Prince Greathits

Few artists have created a body of work as rich and varied as Prince. During the '80s, he emerged as one of the most singular talents of the rock & roll era, capable of seamlessly tying together pop, funk, folk, and rock. Not only did he release a series of groundbreaking albums; he toured frequently, produced albums and wrote songs for many other artists, and recorded hundreds of songs that still lie unreleased in his vaults. With each album he released, Prince has shown remarkable stylistic growth and musical diversity, constantly experimenting with different sounds, textures, and genres.

The Prince estate has announced a new set of reissues, focused on the Purple One’s out-of-print material from the mid-1990s. Prince’s albums Chaos and Disorder and Emancipation, his first LP after leaving Warner Bros., will be available on vinyl for the first time and on CD for the first time in two decades. The estate is also reissuing The VERSACE Experience (PRELUDE 2 GOLD), a collection of music handed out to attendees at Versace’s runway show during Paris Fashion Week in 1995. Originally a limited-edition cassette, the album features remixes of songs that would appear on The Gold Experience and unreleased music from Prince’s backing band The New Power Generation, side project NPG Orchestra, and short-lived jazz fusion band Madhouse.

This blessed collection of unreleased demos, recorded by Prince to cassette in a single take, is enthralling. It plays like both omen and artifact of his hit-making power.

Prince was shooting for the top of the charts with Graffiti Bridge, and he missed. The movie was a disaster, causing the soundtrack to sell very poorly. Despite its poor showing, Graffiti Bridge is not a bad album; in fact, it's often very good. Prince wrote all of the songs, but only performed a little over half the tracks, leaving the rest for The Time, Mavis Staples, and Tevin Campbell. With the exception of The Time's slamming "Release It" and Campbell's "Round and Round," the best songs are the ones Prince performed himself. The George Clinton collaboration "We Can Funk," the psycho-blues of "The Question of U," the sinewy single "Thieves in the Temple," and the pop/rock of "Can't Stop This Feeling I Got," "Tick, Tick, Bang," and "Elephants & Flowers" make Graffiti Bridge a thoroughly enjoyable listen.