Movies - Sign 'O' the Times

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	Movies - Sign 'O' the Times

Sign 'O' the Times is a movie written and directed by Prince. In 1987, to capitalise on his growing success in Europe, Prince toured extensively to promote the album Sign 'O' the Times and sales increased accordingly. However America remained resitant to his latest album, and sales began to drop; it was at this point that Prince decided to film a live concert promoting the new material, for eventual distribution to theaters in America. Despite a show being filmed live in Rotterdam, Holland, the film is of a concert shot at Prince's Paisley Park Studios.

Featuring the band that was to become (eventually) The New Power Generation, including dancer Cat Glover, drummer Sheila E. and former members of The Revolution, the film sees the group perform live on the stage, although several of the songs are represented by promotional music videos. One of the reasons for this was that initial concert footage was grainy and unusable. Secondly, some of the sound had been recorded on different channels and was virtually inaudible.

Most of the songs are linked by a themed narrative and many film critics were quick to praise Prince as being a better actor live than in the previous year's Under the Cherry Moon. In total, 13 songs appear on the video - 11 from Sign 'O' the Times and 2 others - a brief piano version of "Little Red Corvette" and a cover version of "Now's the Time". Initially, there had been plans to include the full concert including "Kiss", "1999", "Purple Rain", "When Doves Cry", "Girls & Boys" and "Let's Go Crazy" but these songs were eventually dropped. The video for "U Got the Look" was included, even though the song was not performed live on the stage.

The film was eventually premiered in Detroit on October 29, 1987 and released nation-wide on the November 20 in 250 key locations. The film did not perform very well and quickly slipped out of theaters; the sales of the album were not really boosted by the film and it quickly slid out of view in America. Nonetheless, when the film was released on VHS the following year it became extremely popular and received rave reviews, particularly in Britain. Q Magazine gave it 4 stars, whilst Sky Magazine suggested that it "was the greatest concert movie ever made". The film was released in early 2005 on DVD, although the cut songs still failed to appear with the rest of the footage.

Setlist

"Sign 'O' the Times"
"Play In The Sunshine"
"Little Red Corvette"
"Housequake"
"Slow Love"
"I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man"
"Hot Thing"
"Now's the Time"
"U Got the Look"
"If I Was Your Girlfriend"
"Forever in My Life"
"It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night"
"The Cross"

Trivia

"Now's the Time" is not an original Prince composition. It was composed by Jazz great, Charlie Parker.
In the musical coda for "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man", the horn section lifts a section from "Rockhard In a Funky Place", a Camille track also on the Crystal Ball track listing, but lost when the 3-LP set was trimmed down. It would later be heard on The Black Album.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Sign 'O' the Times (film) ]

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