Yeah, I was completely baiting you when I said that this 1986 stone cold classic and eighth stop on our annual trawl through the most interesting back catalogue in 20th century pop might have been named the best album of 2025. It isn’t, and no Prince album on this journey ever will be named as the album of the year: While these annual lists can contain records from all kinds of points in recent and ancient musical history (this year’s list already has ancient texts dating all the way back from 2022), the #1 album always needs to have been released in the qualifying 12 month period. I’m not saying that my personal favourite ever Prince album would have been named #1 if it could, all I’m saying is that it couldn’t. It also means the competition announced on Christmas Day is still open! Nobody’s won it yet! Nobody’s entered it, admittedly, but I assume that’s because all my millions (and millions!) of readers are still just thinking really hard about it.

By 1986, it had essentially always been Prince and The Revolution. Ever since Prince needed a backing band to tour his recently released (and completely self-composed) debut album in 1979, that group (Dez Dickerson on guitar and backing vocals, Andre Cymone on bass guitar, Bobby Z on drums and percussion, Gayle Chapman on keyboards and, obviously, Matt “Dr.” Fink on keyboards) may not have had an official name yet, but they were the first building blocks of what would soon become by far and away Prince’s greatest ever collaborators. When Gayle Champman was replaced by  Lisa Coleman in 1980 and Brown Mark replaced Andre Cymone the year after, this thrillingly tight and unbelievably exciting live band were considered at least enough of a part of the Prince package to be given… a hidden backwards credit on the ‘1999‘ album cover.

Goodness will guide us if love is inside us?