Songoftheday 5/17/17 - They don't care where they kick, just as long as they hurt you...

"Thieves In The Temple" - Prince
from the album Graffiti Bridge (Original Soundtrack) (1990)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #6 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 9

Today's song of the day comes from Prince, who had ended the 1980's with a soundtrack to the Batman franchise movie that landed him a #1 hit with "Batdance", as well as two top-40 follow-ups in "Partyman" and "The Arms Of Orion". After touring, he finished a project he had started the previous year, the movie Graffiti Bridge. Written as a sequel to his massive breakthrough film and album Purple Rain, what resulted is a mess of a piece, with crazy supernatural elements and weird drawn out club storylines (mostly with the Time's Morris Day). The accompanying soundtrack, unlike its predecessor, had songs from other musicians in the mix, with the Time, Mavis Staples, George Clinton, and newcomer Tevin Campbell getting room on the album. The first single released from the set was Prince's own "Thieves in The Temple". By far the best thing on the record, the song was again embraced by pop and soul radio...

Note: FINALLY Prince has his own YouTube channel, so here's the video!

 

Now since the late artist's shitty attitude towards promoting his work included an obsession with nixing YouTube in any form, there's no way to watch the video, even in his passing. So fuck it, here's a version from jazz singer Renee Geyer...

"Thieves In The Temple" became Prince's first top ten pop hit in the 1990's in September of 1990. The single was his seventh to top Billboard's R&B chart, while the remix of the song climbed to #9 on their Dance Club Play list. Internationally, the record reached the top ten in Ireland (#2), Norway (#4), Canada (#5), New Zealand (#5), the UK (#7), the Netherlands (#8), and Belgium (#9).

A second Prince single from the soundtrack, "New Power Generation", managed to get to the R&B top-40 at #27, while stalling down at #64 on the American pop chart (it did make #26 in the UK), but it did supply the name for his next band. Meanwhile, Tevin Campbell's contribution, "Round and Round", will be here soon.

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Here's the remix of the song that made the top ten on the dance chart, while it lasts...

Last, here's the extended version of the music video, featuring Morris Day in a cameo..

Up tomorrow: Power-pop band have no romantic restraint.