Prince - Sign "O" The Times (4LP) - Deluxe Edition Vinyl

By the time Sign o’ the Times landed in March 1987, Prince had dissolved the Revolution and holed up between Sunset Sound in Hollywood, a Chanhassen home setup, and the newly minted Paisley Park. He sliced pieces from shelved projects like Dream Factory and Camille, trimmed a proposed triple set called Crystal Ball, and somehow the result still feels like one coherent double LP with a heartbeat all its own. It’s the bravest Prince album and, for mine, the one that rewards the most return visits.

That opener is still a gut punch. “Sign o’ the Times” rides a skeletal groove stitched from the Fairlight CMI and Prince’s beloved drum machines. He stacks bleak headlines like a street-corner preacher, but his voice stays conversational, intimate, even when the synths flicker like a faulty streetlight. It’s political music that never forgets the pleasure of sound. Then he flips the table. “Play in the sunshine” he urges, and for the next 70-odd minutes he makes good on that promise through shape-shifting funk, bare bones pop, whispered confession and sweaty club heat.

The record’s centre of gravity is the Camille persona. On “If I Was Your Girlfriend,” Prince pitch-shifts his voice into a gender-blurred register and writes one of the most tender songs of his career, asking for emotional intimacy as plainly as he ever would. “Housequake” sends that same voice racing into Minneapolis funk mayhem, all horn stabs and stop-start breaks that nod to James Brown while sounding entirely like Prince. There’s a charge to these tracks that’s both future-facing and deeply human.

Hooks sprout everywhere. “U Got the Look,” with Sheena Easton trading lines, is pure cartoon lust and a stone-cold radio smash. “I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man” dates back to an older demo but gets reborn here as bright guitar pop with a slicing solo that clears the air like a summer storm. “The Cross” builds from a fragile chord figure to a wall of devotional noise. And “Starfish and Coffee,” co-written with Susannah Melvoin, turns a real classroom story about a kid named Cynthia Rose into a pocket-sized fable with toybox keys and a melody that sticks for days.

Production-wise, the album is a marvel because it’s so alive. Prince plays most of it himself, but he’s never isolated. Eric Leeds and Atlanta Bliss bring brass that bites and swoons. Sheila E. drops in with percussion and a rap on “It’s Gonna Be a Beautiful Night,” which began as a live recording at Le Zénith in Paris in August 1986 before studio sweetening. That track hints at the concert film released later that year, assembled from European shows and Paisley Park reshoots, which captured how this material erupted on stage.

There’s a favourite studio legend here too. “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker,” the first song cut at Paisley Park with engineer Susan Rogers, arrived the day the new console hadn’t been fully calibrated. A technical quirk rolled off the high end, leaving a submerged, dreamlike mix. Prince loved the mood and kept it. That choice feels emblematic of the album’s magic. He lets accidents breathe alongside precision.

Critics knew they were hearing something special. Sign o’ the Times topped the Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll for 1987 and has been living near the top of all-time lists ever since. That reputation only deepened with the 2020 Super Deluxe Edition, which unearthed vault material and gave the core album a remaster that lets the low end bloom without polishing away its grit. If you’re hunting Prince vinyl, this is the one that will remind you why analogue suits him. The cymbals fizz, the bass gets that chewy Minneapolis throb, and “Adore” melts across side four like candle wax.

So yes, Sign o’ the Times vinyl belongs in any serious collection. If you like to crate-dig at your local Melbourne record store, it’s the staff pick that somehow never gathers dust. If you need to buy Prince records online, this is the safest blind purchase in the catalogue. Among Prince albums on vinyl, it gives you the widest map of his abilities in one place, from electro minimalism to clattering funk to ballads that will stop you in your tracks. It’s also a reminder of how a double album can feel lean when the ideas are this sharp. For anyone building a shelf of vinyl records Australia wide, start here and let the rabbit hole open up.