Why Prince's 'Purple Rain' made the Stones' 'Undercover' look like a leather-jacket costume party

The Rolling Stones’ Undercover (1983) tried to lean into the dangerous side of sex and politics—Undercover of the Night had a video about political repression in Latin America, and the album cover literally peeled back layers of makeup to reveal a snarling, cross-dressing skull. But the whole thing felt like Jagger and Richards were trying too hard to stay relevant in the early MTV era, especially next to Prince, who dropped Purple Rain a year later and made the Stones look like they were posing for a fashion shoot instead of living the music.

Prince did something the Stones couldn’t: he fused sexual imagery with vulnerability and