Every Prince Album, Ranked
Prince Rogers Nelson was a musical giant whose talent was only rivaled by his confidence. Strutting onto the charts at the end of the ‘70s, his sexually and sonically adventurous fusion of funk, rock, pop, and electronic turned him into one of the defining artists of the ’80s alongside Michael Jackson and Madonna. His 1984 album Purple Rain made him an arena headliner and, briefly, a movie star. But Prince, always two or three albums ahead of his audience, never stopped to bask in the spotlight.
He was prolific in ways that the music industry literally couldn’t handle, and his successful early career at Warner Bros. ended when the label failed to keep up with his output. Changing names and labels alienated some fans, but Prince kept coming back — adding to his legacy with mind-blowing tours, TV appearances, and occasionally brilliant new songs. By the time he died suddenly in 2016 at age 57, he’d made 38 albums under his own name, plus writing and producing dozens more for various proteges and associates.
38. The Slaughterhouse (2004)
“This is the kind of stuff that requires patience,” Prince intones through grating vocal effects on Slaughterhouse opener “Silicon.” It’s an understatement. On the eve of Prince’s major label comeback Musicology, his website NPG Music Club released two MP3 albums of songs featured on the subscription service since 2001. The Slaughterhouse is Prince at his most insular, with often tedious material that mostly sounds like the artist aimlessly joking around in the studio. But “Golden Parachute” is one of Prince’s funkiest and most incisive critiques of the music industry, lyrically barbed yet butter-smooth.
37. Xpectation (2003)
On Jan. 1, 2003, Prince fans woke up to a surprise: his first completely instrumental solo album, released exclusively through his NPG Music Club website. The best tracks, including “Xogenous,” feature Prince on guitar trading licks with Vanessa-Mae, the British violinist who sold millions of albums in the 1990s with her interpretations of classical music. Unfortunately, aside from a squelchy, strange guitar effect on “Xpand,” Xpectation rarely rises above the level of elevator music from an overqualified cast.
36. HITnRUN Phase One (2015)
HITnRUN Phase One kicks off with snippets of “1999” and “Let’s Go Crazy,” reminding you how a great Prince album opens. But after a segue into “Million $ Show,” reality sets in that you’re absolutely not listening to a great Prince album. A rare instance of Prince deferring to a co-producer, Joshua Welton’s opulent electro beats on Phase One ride the 2010s EDM zeitgeist with mixed results. But the smooth highlight is “1000 X’s & O’s,” a song that had been kicking around in different forms since 1992. “When this album does succeed – which it does on its back half – it’s because Prince and Welton have achieved a balance between dance and funk in which each genre brings out the best in the other,” wrote Abigail Covington in the AV Club review.
35. The Chocolate Invasion (2004)
The Chocolate Invasion, like its companion album The Slaughterhouse, compiles NPG Music Club loosies. But these songs are better, highlighted by horny standouts like “Underneath the Cream” and “Sexmesexmenot.” “Vavoom” is a strutting rocker with squealing guitar leads, and “U Make My Sun Shine” is a romantic duet with Angie Stone. Still, both albums were understandably overshadowed by the release of Prince’s comeback album Musicology a few weeks later.
