Description

2LP Vinyl – 19439863771

The album is a freeze frame of the time in which it was written – the title track including a line about “a big disease with a little name”. Gang violence, crack cocaine and US President Reagan’s Star Wars programme are name checked.  Like Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On and Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life, the opening moments of Sign O’ the Times are a state-of-the-nation address. Listeners expected a new Prince record to be a sexually-charged invitation to dance and sing – they didn’t expect the audio equivalent of a newspaper front page. Some DJs read the lyrics to the album’s title track on air as an introduction. It was a statement of intent: Prince was in a different place and wanted it to be known.