Two New Prince Albums Coming Soon

Prince hasn’t released an album since 2009, but that is expected to change soon as not only does he have a studio effort recorded with his 3RDEYEGIRL backing band in the can, he also is prepping a solo album as per a fascinating article in the Star Tribune.

The Star Tribune’s Jon Bream received a call on Saturday night from Prince’s rep asking him to swing by Paisley Park to hear the new album. Bream had an evening straight out of The Chappelle Show as he listened to the solo LP, for which no release date or title was shared. Prince wants to release the album immediately, but it appears his record label, Warners, doesn’t share his sense of urgency. “Every No. 1 song, every Top 10 song, every song in the Top 40 is at least six months old,” Prince told Bream. “We should be able to make music and put it out now.”

Among the tunes Bream heard was “The Gold Standard,” the LP’s long opening track which the writer describes as “percolating electro-funk, an update of classic Prince with a lyric that referenced the notions of ‘wild and rude’ from his previous days.” Bream wrote that the second track, “was a complex electronic discourse that was hard to grasp first time around.”

The Purple One himself wasn’t in attendance, but did participate in the listening session via a phone conference. Other tunes Bream discusses is a re-worked version of “Funk ‘n’ Roll,” which Prince and 3RDEYEGIRL debuted earlier this year on the Arsenio Hall Show and “This Could Be Us,” described as “a joyful ballad with some ecstatic Prince vocalizing.” Bream informs that the latter was inspired by a meme of Prince and Apollonia riding on a motorcycle from Purple Rain.