7 Little Red Corvettes In Honor of His Purpleness
On the one year anniversary of Prince's passing, we tip our hats to the purple one with a collection of red corvettes.
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Prince was an artist who transcended being just a musician so brilliantly that one album alone could dwarf that of a lesser musician's whole catalog. Prince was a different kind of artist. He held court in the space of personalities that lived life by just one name. He also became synonymous with a particular color, and I haven't seen anyone ever pull that one off again.
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Before he achieved super-stardom with the album and film of the same title, Purple Rain, he released the album that made him a household name: 1999. The second song released from the album, "Little Red Corvette," was a milestone on a cultural level as well as musically. The significance of the music video for the song is that it was one of the first music videos by a black artist to receive heavy rotation on the newly launched channel MTV.
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"Little Red Corvette" enjoyed so much success that the first single, "1999," was re-released to the public improved its Billboard standing substantially. The two songs and music videos pushed Prince to a whole new audience with the use of electric guitars as well as synthesizers. The album seemed like something from the near future and for good reason since a huge influence on it was the Harrison Ford film Blade Runner. While we worried about rampant drug problems outside in the streets and a shadowy Cold War going on overseas under the threat of nuclear destruction, here was this little androgynous guy telling everyone to just chill out and party with a sort of uncontrollable glee that was as fresh as it was strange.
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Little Red Corvette is ranked currently at 109 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list which is amazing for a song that was released back in March of 1983. Good music is good music no matter when the hell it happened to come out. Prince effortlessly used the pinnacle of American sports motoring to compare a woman who lives her life a little too fast and loose for his liking. The song was written by him while he sat in the backseat of what some have said was a Ford Edsel that belonged to his Revolution bandmate Lisa Coleman. The fact of the matter is that no matter what back seat he was sitting in he was thinking about something much cooler.
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Prince was just 24 when he recorded "Little Red Corvette" and here we are 34 years later still talking about how awesome of a song it is. I think it actually may be the best song about hooking up with a lady of questionable morality I've ever heard. It most certainly is the one that I hear belted out drunkenly at karaoke bars more than I could ever ask for. Only Prince could take a casual one night stand and turn it into a fast red car and making a trip to a ranch complete with ahem, competing studs. But at the center of this song is a car. A trope that put Prince in the company of Chuck Berry's "Maybellene," the Beach Boys' "Little Deuce Coupe" and Janis Joplin's "Mercedes Benz." It's the feeling that every car guys knows and fears: you see it, you want it, and you'll do anything you can to get inside of it.
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Another track off of the sprawling album 1999 was "D.M.S.R." The song received another boost as it was featured in the film Risky Business. During the scene which features the song has Cruise embracing the bawdy role of college hopeful turned pimp in order to fund the repairs to his father's water logged Porsche. The acronym stood for Dance, Music, Sex, and Romance to which anyone could nod their head to after learning and say "Yeah... that makes sense." Prince had a way of doing that to people. You heard a far-flung rumor of some crazy encounter like the tale that recently passed comedian Charlie Murphy gave in which he says a high-heeled clad Prince beat him at a game of basketball and served him pancakes to soften the pain of defeat. You squint your eyes and picture it for a moment. Then just shrug and say "Yeah, I guess that makes sense." Prince just had that remarkable ability.
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Then Prince and The Revolution released the landmark album Purple Rain and nothing was ever the same. For one it solidified his standing as a musical genius that showed the world he was one of the greatest singers, songwriters, producers and guitarists that had ever walked the planet. He was a virtuoso multi-instrument who did things like this every now and then to blow your mind just because he could. The album and film brought him accolades by the many but the thing we never surmised was how he would retreat from the limelight in an almost Bob Dylan matter to a highly productive yet reclusive life later in his career. Nevertheless, we just want to say thank you for making one of the best damn songs ever about one of the best damn cars ever made.
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