Prince
So the music of the pop star lives on to this day
Thanks to his archive, Prince’s unreleased songs will continue to find their way to the public in the future.
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On April 21, five years ago, Prince died at the age of only 57. The music of the pop star has not been forgotten to this day. That is his legacy.
Prince (“Purple Rain”) died on April 21, 2016 at the age of 57. Five years later, his music lives on, whether on streaming platforms, on the radio or on television. And there are even more new songs: In July, a previously unheard album will be released. According to The Prince Estate and the US label Legacy Recordings “Welcome 2 America” will be released on July 30th. Prince wrote the work in 2010, twelve songs can be heard on it.
Thematically, the album could not fit better today: The long player is a “powerful, creative statement that documents Prince’s concerns, hopes and visions for a changing society and anticipates an era of political division, disinformation” and a renewed struggle for justice as it says in the message. In the title song of the same name “Welcome 2 America”, Prince can be heard with a spoken monologue in which he denounces, among other things, the superficiality in social media and celebrities who have become famous through reality TV.
It is the first long player with unheard music that has been released since his death. “Welcome 2 America” should have been released back in 2011 – Prince, however, let the album disappear into his legendary vault “The Vault” and now it is only being made public posthumously through his estate.
There is still a “huge” amount of unreleased music slumbering in the Prince archive
A super deluxe version of the successful album “Sign O ‘The Times” with 63 unreleased songs from 1985 to 1987 was released last year. The treasure trove of previously unreleased material is immense. “The Vault”, the archive of the pop star, is said to contain numerous albums and songs.
As the administrator of “The Vault” Michael Howe, 2019 in an interview with “Spiegel Online” said that “the amount of music that Prince produced and then discarded (…) is enormous”. “We spend every day in this archive. There is still work to be done here for years to come,” Howe said. “The Vault” was brought from its traditional location in the Paisley Park Studio in Minneapolis to Hollywood, where it “is very well guarded in a secret and safe place (…). You could call it a fortress”. Fans of the legendary artist will probably get their money’s worth for several years to come. Prince lives on in his music.