Originals

It offers a window onto the playfulness of his improvisations and, in a structure that mimics the range of an actual Prince album, shifts nimbly between up-tempo songs and ballads, sweat and tears, near impossible to stay sitting still while listening.

That's the trick he managed to successfully pull throughout his career--making music that covered an enormous amount of stylistic range yet still sounded coherent and instantly enjoyable.

If you're a Prince bootleg freak you'll know most of it already, but if not it's a great introduction to his writing for outside productions. Often, the real revelation is how closely performers hew to his demos. [Jul 2019, p.48]

Creating songs for female artists, he fully (if somewhat licentiously) inhabits their personas, deadpanning about greeting a lover in his camisole over the electro pulse of Apollonia’s Make-Up. The highest compliment that could be paid to Originals is that if Prince had released it in the Eighties, no one would have batted an eyelid.

It's a wonderful listen, and the joy in creation that is obvious in these 15 tracks, is nearly enough to wipe out the sadness of his loss. Nearly. [Aug 2019, p.102]