Sign O' The Times

1987's concert movie SIGN O' THE TIMES has been all but forgotten in the United States.  There has never been a domestically produced DVD.  The film was released on VHS a year after its very brief original theatrical run, and back in my undergrad days I watched the heck of it.  Not as often as STOP MAKING SENSE, but close.  For some reason both the album (despite some Top 10 hits) and its namesake film made little impression on these shores. Fans are fickle.  Prince won a codarie with Purple Rain and its big screen counterpart, but perhaps the music on Sign O' the Times was too complex and jazzy for the masses.  Perhaps because this film does not feature past hits - aside from a brief piano version of "Little Red Corvette" - it left movie theaters quickly.

That's too bad, because SIGN O' THE TIMES is truly sublime.  A real time capsule of Prince's immeasurable talent. As with STOP MAKING SENSE, the music is expanded beautifully from its studio origins for live performance.  The songs positively flower on stage, the altered arrangements give the former Purple One and his band plenty of opportunities to riff into jams that seem supernatural at times.  The new musicians continue Prince's exploration of new terrain, with only Dr. Fink left over from the Revolution.  The setlist is almost entirely from the namesake album, save a cover of Charlie Parker's "Now's the Time", a choice that might give one insight into Prince's modus operandi (even if he is absent from the stage during it).

Prince protege Sheila E. is on the drums, and she thunders and keeps time with the best of them.  She even gets her own semi-lengthy solo. "Not bad, for a girl", Prince quips in his usual (mock?) sexism.  The duality of this artist has always intrigued.  One minute he is prizing the female gender ("If I Was Your Girlfriend"), the next he's just an old fashioned male chauvinist pig.  The somewhat cheesy dramatic breaks, featuring the band members illustrating the familiar difficulties of mating rituals, reek of old school machismo.

By the way, when Sheila E. comes out front to sing, her boss jumps on the drums.  No surprise, as he, with liberal use of a digital sampler, played every instrument on the album, which in addition to jazz stylings featured elements of electro-funk and psychedelia.

Rock, too, quite in evidence on the final song in SIGN O' THE TIMES, "The Cross", which is in the great tradition of Prince's exploration of faith.

Black day, stormy night

No love, no hope in sight

Don't cry for He is coming

Don't die without knowing the cross

The song positively blisters with Prince's guitar work.  Jimi Hendrix would've been proud.  This track always makes me consider another duality - Prince would go deep into religious and spiritual soliloquies yet at another moment pen some positively blush inducing sexual lyrics.  We don't get any songs like "Head" or "Sexy MF" in this show, but the suggestive lyrics and bumping and grinding (including on a vertical bed) of the band, especially that of a dancer called "Cat", never lets us forget what a complex specimen Prince was.

The film is directed by the star, and I feel he does a very good job of capturing the excitement of the show.  I've read that the footage captured in Holland was unusable, so Prince shot most of the film at his Paisley Park sound stages in Minnesota.  Perhaps he had more control in his own venue.  The audience looks just as enthralled as they would've otherwise.  The film is a kaleidoscope of sometimes smooth, sometimes sloppy editing and fine camerawork.  The only real misstep is the use of the promotional video for the hit "U Got the Look", rather than having it performed live.  Maybe Sheena Easton was otherwise engaged.