Prince's Forty Biggest Billboard Hot 100 hits

Per my comment earlier re: '1999' being released in an era when huge MTV success still didn't necessarily translate to huge sales for the respective single, I remembered a specific example of this: 'Hot For Teacher', which mindblowingly only got to 56 on the Billboard Hot 100. Also from 1984. I'm sure I rememeber encountering other examples of this phenomenon.

"I Melt With You," the Fixx, it's a long list

When Doves Cry. It's still almost unimaginable to me that such an unconventially arranged and executed song was a #1 hit, even though I was there and helped make it one. (Even weirder: It was bracketed at #1 by Duran Duran's "The Reflex" and Ray Parker Jr.'s "Ghostbusters." I mean . . .)

― T.L.O.P.son (Phil D.), Friday, April 22, 2016 10:58 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well it's also a song where like every single line is a killer hook, and so is the instrumental break.

Purple Rain is also a pretty unconventional hit imo -- an R&B tinged soft metal power ballad with jazzy chords, and that rushed, holy-rolling vocal on the verse.

1984 was a fantastic year for great songs that were also hits.

Yeah either 83 or 84 is my all time fave top 40 year it's hard to choose between those two

I've been listening to my '84 Billboard playlist today, and it really is kind of amazing. So much of it still sounds like the future.

even second and third stringers like Steve Perry and Dan Hartman sounded jazzed.

well it *was* morning in America

For me it's partly the collective palette that reigned at the time - new wave influence fully saturated, analog polysynths in effect with the dx7 still just a new player in the cast, policey guitar compression and chorusing - combined with the old fashioned songcrafty writing values that still prevailed. Idk things changed in a big big way around 85 and it's about more than just busy beats and the dx7...

That was not very coherent

the fall-off between '84 and '85 is still kinda staggering. i managed to put together a decent 100-ish song playlist of '85 jams, but it was filled with artist double-dipping and stuff that woulda been clearly second-string (or even third-string) a year before. it's like all of music needed a pause for breath.

oh, and "raspberry beret." (shout-out to the extended single mix.)

I'm still shocked no artist had ever thought to put finger cymbals against a Linn drum before.

Right? Those fucking finger cymbals kind of make that LP for me

i discovered the song "when you were mine" today via the frank ocean post. that's the one i've been addicted to today.

Matos has some great paragraphs about that song in his sign o the times book.

Don't sleep on the cyndi version which rules

Indeed. Got into that version first myself.

"raspberry beret" prob in my top 5 singles of all time. having a hard time listening to it, or any prince, today. i heard "purple rain" in the car right after hearing the news and kinda lost it. but i'm voting for "pop life" which is lovely and special and never quite gets as much love as it deserves.

The break in "Pop Life" after the second chorus is all time (the best way I can describe it is 'swirly'

going u got the look

Wow, "1999" was only his twentieth biggest hit....

How do people feel about the 12" inch versions, generally? I love them, especially Pop Life.

always loved Prince's twelve inches

They are amazing

Glad to hear it. Other faves are AnotherLoverHoleInYourHead, Let's Work, Little Red Corvette (in which he does a hilarious spoken verse in a German psychiatrist voice), Mountains, and I Would Die 4 U

Like "Erotic City." Which was a B-side, right, of a Purple Rain track, I think, can't remember which.
(Xp)

Like "Erotic City." Which was a B-side, right, of a Purple Rain track, I think, can't remember which.
(Xp)

Fuck it, there's just too many... yes, Erotic City, b-side of Let's Go Crazy, which also has a great 12" version. But the main one I forgot, the greatest Prince song you don't know you know and love, 17 Days

17 days is in my top 10 prince but its extended 12" mix is sadly a forgery edited together by a fan

"Kiss" and "Mountains" singles vital for the appearance of "Love or Money" and "Alexa de Paris", although the latter is also on the "Lesotho" Cd single

17 days is in my top 10 prince but its extended 12" mix is sadly a forgery edited together by a fan

Really! Wow. I guess the song is better known from that awful Hits/B-Sides comp so it's not really a hidden gem anymore. Oh well, I think I like the extended 17 Days just the same

Er, "Letitgo"

I like it too whether or not prince edited it. I've never been able to find a good sounding download of it though.

wait, why is the hits/b-sides comp awful?

"She's Always in My Hair" was the b-side to ..."Paisley Park?" That was a single? Anyway, "Hair" is incredible.

Ok I read yesterday that Glam Slam didn't even make the Billboard 100, that seems off. Good chance it'd have gotten my vote if it was here.

Also until I groaned when its name appeared I had no idea how little I liked Thieves in the Temple. 7's kinda similar but approx 50x better/sillier imo.

I honestly don't know how that's even possible if you're currently an adult and aren't now and have never been amish.

I think most everything on here that's 1988 and after I first heard when I got the 3-CD best-of in college in the 90s. Definitely very clearly remember hearing "7" and being like "wow who knew the guy from my childhood is still making great records?"

Voted "Let's Go Crazy" because I still don't really understand how that song works. Could have voted "1999" for being the one I've truly cared about the longest, or "7" for being the one I have the strongest idiosyncratic relationship with.

die 4 u

"7" charted at #7. Nice!

was it a boy when you wanted a girl

Little Red Corvette. It was a perfect way to get the rock kids into Prince's world.

i don't feel like voting for "i would die 4 u" or "purple rain" or "kiss" or "little red corvette" so i think i'm gonna vote for "diamonds and pearls" or "7"

it is kind of impossible to choose among these, but "u got the look" is the last one i cried to so that

Extended version of u got the look is incredible. That rhythm guitar intro.

wait, why is the hits/b-sides comp awful?
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, April 22, 2016 10:24 PM

well, looking back now maybe I didn't realize what he included were 7" versions of album tracks, but I remember some of the songs being drastically cut down from their album versions. Anyway, it bugged me and I put it away, I'll try it again

single edits made sense for a hits comp, you don't need all 7 minutes of "Controversy" for something like that

It's also basically the only time any of his stuff has been remastered, that comp.

the only edits on that comp i take issue with are on the b-sides disc

That comp always felt invaluable to me for both containing the only remastered versions of several of these songs and as a go-to for road trips (back before iPods anyway). I guess I can see people taking issue with the edits chosen (I've heard the same argument taken up with The Immaculate Collection) but, in the case of the B-sides disc, this was the only reasonable means I had of hearing these songs for years, so...

yeah I guess it's easy enough to get the full versions bc there are always tons of prince singles at record stores

"Thieves in the Temple" = first Prince cassingle I bought

Prince is so great he wrote the only song about being a star that doesn't suck. so I voted 'Pop Life'.

"Mountains" video has gone off the web because of youtube, but the associated Making of... is right here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UopzMEHmUDQ