Prince

Up All Nite With Prince: The One Nite Alone Collection brings the electrifying power of Prince’s 2002 studio and live releases together in one stunning package. This 4CD/1DVD set includes One Nite Alone…, Prince’s striking piano-and-vocal studio album (in its first commercial CD release); the double-disc One Nite Alone…Live! featuring recent jams (“Muse 2 The Pharaoh,” “1+1+1 Is 3”) and classic favorites (“Raspberry Beret,” “Nothing Compares 2 U,” “When U Were Mine”); the high-energy One Nite Alone…The Aftershow: It Ain’t Over! with guest appearances by George Clinton and Musiq Soulchild; and the Live At The Aladdin Las Vegas DVD. The ultimate Prince concert experience is here!

Left to his own devices, Prince will indulge in his peculiar vice of releasing triple-albums. He celebrated his freedom from Warner with Emancipation, following that with another triple-disc in Crystal Ball, which just happened to be the provisional title of the scrapped three-LP iteration of 1987's Sign o' the Times, he had a triple-live set in 2002, and now he's navigating the rough waters of online distribution and exclusive contracts with big box retailers in 2009 with another triple-disc set called LotusFlow3r…

Even geniuses (maybe especially geniuses) are taken for granted, not seen as geniuses, or only appreciated in small doses. Which is a grandiose way of saying that, no matter how partisans may complain, there are many listeners out there that don't want to delve into the deliriously rich catalog of Prince and would rather spend time with a single disc of all the hits – especially since the first singles compilation was botched, spread too thin over two discs and sequenced as if it were on shuffle play.

This is by far one of the best Prince compilations out there. It has unreleased songs, extended and different versions of released songs, and both funk and slow songs…

Add 3121 to the mounting pile of evidence: Prince is the black Beck. He's a whole lot sexier, no doubt, but there's more to both musicians than image. All-out weirdness for one. Edginess for another. And a fine-tuned sense of how to combine the two to create some of the decade's most vital music for a third. Prince–looking ageless in videos for the first two singles, the controversy-courting "Black Sweat" and the sauna-steeped "Te Amo Corazon"–proves fearless as ever here, folding fat slabs of disco-funk into rock, heaping measured doses of hip-hop atop soul-tinted jazz supports, and slamming Latin rhythms against old-school R&B riffs. Nothing sounds as slinky-stylish-smart. And nobody delivers quite so deliciously, especially when what they're delivering is ultimately a madcap sonic mash. The usual hype surrounding a Prince release attended this one; over the long-term, expect a few standouts within a way worth-it set to emerge. They include the danceable "Love"; the gospel-lite falsetto feast "Satisfied"; and the summer-breezy "Beautiful, Loved & Blessed".

The Super Deluxe Edition contains 75 audio tracks across 7 CDs, of which 47 are previously unreleased, including 33 studio tracks from Prince’s legendary Vault. • The Super Deluxe Edition opens with Prince & The New Power Generation’s multi-platinum album, Diamonds And Pearls, dazzlingly remastered for the very first time by Prince’s original mastering engineer Bernie Grundman. Also included are 15 of the incredible remixes and B-sides from the era, including the never commercially released “Gett Off (Damn Near 10 Min.)” mix, all of which have also been remastered for the very first time. At the heart of the set sit 33x previously unreleased studio recordings from Prince’s legendary Vault, making up three hours of audio. The set also includes an entire previously unreleased audio recording of Prince & The New Power Generation’s preview performance of the Diamonds And Pearls tour at Prince’s Minneapolis club, Glam Slam, on January 11th, 1991.