Prince - The Hits/The B-Sides (CD 2005)

prince is amazing and this cd is a must for anyone who wants a reminder of some of his greatest songs!!

its a prince extravaganza!,if you've never heard any of prince's music before,this is the album for you,it covers his early career up until 94

The question that plagues all pop music academics: Can there ever be a perfect compilation?

Can a 'Greatest hits' - even by a supernaturally talented musician like Prince - reach the heights of an original album? Or should that even be the aim of the compilation? Should the aim of the compilation be to gather songs for the fair-weather fans, those who'd always liked that odd tune but couldn't be bothered wading through an entire cataogue? Or should the compilation be for hard-core fans; the fan-a-tics, if you will?

'THE HITS/THE B-SIDES' attempts to be all of the above with an equal amount of success and failure.

On the one hand, the 2 CDs of 'HITS' contain pretty much all that the fair-weather fan could want from Prince's golden period: 'Purple Rain', '1999','U Got The Look', etc. However, the inclusion of several album tracks ('Adore', 'Do Me Baby') and a God-awful version of 'Nothing Compare 2 U' in place of the singles 'Girls & Boys','Batdance' & 'I wish U heaven' is perplexing. And the choice of some of the edits is equally confusing: why the seven-inch mixes of 'Kiss', 'Sign o the times' & '1999', but the full-length versions of 'Alphabet St' & 'Purple Rain'?

For the obsessed, the rainbow pot was always going to be the 3rd disc, 'The B-sides'. An out-dated concept in this age of the download, but there was a time when the B-side was the true dip-stick of an artists worth. If he/she/they can throw something precious that may only survive optimistically for a matter of months (and only then if it was coupled with a big hit), then you knew you had the real thing. The 20 examples here, give or take the sappy 'I Love u in me', give fans more manna from Prince's untouchable period - before the name changes and nostalgia-only concerts. From the 'Around the world...' off-cut 'She's always in my hair' to one of THE all-time great Christmas songs 'Another lonely Christmas' - 'The B-sides' is the worthiest disc unto itself of all 3 CDs, and the only disc never seperately released. Hmmm.

Perhaps the compilers of 'HITS/THE B-SIDES' were attemping a new marketing ploy: to turn the fair-weather fans into Prince-maniacs and thus sell crate- loads of whole Prince albums. If that was the thinking, then the seperate releases of the first two 'HIT' CDs scuppered even that bright idea.

In this age of the download, Greatest Hits compilations may suffer more than any other type of traditional release, for better or worse. After all, if you can download and burn your few faves why bother forking out for the whole raft of dross that goes with it? But this overlooks that sometimes those obscure little ditties - the 'Where the heart is', the 'Absolute beginners', the 'Bizarre love triangle'; damnit, the 'Take me with U' - they became your favourites, while the big hits grew tiresome with repetition.

Prince is one of the few truly great musicians, and is hopefully still capable of at least one more classic album (which last year's Daily Mail freebie, 'Earth', most certainly wasn't). Whether there'll ever be a classic Prince compilation is even more contentious - there could certainly be better than this confusing collection and the cheap compilations released since.

For what he's already done, Prince deserves every music lover's salute. He brought funk and melodies to an unfunky, unmelodious age. Just tread carefully, newcomers, try 'Parade' or 'Sign O The Times' first, and pray that we'll see Prince's like again.

Having been a teenager in the 80s, I started to get into the music scene around 1984-85. Prince was always in the charts back then. Listening to the music now just emphasises how talented he is. Prince (his real name) was able to play a whole orchestra of instruments at a very young age. Almost as famous for the songs he has written for other artists, as a singer and musician his talents are pretty much unrivalled. The 3 CDs include many B-sides I have never heard before and many of them are A-side quality. The CD collection does contain a few explicit songs, including the unedited version of Sexy MF, so be wary of playing around children. I loved the CDs. They brought back a lot of memories of the 80s, but also informed me that a few artists hits were originally written by Prince, such as Chaka Khan's I feel for you. Very pleased with this item.