The Prince song that topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1986 was “Kiss.”
Released on February 5, 1986, “Kiss” was the lead single from Parade, Prince and the Revolution’s eighth studio album. The track began as a sparse acoustic demo, but Prince reshaped it into a minimalist funk-pop recording built around a clipped guitar figure, handclaps, falsetto vocals, and a deliberately lean arrangement.
“Kiss” reached No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks and became an international hit. Its stripped-down production was striking because it achieved a huge pop impact without the dense instrumentation often associated with 1980s records. Prince also wrote and produced the song.
Listeners sometimes confuse this chart success with “When Doves Cry,” which was Prince’s first US Hot 100 No. 1 and topped the chart in 1984. “Kiss,” however, is the Prince single associated with the 1986 chart-topping run.