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Purple Music is a song, recorded on 22 May 1982 at Prince’s Kiowa Trail Home Studio, Chanhassen MN, USA. It is unknown but likely it was considered for inclusion on 1999.
It was released in 2019 as the third track on the Vault Tracks part 2 disc of a Super Deluxe Edition edition of the 1999 album.
The song is a somewhat monotonous uptempo track, sparsely instrumented by a bouncy drum machine beat provided by the Linn LM-1 and a synth bass line, a scratchy guitar lick reminiscent of Controversy and a simple synth-lead line, not too far removed from the lead line of All The Critics Love U In New York.
It has an anti-drug message in which Prince says that "purple music" does the same to his brain as reefer or cocaine. Prince’s voice sounds slightly manipulated (although not to the effect that he would later utilize for the Camille songs), to suggest he is indeed getting high on his music as he sings.
The song made its first live appearance 28 years after its recording, on 23 July 2010 (a.m.), played in a medley with All The Critics Love U In New York.
When Prince started playing it regularly on the Piano & A Microphone Tour in 2016 the song was listed on setlists as Welcome 2 The Freedom Galaxy. It is possible Prince worked on an updated studio version in 2016.
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Versions
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Released Versions
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Unreleased Versions
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Title
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Version
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Additional Info
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Purple Music
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Studio
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Original version before keyboard and synth overdub
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Purple Music
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Studio
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Slightly different mix of the above with extra guitar and vocal differences
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Additional Information
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See also
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Trivia
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- The released mix of this track was done by Niko Bolas specifically for the 1999 Super Deluxe Edition release. It was made to replicate an original mix from 1982, as much as possible. So even when a slightly different mix of this track might exist, the now released version is not considered a true alternate mix of the track.
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References
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