It took me by surprise but then again, I never expected it:  Purple Rain was reissued on vinyl awhile ago, and I totally missed it!  OK, so I fell off the clue wagon on this one.  I had heard that Warner was reissuing Dirty Mind, Controversy and my personal favorite, 1999 on 180g vinyl this coming May, and managed to pick up Purple Rain to give it a spin.  Seeing that Prince has never had his early catalog remastered, all we have had are lackluster early-release CDs and our aging vinyl.  Is the new 180 gram version any improvement?

The reissue of Purple Rain, cut by Bernie Grundman Mastering, is very good indeed!  Anything is better than the CD currently out there, and one thing I noticed about this 180g version is that there is more clarity to the music.  I’ve discovered in these later years that one of my favorite tracks is “Take Me With U” which has a killer production to it; you can really hear the acoustic guitar through the mix on the vinyl.  The distortion at the end of “Let’s Go Crazy” (on the original vinyl cut) is also removed, so it plays back much cleaner.  (It is comparable to the 12″ single version, in fact.)

The vinyl itself is fairly quiet, but not as quiet as the Van Morrison Moondance I reviewed a short while ago.  Some minor ticks are about the extent of it.  The only other flaw is that mine has some minor dish warp to it, but that is nothing a good record clamp can’t fix. A nice touch is having a reprint of the original inner sleeve, plus reproductions of the original LP labels on both sides.  Definitely recommended for fans of Prince, and I am anxiously awaiting the reissue of the three earlier albums.