Prince’s Estate Releasing LP of ‘Originals,’ Featuring Songs He Wrote for Other Artists, June

The estate of Prince has pulled out the stops, so to speak, since the iconic musician/cultural figure passed away in 2016, releasing a number of archival titles and adding his rich legacy of music to streaming platforms for the first time. (His official memoir, which was in the works before his death, is also coming out this fall).

And on June 7, to mark his birthday, a special album titled Originals will be released that celebrates the many songs he wrote that were recorded (and, in some cases, were huge hits) for other artists, per a report from Variety.

This list includes “Nothing Compares 2 U,” which was penned by Prince for the Family but later became a mega-hit for Irish singer Sinead O’Connor in 1990.

As Variety detailed, the 15-track Originals album will stream exclusively in high quality via Tidal on  June 7, and two weeks later on June 21 it will be wide-released on all other streaming platforms and in physical formats for fans.

Pre-order Originals in a number of physical formats at this link. More details about the release and teh context of the songs included in it:

By the mid-1980s, Prince was dominating the charts even as a writer/producer with songs he’d composed and recorded for others. In addition to releasing nine of his most commercially successful full-length albums, he also wrote and recorded endless reels of material for proteges The Time, Vanity 6, Sheila E., Apollonia 6, Jill Jones, the Family, and Mazarati. Occasionally, Prince’s original demo recordings would be used as master takes on their albums, with only minor alterations to the instrumentation and a replacement of the vocal tracks. Other times, artists would rely on his demos to guide them through their own recording process, with Prince’s initial take informing their final version of his song. The aggregate effect was a complete saturation and transformation of the pop music landscape, with Prince both leading and subverting mainstream culture.