A new retrospective album featuring unreleased and rare selections excavated from Prince’s legendary music archive is scheduled for release this summer, offering fans a rare look at material spanning nearly the entirety of the late artist’s career.
Titled Timeless, the 10-track project is being issued by Prince’s estate in partnership with Legacy Recordings. The album draws from recordings created between the late 1970s and 2016, making it the first Prince vault release assembled to represent every major era of his musical journey. The seven-time Grammy Award winner, who passed away in April 2016 at age 57, achieved 19 top-10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 over his career.
According to promotional materials, “Timeless” traces Prince’s remarkable artistic evolution across nearly four decades, from his earliest studio recordings as a teenage prodigy in Minneapolis to one of his final recorded performances. The estate noted that “the collection showcases the extraordinary consistency, curiosity and creative ambition that defined his work throughout his life, offering fans a rare opportunity to hear previously unheard chapters of his creative journey.”
The set includes rare and unreleased tracks recorded from 1977 through 2016, beginning with “I Am You,” an early home recording from Prince’s formative years, and concluding with a live version of “How Come You Don’t Call Me Anymore?” captured during one of his final Piano & A Microphone performances. Other selections include the original version of “Tick Tick Bang,” later reworked for Graffiti Bridge, the previously unreleased songs “Heaven” and “I Wonder,” the 2003 recording “Calabama,” “The Guilty Ones,” and “Bestest Friend.”
To preview the project, the estate has made an unreleased 1995 studio track titled “Stone” available on digital streaming networks. The song was composed by Sandra St. Victor, Tom Hammer, and Jules Van Even. It follows a prior digital teaser released in April, “With This Tear,” a 1991 composition written and entirely performed by Prince before he later gifted the piece to Celine Dion. Listen to ‘Stone’ – HERE
Timeless will be released Aug. 28; presave: HERE.
Editorial credit: Anthony Correia / Shutterstock.com