Reimagining Prince’s Greatest Albums

To be an enthusiastic Prince fan is to find yourself wondering what might have been. Having one of the most prolific musicians of all time working under the restrictions of a label reluctant to release too much material into what they only saw as a market meant that a great deal of music would be relegated to the proverbial cutting room floor. Some songs would emerge as B-sides, others would be given to other artists in his orbit, but most would be relegated to Prince’s infamous Vault, with a fraction of the material having since been leaked by various sources.

As an exercise in exploring these alternate realities, I went through his albums from Purple Rain to Sign of the Times and reassembled them using various b-sides, bootlegs, and alternate versions. My versions of Around the World and Parade can be found on my Mixcloud page.

The rare opportunity to make an album and integrated feature film came at a time when Prince somehow combined the freshness of a new discovery with the pedigree of an industry veteran. Purple Rain was the result of an artist looking over the event horizon of popular music and seeming to see everything at once. The album shifts effortlessly between styles and genres, between radio-friendly accessibility and brash experimentation, and yet you’d struggle to find an album with a more cohesive sound.

This reconception of Purple Rain restores the uncut singles and alternate versions of the album tracks against previously unreleased material like “G-Spot”, which was originally considered in-place of “Darling Nikki”, and “Electric Intercourse”, the epic ballad that acted as a placeholder for “Purple Rain”.

Track List

Let’s Go Crazy (Film Intro/ Special Dance Mix)

Take Me With U

17 Days

G Spot (Guide Vocal)

Purple Rain Music Excerpt

The Beautiful Ones (Unreleased Alternate Version)

Computer Blue (Extended Hallway Speech)

Darling Nikki (Unreleased Alternate Version)

When Doves Cry (Remix)

I Would Die 4 U (12″ Version, Edited)

Baby I’m a Star

Electric Intercourse

Purple Rain (Film Version)

God

Father’s Song

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If the last couple of releases saw Prince partly losing his command of fans and critics, Sign of the Times was as much as a return to form as it was a new beginning. Having started the sessions with The Revolution for a project called Dream Factory, conflicts surrounding its release and Prince’s rearrangement of their touring band resulted in the album being canceled and the group being disbanded; an act of creative destruction that paved the way for something entirely new.

With the death of Dream Factory came the birth of Camille, an alter-ego Prince created to tap into darker feelings and musical choices than he would allow himself unmasked. If some fans considered his follow ups to Purple Rain too bright and void of funk, Camille’s first effort, “Housequake”, was appropriately announced as an aftershock. While he initially intended to release the album under this pseudonym, Prince eventually decided to combine this new output with the Dream Factory sessions to create a triple album called Crystal Ball. Aware no artist had ever made a truly successful triple album, Warner Brother’s insisted that the music be confined to two discs, which would eventually be titled Sign of the Times.

The result was a collection of great songs and possibly one of the greatest albums of all time, but like the Beatles’ White Album, Sign of the Times does sometimes feel more like a compilation than it does a singular album. Keeping that in mind, I avoided the temptation to treat this version like a greatest hits of unreleased material, favoring the minimal funk and soul conceived at a moment when Prince once again seemed secure of his place in the world when left alone in the studio.

Track List

Crystal Ball

Housequake (Unreleased Camille Remix)

Shockadelica

Hot Thing (Electric Adolescence Edit)

Baby Go Go (Guide Vocal)

It

Strange Relationship (Unreleased Alternate Version)

If I Was Your Girlfriend

Sign O the Times

Forever In My Life

The Ballad of Dorothy Parker

Starfish and Coffee

Power Fantastic

Joy In Repetition (Demo Version)

Adore

The Cross