There have been at least two – maybe three or four- brilliant Prince albums released in 2015, but the one actually released by Prince is certainly not one of them. Of the two albums he released in 2014 it makes perfect sense that Prince would choose to take his cues from the rubbish one, and ‘Art Official Age’ has two of its songs revisited here, though the very fact he’s reworking songs he released less than 12 months previously is indicative of just what a half-purple-arsed hack job this is. Prince doesn’t even take sole production duties, handing over some of the reigns to some unknown 25 year old called Joshua Welton, who was presumably taking out the bins during the 4 minutes it must have taken Prince to finish this nonentity. And the production is terrible: so loud and brash that it’s impossible to tell how many of these songs were actually quite good before they were pummelled into weeping smithereens by a production that’s about as subtle as a hefty knee to the balls. The best you can say about ‘HITNRUN Phase 1’ (oh God please don’t subject us to phase 2…) is that it resembles more one of his weird 90’s albums rather than one of his truly dreadful ones.

‘Fun’ Fact: Each of Prince’s last 6’543 albums has been referred to as his ‘best since the 80’s’ by at least one person, a record recognised by Guinness. This isn’t even his best album since 2013.

Come on though, even the crap Prince albums have at least one great song on them don’t they? Indeed, though ‘1000 Xs and Os‘ was originally written for Rosie Gaines many moons ago

Album Link