but it's oddly built on flute, ocarina and harpsichord. The loopy "Mountains" also has a lot of Prince's eccentricity, and it was one weird choice for a single. Sadly, there's also some soundtracky stuff, like the gloppy instrumental "Venus de Milo" and the flat-out incompetent "Do U Lie", with an awful accordion. But after that comes one of his best tunes, the enthusiastic no-bass funk of "Kiss", one of the few songs with Prince's infamous hypersexual lyrics and an awesome wah-wah guitar solo. And he keeps the hot streak up with the even funkier "Anotherloverholenyohead", with a really long title that rules (I like really long one word-titles that are pretty much a bunch of words sqgluiashed - yes, "sqgluiashed", I couldn't make up my mind between "squashed", "squished" and "glushed", so I just sqgluiashed the three words together), a fantastic piano hook, and slap bass. I love slap bass. It can make any song good all by itself. I bet that if even the Eagles made a song with a slap bass in it, it would be good just because of the slap bass. Then again, the Eagles have no sense of funk, because they have no sense of groove or sense of humor or sense of how to make even remotely worthwhile music. The Eagles aside, the album closes with one of Prince's loveliest acoustic ballads, "Sometimes it Snows in April", concerning death and the afterlife. There's a lot to like about this album, but it also marks the first time in Prince history when he didn't shake things up and put out an album that had nothing to do with what came before it. In short, this is Prince getting set in his ways, and you'll get the same mileage out of this as you will out of Around the World in a Day. But he would quickly get out of this semi-rut, forget about genre barriers entirely, and put out the double-album that everyone but me considers his defining artistic statement.