Prince created Sign o’ the Times during a creative peak
As March approaches marking four decades since its release, Prince’s 1987 double LP Sign o’ the Times stands as a genre-defying monument in Prince’s discography. Spanning 80 minutes of funk, Christian rock, and power pop, the album captured the legendary artist at his most restless creative peak during a turbulent period of personal and professional transition.
The Creative Chaos Behind a Double Album
Options ranged from another album with his backing band, The Revolution, to exploring his feminine alter-ego Camille on a self-titled release. At one point, he pushed for a triple album.
When his record label pushed back against the massive runtime, Prince edited the material down into the kaleidoscopic 80-minute, two-LP Sign o’ the Times, and eventually decided against touring the album in the United States. Author John McKie, whose book Prince: A Sign o’ the Times chronicles the pop legend’s career through this classic, noted the artist’s intense focus during a transitional era. “Sometimes when people are in a place of transition, they’re distracted,” McKie said. “For Prince, he focused on his music.”
McKie interviewed over 100 people to understand the gestation behind the record, noting how difficult it was to gauge Prince’s headspace when he fired The Revolution and split up with his fiancée, Susannah Melvoin. “Prince probably would have been a very good poker player because he didn’t give that much away,” McKie observed. “If you listen to his music, there are lots of clues. He said it himself: ‘If you want to know me, listen to my music.’”
Sonic Experimentation and Thematic Multitudes
Sign o’ the Times remains a dense exploration of sound and genre, anchored by a thick layer of funk. The project found Prince dipping into Christian rock on The Cross, building Starfish and Coffee around a jazz chord progression, and sharing the power pop track I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man. The thematic range shifted wildly from libidinous anthems like “I want to do it baby all the time” to the spiritual return of Christ.
“He would be dating two very different women at the same time,” McKie said of Prince’s capacity to compartmentalize. “He would record two very different songs on the same day.”
The title track served as the album’s first hit, featuring Prince reciting newspaper-style headlines covering gang violence, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the threat of nuclear war over an uneasy groove built with the Fairlight CMI sampler and synthesizer. He adopted the instrument after hearing Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush use it. Meanwhile, the Linn LM-1 drum machine drove the blocky percussion on tracks like Housequake, which Prince described as having the greatest sounding kick drum of all time. His high-pitched Camille delivery returned on songs like If I Was Your Girlfriend, which McKie considers a candidate for the best song Prince ever wrote.
Romance, Demands, and the Legacy of an Icon
Moments on the album reveal a desire to settle down, best heard on the tender Forever in My Life. Yet Prince dated voraciously, even before breaking things off with Melvoin, who had also spent a brief spell as a vocalist in The Revolution.
Managing an artist of such singular vision and intense demands often created logistical and interpersonal hurdles. Disputes over songwriting credits and payments for his backing band surface throughout McKie’s research, while a former tour manager characterized him as “a very autocratic ruler.”