Awkward Press

And the award for having 100 hits on a review of Purple Rain goes to … me and Mike! I know that is not many hits in the grand scheme of things, but it is a lot of traffic for our little site. And I, for one, think that is just swell.

Congratulations, us! Since Mike is in New York and I am in Los Angeles, I will have to accept the award on behalf of both of us. Here I am:

According to Netflix, Mike and Jeffrey agree with each other on movies 84% of the time. In their weekly feature, The Awkward Movie Challenge, they search valiantly for that sweet 16% that results in big arguments and big laughs.

Mike:

This past June 24th marked the twenty fifth anniversary of the greatest soundtrack ever recorded specifically for a movie. Man oh man, is Purple Rain ever an amazing soundtrack! “When Doves Cry”? That song is awesome. “Let’s Go Crazy”? Even awesomer, especially when Prince gets all Hendrixy at the end of the song. “Take Me With U”? Holy shit, that song is so awesome they don’t even have a word to describe it (you could probably describe it by calling it “Really, really, really awesome,” but that’s four words). “The Beautiful Ones”? “Baby, I’m a Star”? “I Would Die 4 U”? Awesome, awesome, awesome. Yes, there is no doubt about it; Purple Rain is one totally awesome record. Case closed.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the movie for which the Purple Rain soundtrack was recorded (did I mention how awesome that soundtrack is?), which celebrated its own twenty fifth anniversary this past Monday. Purple Rain: the Movie stars Prince as “The Kid”, a wunderkind musician who lives in his parents’ basement and creates music deemed too weird for First Avenue, the Minneapolis club where Morris Day and the Time draw huge crowds by playing music almost exactly like that of The Kid and his band, the Revolution. Except it’s not as good. The Kid meets aspiring singer Apollonia, falls in love with her, and lets her know this by tricking her into jumping naked into a lake. In Minneapolis. In the winter. Shooting her in the back would have been an equally romantic valentine, but then I guess we wouldn’t have gotten to see her boobs. Despite The Kid’s sadism, Apollonia is unable to resist the pubic hairs glued to his chest (or his purple pirate costume… or his Batgirl Cycle…), so she buys him a guitar. When Morris Day gets wind of the budding ingénue, he swoops in to turn her into his personal protégé. The Kid reacts to this news by punching Apollonia in the face.

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In case you were wondering about what is the best, the answer is: the Internet. The Internet is the best. Before the Internet, how would an independent publishing house like Awkward Press be able to offer all of our readers a free Purple Rain tribute album, featuring covers of every song on Purple Rain by such luminous rock artists as Of Montreal, Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings, and The Twilight Singers? The answer is: we would not have been able to do that before the Internet. Hooray, Internet!

The second answer is that we would not have been able to do that even with the Internet, because we are not really doing that. We are just linking to Spin Magazine, who is doing that. But still, aren’t we generous? Links aren’t free, you know! (Full disclosure: links are pretty much exactly free.)

So click on that link. Here it is again, in case you are one of those people who thinks that if you don’t click on a link the minute you see it then you’ve missed your window of opportunity. When you get to the page, you have to answer a question that takes about two seconds of Internet research to answer. Then you have to give them your email address and agree to receive emails from Spin. But, whatever, just add ‘em to your spam filter if you don’t want the emails. It’s a free country with a free Internet, only not really in both cases.