Originals

The production values here exceed most of the finished works: not so much blueprints as purpleprints. [Summer 2019, p.118]

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.

It’s a cohesive and extremely well-curated compilation, but several of the songs will be unfamiliar even to serious followers, and at the end of the day, it’s a collection of recordings that Prince never intended for the world to hear. Regardless, there’s plenty to get excited about.

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.

There are a couple of less-inspired contributions, notably the glossy country-pop “You’re My Love,” which Kenny Rogers recorded in 1986. But the overriding impression is wonderment: Prince was on such a roll that he was giving away tracks that could’ve provided the backbone for at least another terrific album of his own during this era, music that ranges from the funk mischief of “Jungle Love” to the falsetto tenderness of “Baby, You’re a Trip.”

Originals offers a tantalizing glimpse of Prince as an artist whose creativity extended in so many directions at once that his own discography couldn’t contain it.

With its cohesive vision, it also proves that, properly curated, the material in Prince’s Vault contains a body of work that would rival Dylan’s Bootleg Series for both quality control and cultural importance. The next volume can’t come quick enough.

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.

The whole thing sounds like a great lost album. Which of course it is. [Summer 2019, p.93]

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]

All but one are previously unreleased and show not only how prolific he was but how much work he put into these demo recordings, which sound as good as the finished product. Better yet, it’s an example of the quality of material still lurking in the Prince archives. This hour-long collection will more than satiate fans of the artist until the next batch inevitably appears.

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]

The 15 songs range from entertaining throwaways to top-shelf Prince, making this basically a very good golden-era Prince album, with material recorded entirely between 1981-85 but for the ’91 version of “Love… Thy Will Be Done,” a hit that year for Martika.