Sign o' the Times (stylized as Sign "☮" the Times) is the ninth studio album by the American singer and songwriter Prince. It was released on March 31, 1987, as a double album by Paisley Park Records and Warner Bros. Records. The album is the follow-up to Parade and is Prince's first solo album following his disbanding of the Revolution. The album's songs were largely recorded from 1986 to 1987 in sessions for releases Prince ultimately aborted: Dream Factory, the pseudonymous Camille, and finally the triple album Crystal Ball. Prince eventually compromised with label executives and shortened the length of the release to a double album.
Sign o' the Times is a drastic departure from Prince's previous works, taking inspiration from social issues and spirituality. An R&B album, the album takes influence from avant-pop and hip hop, which was emerging in mainstream music. Many of the drum sounds on the album came from the Linn LM-1 drum machine, and Prince used the Fairlight CMI synthesizer to replace other instruments. Four songs contain higher-pitched vocals to represent Prince's alter ego "Camille". The album's music touches on funk, soul, psychedelic pop, electro, and rock.
Despite being Prince's fifth album in five years, Sign o' the Times reached the top 10 of the Billboard 200 and spawned three top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100: the title track and lead single "Sign o' the Times", "U Got the Look" and "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man". Besides these three, "If I Was Your Girlfriend" was also released as a single. A concert film of the same name was released to promote the album. The album was a huge critical success and is certified platinum in the US. Following Prince's death in 2016, it re-entered the Billboard 200 at number 20.
Sign o' the Times is one of the most critically acclaimed albums in popular music, widely being regarded as Prince's best album, ahead of Purple Rain (1984). It was voted the best album of 1987 in the Pazz & Jop critics poll and was nominated for Album of the Year at the 30th Grammy Awards. Often regarded as a masterpiece, some critics have praised Sign o' the Times as the best album of the 1980s. It is a frequent inclusion in lists of the greatest albums of all time and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2017.
Background Prince's sixth studio album, Purple Rain (1984), dominated American pop culture for nearly the entirety of 1984. Prince and the Revolution followed it with the psychedelic album Around The World In A Day (1985) and Parade the following year; the former topped the Billboard 200 whilst the latter was critically well received. However, Prince's record company and most of his newer fans gained from the success of Purple Rain wanted a second Purple Rain. Further issues were that much of his black audience thought he was becoming "too white" and sections of the public were uncomfortable with his prurience and sexual ambiguity.
Unlike the three previous band albums, Dream Factory included input from the band members and lead vocals by Wendy & Lisa. Prince feared that he was losing control, leading to the project to be abandoned. The Camille project saw Prince create an androgynous persona primarily singing in a higher, female-sounding voice. With the dismissal of the Revolution, Prince consolidated material from both shelved albums, along with some new songs, into a three-LP album to be titled Crystal Ball. Warner Bros. balked at the idea of trying to sell a triple album and forced Prince to trim it down to a double album. Prince cut seven tracks, and also reformulated the album to accommodate the newly added title track.
Production and composition
Recording As with many of Prince's 1980s albums, this album features extensive use of the Linn LM-1 drum machine on most songs. In addition, many songs on the album (such as "If I Was Your Girlfriend") feature minimal instrumentation, and use of the Fairlight CMI, a then state-of-the-art synthesizer also containing a digital sampler. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Prince used the stock sounds of the Fairlight to create the title track. Four of the album's standout songs, "Housequake", "Strange Relationship", "U Got the Look" with Sheena Easton, and "If I Was Your Girlfriend" use pitch-shifted vocals to create a higher voice, ostensibly the voice of "Camille", Prince's alter ego of this era.
Prince was known for recording his vocals in the control room area of the studio. Typically, in the recording process, a vocalist records in the recording booth, separated from the control room by a window or soundproof door. To have privacy during the vocal recording process, Prince usually asked his engineer, Susan Rogers, to leave the room. Rogers recalls:
On some occasions, Prince recorded vocals with his back to her. Rogers monitored the vocals with a pair of headphones so Prince's recording microphone would not pick up the speakers she would usually have used. Prince typically used a Sennheiser 441 dynamic microphone (recommended to him by Stevie Nicks) for recording vocals at this stage in his career. Susan Rogers also recalled the speed of Prince's creative process, saying "[the] songs came out like a sneeze, one track after the next, after the next." She also noticed a problem with the sound desk—which had been newly installed—during the recording of "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker", which resulted in a sound matching the "underwater dream state" of the song.
Although Sign o' the Times was regarded by some as less polished than his earlier efforts (Spin said the album sounded like outtakes, "except nobody else's outtakes would sound so strong, rock so hard, swing so free") Prince pointed out that he (and his record company) "spent more time and money" on Sign o' the Times than anything he had ever done, adding that "[much] more work went into it."
Music and lyrics Described by Rolling Stone as "the most expansive R&B record" of the 1980s, Sign o' the Times encompasses a wide range of styles. Music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine said Prince utilizes a palette of genres, "from bare-bones electro-funk and smooth soul to pseudo-psychedelic pop and crunching hard rock, touching on gospel, blues, and folk along the way". Similarly, writer and Prince scholar Ben Greenman observes "spooky political R&B, full-throated psychedelic pop, bone-rattling skeletal funk, and pocket soul so gentle and nuanced you could almost call it folk". According to music journalist Touré, the album is Prince's foray into soul more than anything, while writer and composer Paul Grimstad deemed the record an example of avant-pop. Prince's use of the drum machine throughout the album is an example of "authentic rock music [made] with computers", Yuzima Philip wrote in Observer. In the opinion of Star Tribune journalist Jon Bream, the music can be described as an absolute "balance of everything" the artist had explored stylistically up to that point, including "grinding funk, catchy pop, anthemic rock, tender balladry". The album also delves into hip hop, which was emerging into the mainstream. According to Nelson George, Prince was keenly aware that hip-hop was gaining more exposure and influencing contemporary music.
Regarding the themes explored throughout the album, MTV News writer Hanif Abdurraqib said it functions "as a political action" and "that the politics are not those of solutions, but those of survival in the face of that which you might not survive for much longer. The politics of survival say that we may dance in the face of a coming apocalypse. We may, in the face of a coming apocalypse, go to bed with someone we love or someone we didn't know before the night started. We may play in the streets, or fantasize about a new world to run into. On Sign 'O' The Times, after laying out the terrifying landscape, Prince pushes the landscape aside, lays out all of our options for survival on a table, and tells us to take our pick."
George also pointed to carnality and spirituality being a common theme on Sign o' the Times. "Forever in My Life" was noted as an example, where Prince combines both sexuality and piety. "Hot Thing" and "It" were described as aggressively sexual, but through the "oddly-pitched" sounds, the songs resonate with spiritual themes like human connection and transcendence. The title track and lead single, "Sign o' the Times", discusses gang violence and the crack cocaine epidemic. "The Cross" stands out on the album as a Christian rock song described as raw and emotional, as Prince preaches about Jesus. The song was also noted for having a Eastern-influenced sound.
Cover The cover of the album was shot by photographer Jeff Katz, who also served as Prince's photographer during the mid-80s, and had shot the covers of Prince's The Family album in 1985, and Parade in 1986. The shoot was held at a warehouse in Eden Prairie, Minnesota close to where Paisley Park Studios was set up later. The cover featured a drum set on top of the front end of a 1971 Pontiac Grand Prix, bouquets, a plasma globe and a guitar, with Prince's face in the foreground in a blur. The props were taken from Prince's home and studio, and the backdrop borrowed from a stage production of the musical Guys and Dolls.
Release Sign o' the Times was released on March 30, 1987, in the United Kingdom, and one day later in the United States and France. It peaked at number six on the Billboard 200, reached the top 10 in Austria, France, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and the UK, and reached number one in Switzerland. The singles "Sign o' the Times", "U Got the Look" and "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man" reached number three, two and ten on the Billboard Hot 100, respectively. Four months after its release, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Following Prince's death in 2016, the album re-charted on the Billboard 200 at number 20.
Though Sign o' the Times is regarded as one of Prince's best albums, it did not sell as well as his three preceding releases. According to Mark Lindores, writing for Classic Pop, Prince's commercial stock had declined significantly following the underperformance of Around The World In A Day and Parade, both of which shifted from the "pulsing electro-rock and soaring anthems" of Purple Rain in favor of psychedelic pop and "Eurocentric, jazz-inflected funk", respectively. The underwhelming sales of the album is also likely attributed to it being Prince's fifth album in five years and there not being a supporting tour in the US (he also cancelled the UK dates, meaning the tour only reached mainland Europe).
Reissues The album was reissued in Remastered, Deluxe and Super Deluxe editions on September 25, 2020. The Super Deluxe edition contains nine discs with a remaster of the original album, all 13 single, maxi-single and B-side tracks, 45 previously unreleased tracks, and two complete live recordings of the Sign o' the Times Tour: one audio performance recorded at Stadion Galgenwaard in Utrecht, Netherlands, on June 20, 1987, and one video performance shot at Paisley Park on December 31, 1987. In addition, a 7" vinyl singles box set limited to 1,987 units was released, containing remastered audio for all four official 7" singles released in 1987, as well as the two official Warner Records promo singles and a brand new 7" single comprising two versions of the previously unreleased track "Witness 4 the Prosecution".
Critical reception