1985

Publication: Teen Magazine [US]
Date: February 1985
Title: "Prince: His Purple Reign Over Pop"
Summary: Discovering the soft-spoken man behind the music is no easy task. Prince is a reclusive rocker who's reluctant to share himself with his public.

Publication: The San Diego Union-Tribune [US]
Date: February 1, 1985
Title: "Purple Hot Color As Prince Readies New Orleans Show"
Summary: You can still buy purple underwear, and there's a new shipment of purple sashes, but anything else in purple was sold out well in advance of tonight's concertby rock dynamo Prince.

Publication: The San Diego Union-Tribune [US]
Date: April 5, 1985
Title: "Manager Says Prince To Quit Touring"
Summary: Academy Award-winning rock star Prince gave some strange answers when asked about his plans, but his manager said the flamboyant singer will quit touring when his current 32-city swing ends Sunday.

Publication: Los Angeles Times [US]
Date: April 28, 1985
Title: "Pop Eye; A Revolutionary Soft Sell of Prince LP"
Summary: What would you say about a pop superstar who released a new album without any hoopla at all -- no single, no video, no ads, not even a merchandising display at the local record store?

Publication: Newsweek [US]
Date: April 29, 1985
Title: "Rock's Mystery Prince"
Summary: They call him "His Royal Badness" -- Prince, the 5-foot-2, 26-year-old from Minneapolis who is one of the most extraordinary figures in pop music today.

Publication: The San Diego Union-Tribune [US]
Date: May 1, 1985
Title: "Lawyers for Prince See Red Over Purple Pasta TV Ads"
Summary: Prince, the pasta and spaghetti sauce company, says advertisements featuring its product "inconcert" were intended to be amusing, but the rock star by the same name is not laughing.

Publication: The San Diego Union-Tribune [US]
Date: May 19, 1985
Title: "Prince Abdicates Indefinitely"
Summary: Steve Fargnoli, Prince's manager, has announced that His Purple Badness retired from live performance for "an indefinite period of time" after his April show in Miami.

Publication: The San Diego Union-Tribune [US]
Date: July 31, 1985
Title: "Prince Spreads His Talent Around"
Summary: Nonetheless, no one can deny that the Minneapolis dynamo is loaded with musical talent -- so much talent that his work cannot be confined to just his own albums.

Publication: Seventeen [US]
Date: August 1985
Title: "When The Kid's Bad, He's Royally Bad. Will He Ever Be Able To Learn A Little Princely Graciousness?"
Summary: You could almost hear the gasps from coast to coast as Johnny Carson launched into his Tonight Show monologue one night last April. "Prince is retiring from show business," Carson trumpeted.

Publication: Chicago Tribune [US]
Date: November 8, 1985
Title: "Andre Cymone: He's Attending To The Business"
Summary: It has been three years since vocalist and all-around-instrumentalist Andre Cymoneleft Prince's band to perform solo. In that time, Cymone, who is signed to Columbia Records, has released three albums, the latest titled"AC." The first two LPs sold a little more than 100,000 copies each, saysCymone, and he hopes that "AC"--which has spawned a Top 10 dance-chartsingle, "The Dance Electric"--will clock in closer to the 500,000-unit salesneeded for gold-record certification.

Publication: Chicago Tribune [US]
Date: November 21, 1985
Title: "Morris Day Striving To Be A King Instead Of A Prince In The Land Of Funk"
Summary: The pouty star Prince has been said to have an iron grip on the Minneapolis funk scene, but one artist who slipped away was Morris Day. Prince's hit movie "Purple Rain" established co-star Day as a marketable singer and actor last year, then he jumped ship for a solo career.