Sign 'O' The Times (movie)

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 resilient 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 worldwide. Despite a show being filmed live in Rotterdam, Holland, the video version is of a concert shot at Prince's Paisley Park studios.

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Featuring the band that was to become (eventually) The New Power Generation, including dancer Kat, drummer Sheila E. and former members of the revolution, the video sees the group perfom live on the stage, although several of the songs are represented by promotional 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.

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Most of the songs are linked by a themed narrative and many 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 Now's The Time. Initially, there had been plans to include the full concert including Kiss, 1999,Purple Rain,When Doves Cry,Girls and 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 night.

Related Topics:
Under The Cherry Moon - Little Red Corvette - Kiss - 1999 - Purple Rain - When Doves Cry - Girls and Boys - Let's Go Crazy - U Got The Look

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The film was eventually premiered in Detroit on the 29th October 1987 and released nation-wide on the 20th November 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 video the following year it became extremely popular and recieved 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.

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