The album that catapulted the Purple One to global stardom is celebrating its 35th birthday! It’s easily one of the most iconic albums of the ’80s and features perhaps Prince’s most iconic song, “1999”. In honour of the album that introduced most of the world to Prince Rogers Nelson, here are 6 JACK Facts about the Prince album 1999.

 

  1. Prince was only 24 when the album was released, yet it was already his 5th album!
  2. In 2003, the album was ranked #163 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time and the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008.
  3. Originally released on vinyl as a double LP, 1999 was cut to a single vinyl edition in some countries (like Brazil). The same was done with the CD, omitting the song “D.M.S.R.”. All editions produced since 1990 contain the full track-listing.
  4. The album contained four hit singles: “1999”, “Little Red Corvette”, “Delirious” and “Let’s Pretend We’re Married”. “Delirious” actually made it higher on the Billboard chart than his most iconic song “1999”, even though “1999” maintains pop culture super status to this day.
  5. While the title song “1999” has become a New Year’s Eve celebration staple, it isn’t about ringing in the new year. It was written during the Cold War and is actually about nuclear proliferation and the fact that so many countries had nuclear bombs. Prince wants to party like it’s 1999 because he thinks the world could be destroyed by the year 2000.
  6. Prince briefly retired the song after his New Year’s Eve pay-per-view in 1999, but played a snippet of it during his Super Bowl halftime performance. He then continued to play it in his subsequent live shows.

 

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And feel like listening to more Prince? Check out our “Remembering Prince” Spotify Playlist.

Filed under: 1982, 1999, JACK facts, Prince