The two-disc Ultimate is the third compilation to cover Prince's royal Warner Brothers years. Stretching from the 1979 release of his eponymous second album to the 1992 "love symbol" record, the collection follows in the footsteps of 1993's The Hits (two separately available CDs, also packaged with The B-Sides in a box set) and the skimpy single-disc collection The Very Best of Prince, which was lost in the shuffle upon release in mid-2001.
It's nice to see this material given chronological treatment, given Hits' haphazard sequencing; Prince started out in a world of his own, but it was one quite different from the place he would occupy by the mid-80s. Early tracks like "I Wanna Be Your Lover", "Uptown", and "Controversy" (anything calling itself The Ultimate Prince should have also included "When You Were Mine") were lean and economical, getting by with spare instrumentation and deliciously cheesy synths. Then came the radical shift: When the opening hook of "1999" kicks in, you can almost feel the stagelights flaring and Prince's world flooding with color (mostly purple; some blue, magenta, and gold). The first shot fired in Prince's ruthless assault on the 80s pop charts, the song also began one of the most creative and productive runs in popular music history: From "1999" until the end of the decade, you could count on Prince to make the radio a lot better a couple times a year.
Nearly all the big hits are included on Ultimate Prince, but one unusual decision is going to leave some listeners cold. While the first disc is filled with radio edits of singles (an exception is the 8:40 album version of "Purple Rain"), a number of significant additions are included only on the second disc in extended dance remix form. So while "Let's Go Crazy", "Pop Life, "Kiss", and others are present, none is shorter than six minutes, and "Little Red Corvette" alone runs well past eight.
It's an unusual strategy, but one that works for the most part. Most of the remixes are by Prince himself, so the fact that "Hot Thing" and "Raspberry Beret", for example, are only available here in longer mixes doesn't diminish the set. It could be an issue for someone new to Prince who hasn't already committed the songs to memory, but for someone like me, who hasn't pulled out the old vinyl in a while, hearing these familiar songs get some modest tweaking is enjoyable. If the absence of "When You Were Mine" is the biggest complaint on Disc 1, worse is the lack of "Erotic City" on Disc 2: The seven-and-a-half minute-long classic would have been perfectly suited for the extended mixes disc, and indeed, seems like the best reason for such a collection to exist.
What most comes to mind while revisiting these tracks is how Prince conquered the world with such a singular vision. His world of sex, love, sex, political commentary, and sex managed to seem universal, even as the person behind the music remained unknowable. His music brought out the freakier side in everybody, and his erotic obsessions-- for as much heat as he once took for them-- now seem surprisingly healthy, predicated on mutual pleasure created by equals. If I had a son and he was going to learn something about sex, he could do a lot worse than listening to Prince records.
James McNew of Yo La Tengo named his 2001 Dump album of home-recorded Prince covers That Skinny Motherfucker With the High Voice?. The title was a reference to one of Prince's stranger 80s tracks, "Bob George" from The Black Album. The line jumps out because it was, one imagines, the gut reaction of a certain segment of listeners who first encountered this strange man. Rolling Stones fans who booed him offstage during his opening slot on the Still Life tour were booing "that skinny motherfucker with the high voice" (although they may have added "in his bikini underwear and thigh-high stockings"). But the amazing thing about Prince is that he eventually won these people over, and just about everyone else, too. You'd never expect such a big-tent approach from a pop star this strange and mysterious. Imagine anyone who cares about music being unable to find least one track in the Prince oeuvre to love. He eventually reached almost everybody, and he did it by forcing us to see the world his way.
