Prince albums discography

Prince's music career began when he signed a record deal with Warner Bros. Records in 1977 at 18 years of age. In 1978, he released his debut album, For You. He followed the release with Prince (1979), Dirty Mind (1980), and Controversy (1981), three albums that were certified platinum and shifted from For You's disco/soul route and instead blended New Wave, rock, pop, R&B, and funk, building up his success.

His 1982 album 1999, credited for being an enormous influence on the next few decades of dance, electro, house, and techno music,[3] sold over six million copies worldwide and became the fifth best-selling album of 1983.

The next album, Purple Rain, the first of three credited to Prince and The Revolution, was the 1984 soundtrack to his film-debut of the same name. In a runaway phenomenon of success, it sold over 22 million copies around the world and at one point, Prince had the number-one song, album, and film in the United States, a feat matching The Beatles' 1964 achievement with A Hard Day's Night. Soon tiring of the project's enormous success and consequent over-exposure, he and the band recorded throughout touring and planned a change of image and musical direction by means of a quick follow-up. 1985's Around the World in a Day released within a year of its predecessor and days after the lucrative Purple Rain tour was curtailed, had no lead single nor advance promotion. It inaugurated his own Paisley Park record label, and eschewing Purple Rain's rock and metal elements, headed off into psychedelic influences and instrumentation.

Prince and The Revolution continued multi-platinum success with the soundtrack to his second movie Under the Cherry Moon, 1986's Parade. It showed further expansion of his musical palette, in ongoing collaboration with band members Wendy Melvoin, Lisa Coleman and composer Clare Fischer. The film and album brought into play Broadway-style orchestration and French-influenced chanson arrangements but, like its predecessors, it also included tracks written, performed and produced entirely solo by Prince.

Following disputes about musical direction and a new style of presentation with an expanded 'soul-revue' flavor, Prince disbanded The Revolution at the end of the tour.

He resumed a solo career with 1987's Sign o' the Times, an experimental double album, which topped several critic end-of-year polls and was Grammy nominated for Album of the Year. The album's projected tour would largely be cancelled as Prince concentrated on developing the acclaimed concert film of the same name, filming in Europe and at his new Paisley Park facility in Chanhassen.

An untitled follow-up (eventually known as The Black Album), promotional copies of which were distributed before it was cancelled, became the most bootlegged album in the history of the music business to date. After a period in which he'd seemed more accessible and grounded, it also restored earlier enigma.

1988's Lovesexy (his first UK number-one record) built further on his mystique while recycling one of the Black Album tracks. During its subsequent tour, under some financial pressure, he suddenly became involved with production for a highly anticipated forthcoming Warner Bros. film production directed by Tim Burton, writing and producing songs for its soundtrack. His Batman album, inspired by the movie, ended his decade by selling 11 million copies worldwide as one of two soundtracks to Batman, the biggest-grossing movie in cinema history to that date.

Prince entered the 1990s with the soundtrack to his fourth movie, Graffiti Bridge. Its moderate success was dwarfed by his 1991 album Diamonds and Pearls which, mixing elements of new jack swing, R&B, jazz-soul, and hip hop and introducing his new band The New Power Generation, spawned several huge hit singles. In its wake, Prince signed what was touted as the biggest deal in music history, worth a reported $100m. However, after his 1992 follow-up, the Love Symbol Album, only scraped the five million copies he needed to advantage himself under the deal, he began to become dissatisfied with his record company, fearing they hadn't adequately promoted it, perhaps to disadvantage his side of the deal. Warner countered with requests for him to slow down on delivery of new projects and extend their term of promotion, a request denied by Prince. It was the beginning of a dispute which mushroomed rapidly.

By 1993, Prince had changed his name to an un-pronounceable symbol in order to escape the terms of his contract as the Warner-owned product, 'Prince'. He began demanding faster release by Warner of more projects than they were prepared to promote. In a growing effort to eject himself from his contract, his demands increased further to include ownership of his master recordings and he notoriously began to refer to himself as a 'Slave' to the company, wearing this word on his face in public and in negotiation with the label with resultant public embarrassment for both Warner's public image and his own. He also began to pursue erratic and unconventional promotional methods for his projects, whether under aliases or as part of projects by his band, now being planned under the auspices of a new label, NPG Records which Prince increasingly operated as if an independent venture using Warner as distributor.

In return for co-operating with Warner's The Hits/The B-Sides compilation albums, Prince, under his new name, was granted the opportunity to trial-release independently of Warner on his NPG imprint using an external distributor and label. The one-off experiment, his single "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World", might have demonstrated that he needed the clout of Warner Bros. for continued success but the single instead became an international smash, his first UK number one single, and wrangles between the parties continued with Warner Bros. gradually coming round to the idea of ending their arrangement.

To this end, Warner released several 'Prince' albums in quick succession, including Come and the first official release of his funk 'bootleg' The Black Album in 1994. The rock-influenced The Gold Experience had been planned by Prince for release under his new name in competition with Warner's 'Prince' products but it was delayed by the label until 1995, losing the momentum of its hit single. By 1996, his sales were at a fraction of what they had been prior to the dispute and the final new album he delivered to the label, 1996's Chaos and Disorder, saw his lowest chart performance since 1980.

Prince then began an independent career, licensing to record companies on limited deals or self-distributing via a succession of online operations. The first project, Emancipation was a 3-LP set licensed to EMI later in 1996. He continued with a bootleg-style collection of outtakes, Crystal Ball, which sold initially via his website in 1998. Now taking 100% of retail minus costs, Prince found even reduced sales to be much more profitable than at his commercial peak with Purple Rain under his prior percentage deal with Warner. As news of his achievement began to circulate in the changing music industry, Prince's reputation and influence began to recover as his prior struggles were vindicated. His innovation was later rewarded when he received a Webby award, the first recognition of his stance against major record companies as prescient of changes to come later in the industry as a whole and of his own online retailing as visionary and pioneering.

In the meantime, Prince was not advantaged by being ahead of the times. The poppy Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic in 1999, under a one-off deal with Arista Records, failed to deliver an anticipated return to former mainstream chart success. In 2001, while Warner released another successful compilation The Very Best of Prince and now using his birth name again, put out the critically successful jazz-influenced album The Rainbow Children but it struggled to achieve more than cursory media attention and saw poor sales. A solo piano album One Night Alone, sold again via his online operation, gave its name under slight variation to his first live set, the box set One Nite Alone...Live, which saw the big hits of his past redeveloped in the jazz mode of The Rainbow Children alongside many of its tracks in live form.

Adapting to low-sales profitability and developing his hardcore fanbase, now in close contact with his online business Prince, during the early part of the new century, was releasing much more low-key albums via his websites developing a prescient subscription-model for user music purchases.

He was also optimising and downsizing his touring setup and taking much closer involvement with its administration and management which involved minimal contractual involvements and more spontaneous campaigning on promotion and live appearances. A major mainstream 'comeback' soon followed with 2004's Musicology tour, whose album garnered five Grammy nominations and, availing of a loophole (closed behind him), in chart regulations, embedded album sales within ticket sales for the tour which were among the strongest of that year. The result that the album peaked within the Billboard top 3.

These cutting-edge promotional tactics were extremely effective in restoring Prince rapidly to the commercial high ground, and 3121 (2006), became his first album to debut at number one on the Billboard 200. The follow-up, Planet Earth (2007), licensed to record companies for the world was suddenly given away free as a cover-mount on a British newspaper, a very profitable exercise for Prince, particularly as in addition to providing an income from the paper equivalent to high sales, it also served to launch and promote a record-breaking single-venue booking in London, his 21 Nights residency at the Millennium Dome. Its follow-on live album Indigo Nights (2008), a collection of aftershow performances at the venue, was marketed within an expensive coffee-table book.

The three-disc 2009 set Lotusflow3r sold very well via the Target retailer in the US again seeing the inside of the top three in the Billboard 200. A further British newspaper cover-mount deal distributed 20Ten in 2010 although the exercise had reduced impact on the second outing and critical reception was poor. It was with the solo album Art Official Age and his new band 3rdeyegirl's debut Plectrumelectrum in 2014, that Prince finally returned to critical favour and headlines following the dynamic and spontaneous HitnRun tour which took London's media by storm and gave its name to the band's next album Hit n Run Phase One. First released exclusively on the new Tidal streaming service on September 7, 2015[4][5][6] before being released on CD on September 15, 2015 by NPG Records.[7][8] His final album before his death, Hit n Run Phase Two, was released on December 11, 2015, also through Tidal.

In the weeks following his death in April 2016, 19 different Prince albums charted on the Billboard 200 all at the same time, and he became the first and only artist ever to have 5 albums in the Billboard top 10 simultaneously.[9]

A^ With The Revolution

B^ With The New Power Generation

C^ With 3rdeyegirl

This section contains remix albums, mixtapes and premium/special (expanded) editions from previously released albums.

This section lists albums that have only been made available for download on the internet.

• Nilsen, Per; Joozt Mattheij (2004). The Vault – The Definitive Guide to the Musical World of Prince. Uptown. ISBN 91-631-5482-X.

• Guide2Prince Worldwide Prince discography
• Review of Prince's albums
• Prince albums discography discography at Discogs
• The Digital Garden List of unofficial Prince recordings