Beginning with its titular event and ending with a funeral, Prince’s Parade is obsessed with love, sex and death. If that weren’t enough baggage, Parade also serves as the soundtrack to the 1986 film Under the Cherry Moon. Prince’s Paris-set follow-up to Purple Rain tells the life and death story of Prince’s gigolo character, Christopher Tracy, who gets name-checked in Parade’s opening tune, “Christopher Tracy’s Parade.” The album bookends this life-affirming ditty with the mournful, metaphoric “Sometimes It Snows in April,” which eulogizes Tracy by informing of his greatness.…
