Prince left his masters where they safe and sound
We never gonna let the elevator take him down
In his recent feature on the remix of Remy Ma and Fat Joe‘s All The Way Up, Jay Z explicitly referenced the fact that the late, great Prince had effectively bestowed the rights to a great deal of his catalogue to Hov’s streaming service Tidal. Since its beginnings in early 2014, Prince had taken all of his music away from other services like Spotify, and his last two albums, HITnRUN Phase One and HITnRUN Phase Two were released exclusively on the service. Now, it seems like there’s a whole lot more potentially on the way.
Today we honor @Prince https://t.co/We5OlPBrLl pic.twitter.com/ct5j5hx2E6
— TIDAL (@TIDALHiFi) June 7, 2016
This week marked what would have been Prince’s 58th birthday, a day which has now officially come to known as Prince Day in his home state of Minnesota. Many tributes have continued to pour in, including PETA re-releasing his pro-vegan single Animal Kingdom. Now, Tidal have exclusively unveiled fifteen of Prince’s rarest, or perhaps ‘weirdest’ albums. The collection includes live performances, remixes, compilations and more, with the oldest album being The Black Album from 1987, and the most recent being 2008’s Indigo Nights, which was a live album that came alongside a coffee table book.
As The Verge confirm, many of these albums are his strangest works to date. “After extricating himself from his contractual obligation to Warner Bros., Prince began to work and release music at a pace that boggled the minds of even his most devoted fans, and these releases — starting with 1996’s mammoth Emancipation— are the fruit of that labor. They’re exploratory, overlong, and openly spiritual.”
Considering his complete output is one of the most extensive of all time, most of these aren’t necessary additions to the casual Prince fan’s listening. However, they are certainly gems for the collector and for the die-hard fans.
The Black Album (1987)
The Gold Experience (1995)
Chaos & Disorder (1996)
Crystal Ball (1998)
1999: The New Master (1999)
Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic (1999)
Rave In2 the Joy Fantastic (2001)
The Rainbow Children (2001)
One Nite Alone… Live! (2002)
One Nite Alone… The Aftershow: It Ain’t Over (2002)
Indigo Nights (2008)
As The New Power Generation:
Exodus (1995)
Newpower Soul (1998)
As various:
1-800-NEW-FUNK (1994)
Girl 6 (1996)
Image: Tidal