Prince: The Top 10 Official Releases You Can’t Buy. (Updated again—now with Spotify!)
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This article was originally published on the 10th of May 2016.
On what would have been Prince’s 58th birthday, the 7th of June 2016, TIDAL released 15 previously unavailable albums — many of which were mentioned below.
And, in 2018, after some unfortunate legal wrangling, much of Prince’s later catalogue appeared on the streaming services — so I’ve added the Spotify links where they are available.
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Prince’s untimely death was a shock and a tragedy.
Perhaps the one small consolation that can be taken from this sad event, was how it highlighted the deep love, respect and affection for the man and his work that was felt around the world.
But it also highlighted just how hard it is to listen to his music.
A lot is available to stream on TIDAL — but far from all of it.
Even if you wanted to buy Prince’s music from a service like iTunes, on CD or Vinyl, much of his authorised catalogue is currently completely unavailable.
If you are a typical contemporary music buyer you get your music online, and second-hand CDs or records are amusing anachronisms, but essentially unusable.
So to make clear just what we’re missing, here’s my list of the Top 10 Official Prince releases, which, right now, you simply can’t get hold of on the high street or online.
1. The Rainbow Children (2001)
The late 90s were not that kind to Prince.
He’d finally found freedom from his record label, but it turned out that without a major corporation behind you, it was hard to reach an audience and get your music across.
His most recent role of the dice had been 1999’s “Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic”, under the supervision of Clive Davis at Arista Records. The game-plan had been to model Santana’s comeback album “Supernatural” which paired the guitarist with several more contemporary acts.
On “Rave” Prince worked with Sheryl Crow, Chuck D, Eve, Gwen Stefani and Ani DiFranco — but he promoted the work alone, the guest-star angle was underplayed, the lead single was a ballad (never a good idea), Prince grew frustrated and the album did not fare well.
So Prince hunkered down to re-think, and his next record was a radically different proposition.
Prince was heavily influenced by Sly and the Family Stone, and in the late 90s he worked closely with the group’s bassist Larry Graham.
Graham was a devout Jehovah’s Witness, and Prince soon began to share the views of his friend and colleague.
Prince had tried pop, and it had not succeeded, so he turned away from the mainstream and towards his new faith as the stimulus for his new music.
Prince already had form with religious fervour fuelling musical inspiration — “Lovesexy” being the exuberant, almost ecstatic, example.
“The Rainbow Children” was a somewhat different proposition — the album attempted to re-tell the Biblical story of the Fall — literally — a deep and distorted voice provided a continuous narrative of the action in and around the songs.
Many could not countenance the questionable theological musings, and many thought the narrator made the album virtually unlistenable.
But, honestly, the music was outstanding — a brilliant organic 70s sound gospel meets jazz meets funk — lots of organ, flute, even a splash of Marimba in places, the strong theme driving a consistency of sound.
It’s not even trying to be commercial, but if you can set aside the weirdness as the price you pay for a true “concept” album, this is, without doubt, the most consistent, coherent and compelling long playing musical statement Prince made since 1988.
And “1+1+1=3” is one of the funkiest tracks ever made by one of the world’s most accomplished funky track makers.
UPDATE: Available to stream on TIDAL here. Available to stream on Spotify here.
2. One Nite Alone… Live! (2002)
Prince clearly thought highly of “The Rainbow Children”.
We know this because he did something with the album he hadn’t done for nearly a decade, and wouldn’t ever really do again.
He toured it.
He booked lots of shows in smaller venues across the globe, and then pretty much played the album out to people as it had been on the record.
And it played well.
As was often the case with Prince, what sometimes felt a little restrained in the studio truly flew in concert — the shows were outstanding, and the reviews reflected this.
So Prince did what he had never done before, and put out a live 2 CD set of the tour (backed with another CD of performances from aftershow concerts).
Taken from nine different shows at eight venues the set-list was pretty much reflective of the tour.
The core was taken from “The Rainbow Children” setting an organic jazz tone, with a smattering of lesser known tracks filling out the first part of the show.
The show also included a completely new track “Xenophobia”, an absolutely killer instrumental vamp — perhaps the best “jazz” he ever produced.
The tracks were played at full length — no medleys or shortcuts. The musicians (John Blackwell, Rhonda Smith, Renato Neto) were absolutely first rate throughout and the music really got to breathe, and in breathing, come alive.
The second part of the show was Prince alone on the Piano, more extensively touring his back catalogue, stripping down the music and drawing out the melodic depth of his songwriting.
This was his definitive “live” statement.
And though it does not cover the peak of his commercial success, and though it presents an album which many found challenging, “One Nite Alone… Live!” is all the better for it, because it showed just what Prince could do, and how good he could be when he stopped trying to be “Prince”, and did what only Prince could do.
UPDATE: Available to stream on TIDAL here. Available to stream on Spotify here.
3. The Gold Experience (1995)
By 1993 Prince wanted out of his record contract.
He thought music was current like a newspaper, and should be released as soon as it was created.
And he told Warner Bros. so, making clear what he thought of their control of his output by changing his name to a symbol and writing the word “Slave” on his face.
And, truth be told, Prince was in the middle of a wildly productive period — he had material that would make up several albums all on the go at once.
So, he persuaded them to let him release a single to prove that he could do great things if only they let him.
That single, released February 1994, was “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World”, a slice of delightful Philly soul, with a wonderful video, and the full support of its creator.
So, much to Prince’s delight, and Warner Bros. undoubted annoyance, it went to Number 1 in the US, the UK, and around the world.
Prince had already turned in one album for 1994, “Come”, which would be the last to appear under his own name.
But he also turned in “The Gold Experience”, which would appear under the Symbol, and wanted them to appear at the same time — the former under his old self, and the latter his new.
Warner Bros. was not having any of this, so “The Gold Experience” was delayed until mid-95.
A little over-produced, the album was perhaps a touch too lush in its sound, but the album had some great tracks.
“The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” we’ve mentioned. “Gold” was a 90s take on “Purple Rain” meets “Hey Jude” which, while not quite rivalling its models, revives the power-balled in a suitably Princely fashion. “Shhh” is a hard rocking I’m not quite sure what.
But it also had some outstanding ones.
“Dolphin” is a beautiful expression of Prince’s frustration at what he saw as his creative captivity. “Now” is whatever funk sounded like when beamed back from the future, and “Pussy Control” was Prince’s most effective-ever take on rap — and a ringing endorsement of feminism (despite, or perhaps because of?, the title and the style).
How can it be that you can’t buy “TMBGITW”, Prince’s most successful single? (UPDATE: Turns out it some ridiculous Italian lawsuit.)
UPDATE: Available to stream on TIDAL here. Available to stream on Spotify here.
4. Crystal Ball (1998)
In 1996 Prince had finally freed himself from his Warner Bros. and quickly released the 3CD set “Emancipation” — more music in one album than many acts manage in an entire career.
But he was far from done.
One of the key promises of his fight for musical freedom was that he could put out music that his label had prevented him from releasing.
And, in truth, he was justified in this claim.
Warner Bros. had baulked at the Triple Album “The Dream Factory”, forcing Prince to slim it down to the 2 disc “Sign O the Times”.
They had also been slow to put out the music from the period around “Come” and “The Gold Experience”, which, given Prince’s relentless work rate, meant there were many tracks that didn’t see the light of day at the time.
So Prince announced that he’d release a “Crystal Ball” Triple CD containing a selection of his unreleased music — the title taken from a track off “The Dream Factory”.
The release strategy was years ahead of it’s time — Prince took pre-orders for the set, and only pressed the discs when he’d enough to ensure the profitability of the project — Kickstarter avant la lettre.
As the most bootlegged artist of all time, with several discs worth of material circulating from his 80s peak, and given the title, many expected this to be a compilation of material from this period.
And, indeed, there were several choice tracks from this era — the title track was a 10 minute apocalypse-meets-party-meets-debauchery epic, including some of the funkiest orchestration ever committed to tape. “Crucial” was an essential slice of “Parade” meets “Lovesexy” melodic mellifluousness. “Make your Mama Happy”, the first track on which Wendy and Lisa were given free rein to have fun. “Movie Star”, D’Angelo’s favourite Prince track.
But much of the material originated from the period of record label dispute circa 93–96 — much of which was great— an essential live favourite “Days of Wild”, the darkly funky “What’s my Name”, the new jack swinging “Acknowledge Me”. And many of these tracks were re-workings of previously released material — remixes or revisions of music well known to aficionados.
The sequencing of the material was also peculiar — juxtaposing music from different eras, with different sounds, creating jarring stylistic jumps as the discs progressed.
As a result, the whole felt less than the sum of its parts — but my God, what parts!
The whole set is worth the price of admission for “Cloreen Bacon Skin” — a 15 minute track from 1983 with Morris Day on drums, and Prince on bass and vox trash-talking his wife “Cloreen”, and improvising their way into the sound that would define “The Time”.
UPDATE: Available to stream on TIDAL here. Available to stream on Spotify here.
5. The Black Album (1987 / 1994)
The story of the Black Album is so well known that there’s really no need to repeat it here in any great detail.
Suffice it to say it’s perverse that we can’t buy an album by one of the world’s greatest musicians written at the very peak of his creative powers.
That, and “Bob George” was terrifying prescient, “Dead on it” remains a little bit funny because it’s a little bit true, “Le Grind” sounds like a great idea, and “Cindy C” is correct.
UPDATE: Available to stream on TIDAL here. (Still not on Spotify for some reason.)
6. Chaos and Disorder (1996)
The last album that Prince put out with Warner Bros, at the end of what had become a very acrimonious relationship, “Chaos and Disorder” was overtly described as a contractual obligation in its liner notes: “Originally intended for private use only, this compilation serves as the last original material recorded … for Warner Brothers.”
It’s short and highly inconsistent.
The album’s opening and closing are outstanding.
“Chaos and Disorder” is the angry punk younger brother of “Sign O The Times”, “I Like it There” a dirty rocknrolla and “Dinner with Delores” a beautiful song about a girl who is so sex-obsessed she puts Prince off, with, as Questlove puts it, “the best ending and fade in postmodern black pop history.”
After that, things get highly variable, with a number of experiments that don’t quite work — the overwrought “Same December”, a country and western style plea for Native American justice “Right the Wrong” (talk about the medium not being the message) and the absolute throwaway “I Rock Therefore I Am”.
The album ends with one of Prince’s most bitter compositions “Had U” — the executives at Warner Bros. were likely in no doubt about who was the intended target of the composer’s ire — it’s fascinating to hear Prince make something designed to offend, when, as an entertainer, he was habitually predisposed to entertain.
UPDATE: Available to stream on TIDAL here. Available to stream on Spotify here.
7. The Scandalous Sex Suite (1989)
Prince is notoriously profligate, with 39 studio albums to his name — roughly one a year for his entire professional career.
But it’s not just that he writes a lot of songs, it’s that he constantly reworks the songs that he’s written.
The title track of the album “Come” exists in at least 3 different versions — a stripped down band jam, an electronic dance number, and the extended horn-driven track that was finally released.
And sometimes he simply takes a track and extends it out in every direction. The 12” remix of “America” is a 20 minute jam on the theme with the Revolution.
So Prince must really have liked “Scandalous!” from the Batman soundtrack.
The album was inspired by the film after a set visit, and was so inspiring, in fact, that Prince took to dating Kim Basinger, the movie’s female lead.
So when “Scandalous!” was chosen as the 4th single from the Soundtrack, Prince combined the movie’s plotline with his own personal interests to produce “The Scandalous Sex Suite” — a three part, 19 minute suite featuring the vocal talents of Ms. Basinger as Prince’s foil in this aural seduction.
The first part, “The Crime”, trades Prince’s jazz guitar solos against Eric Leeds’ saxophone, wrapped around spoken word dialogue between the protagonists, all intercut with Prince’s vocals from the original song (and a choice selection of noises from Ms. Basinger).
The second part, “The Passion”, is one of Prince’s most vocally ambitious efforts, with two voice tracks delivering simultaneous melodies and lyrics in parallel to brilliant effect.
The third, “The Rapture” is focussed around an incredible guitar solo — beginning softly, starting to soar, but then collapsing in a sort of dissonant musical recrimination as Prince tries, but fails to convey what he intended.
It is electrifying.
It is also incredible to realise that a performance which seems so perfectly realised for this suite was actually taken wholesale from the Sheila E track “Dear Michelangelo”, where it was largely buried in the mix.
It is a testament to Prince’s musical memory that he could conceive the suite, recall a piece of music from years earlier and then simply drop all the pieces into place to create a seamless whole.
The suite then rounds out with more of Eric Leeds’ exemplary playing.
The EP also included an ultra-stripped down quasi-house track “Sex” on the flip, alongside “When 2 R in Love” from the “Lovesexy” LP.
The whole thing is a small, but perfectly formed, musical journey, and absolutely deserves to be heard.
UPDATE: Alas, still not available anywhere.
8. Space Maxi-Single (1994)
So, yes, Prince liked to really stretch and rework a track he liked, and did this a lot as he moved from the 80s to the 90s.
The “Scandalous Sex Suite” was a single piece of music, but Prince was just as happy remixing, re-recording or re-conceiving a track.
“Space” was a single from the 1994 album “Come”, which, it must be said, has aged well.
It was seen at the time as something of a throwaway — not least because Prince suggested it was so as the last recording under his own name — but also because it sat awkwardly with the music of the time.
But with distance, it come to stand on its own merits, and now sounds like well put together, sonically coherent statement — a little more downbeat than a typical Prince album, but that makes it somewhat different, and therefore more interesting, than a typical Prince album.
“Space” was a somewhat surprising selection for a single — a relatively restrained quasi-ballad.
But it wasn’t really the single at all.
Prince took the basic backing track, and composed a completely new set of lyrics for it.
Whereas the original was a somewhat traditional Prince-like take on love taking you to Space, the new song was a rather more sombre contrast between the coldness of the world, and the warmth of “Universal Love” — a somewhat veiled expression of religion’s solace:
“All the pain that a human has to go through
in a planet that’s so bitter and cold
Universal love awaits you, baby
all you got to say
is that you really, really, really want to go
And we’re outta here”.
Prince liked this “Universal Love” “remix” so much that it was the A-side of the single, and the album version the B.
The 7” was also accompanied by a 12” / CD Maxi Single with several other remixed versions combining elements of both tracks into a laid-back groove set that’s arguably unrivalled in Prince’s catalogue.
UPDATE: Alas, still not available anywhere.
9. 20ten (2010)
Given away for free with the Daily Mail, the album was apparently recorded more or less solo in the studio, utilising many of the production techniques which Prince had pioneered in the early 80s.
As such it had a characteristic Prince “sound”, but since this “sound” was dated to the point of obsolescence by 2010, it had little of the freshness which accompanied a “Prince” record, or the creative zaaz which he delivered in live performance.
That said, the album is compact, well-paced and contains no obvious clunkers like “Graffiti Bridge” or “The Arms of Orion”.
If such heresy can be spoken, it’s probably the best generic “Prince” background music CD, ideal for playing at low volume during dinner parties.
And it does contain a couple of great tracks.
The early 80s synth sound of “Lavaux” is so overdone as to move past pastiche through homage and into vibrant flourish.
And “Future Soul Song” is exactly what it says it is — a soul song cut with just enough synth, programmed with just enough Linn and delivered with just enough languor to be atemporal, and a plausible export from the future.
It alone is worth the price of admission.
UPDATE: Available to stream on TIDAL here. Available to stream on Spotify here.
10. Rave un2 the Joy Fantastic (1999) / Rave in2 the Joy Fantastic (2000)
We’ve discussed it above — “Rave” was Prince’s late 90s attempt to score a “hit” record.
It didn’t work out that well, despite the collaborations and handful of interesting songs.
The title track was actually recorded in the late 80s — a post-Lovesexy / pre-Batman (the refrain can be heard on the Batdance remixes) — and, while not at the pinnacle of that era, is still interesting to hear in the studio version (the live take had rocked numerous Lovesexy aftershow bootlegs).
On his recent “Piano & A Microphone” Tour, Prince revived “I Love You But I Don’t Trust You Anymore” and it more than stood up to such company as “How Come You Don’t Call Me Anymore” or “A Condition of the Heart”.
“Man‘O’War” was equally heartfelt — if Prince’s personal life was suffering at the time, it at least produced some beautiful music.
And, never one to under-do things, Prince later released an entirely different configuration of the album, remixing 5 of the tracks, removing 2 and adding another, making the whole thing sound a little more consistent with his musical interests of the time.
Kanye West recently altered some the tracks on “The Life of Pablo”, generating numerous headlines.
Prince did the same thing to a whole album more than a decade ago — but right now, neither version is available for people to listen to.
UPDATE: Available to stream on TIDAL here and here. Available to stream on Spotify here and here.
What’s the use in half a story, half a dream?
And that’s kind of the point of this whole thing — forget about “The Vault” for just a moment — there is so much of Prince’s officially released catalogue that is more or less unavailable to the average music listener.
These are just a handful of examples.
Starting with “Batdance”, Prince produced several “Maxi-Single” packages — “Partyman”, “The New Power Generation”, “Cream”, “The Beautiful Experience”, “Get Wild”, “Come On”, and “Gett Off” — of which, only the last is currently available to buy.
And let’s not start with the much too long list of incredible 12” remixes and B-sides which Prince created, most of which you simply can’t buy right now.
Or the scores of digital-only tracks he released.
Or the numerous video releases he put out — “The Undertaker” Album, “Prince and the Revolution Live” from the Purple Rain Tour, and, most distressing, the video of the “Lovesexy” tour, the absolute expression of his most compelling creative vision.
Nor should we forget all of the music released on the Paisley Park label — including the Madhouse records, all of his music under the New Power Generation name, and albums from Mavis Staples and George Clinton.
Prince’s death is a tragedy.
But it’s a crime that it’s impossible to buy such a large part of his musical output.
There will be much to do for those eventually charged with managing Prince’s estate.
But once the dust has settled, and before people start worrying about the “The Vault” or “The Remasters”, I’d ask those in charge to simply ensure that people today can legally listen to the officially released back catalogue of one of the world’s greatest musicians.
If we can’t have the man, I hope we can at least listen to his music.
Please.
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Whoever it was who made this happen — thank you.
