In the wake of Prince’s untimely and tragic death nearly two years ago, many fans expected that a flood of unheard material from the “Purple One’s” legendary vault would soon flood the market. While that expected wave of songs has yet to crash, we have gotten to enjoy a few eye-popping tracks here and there, most notably on a deluxe edition of his iconic 1984 album Purple Rain.
Today, Prince’s estate released another unreleased item out into the world; his original recording of the song “Nothing Compares 2 U,” that he later gave to Irish singer Sinead O’Connor. Prince recorded the song back in 1984 at the Flying Cloud Drive ‘Warehouse’ in Eden Prairie, where he composed, arranged and performed the whole thing entirely by himself, minus the backing vocals by Susannah Melvoin and Paul “St. Paul” Peterson, and a spine-tingling sax solo from Eric Leeds.
“After retrieving my jaw from the floor, we took the reel upstairs, analyzed it, put it up on the Studer 24 track machine, and digitized it to 24/192,” Prince archivist Michael Howe said in a statement. “Even our ‘faders up’ rough mix was compelling enough to indicate that this was something very special indeed.”
To help give viewers a better sense of the time and era that the song was originally recorded in, a new video was created using previously-unseen footage of Prince and his seminal band The Revolution practicing in that same Eden Prairie warehouse where the song was laid down in 1984.
You can watch the video for “Nothing Compares 2 U,” above and pre-order the limited-edition picture disc single here.
