Still, given that he booked a tour with the same name and that this sequence has a distinct consistency to its vibe and lyrical approach, it's not a stretch to take the estate at its word.) Had the album been released as a follow-up to 20Ten it would have been a welcome improvement and may have even made that lazy LP seem like a discographical aberration. (Despite his estate's insistence, there is still some debate as to whether this is actually a true "lost Prince album," as it was never mastered or given artwork at the time, and Prince would often cobble together sequences of contemporaneous songs for consideration as an album. Even these albums-being Prince albums, after all-managed to each have a few spectacular moments (20Ten, while among the weakest of all Prince studio outings, still contains one of his very best ballads- "Future Soul Song.")Įmerging from the vault as a relic from this era is Welcome 2 America, a putative "lost album" that Prince reportedly shelved at the last minute. The resulting music Prince made tended toward the clinical and anodyne, including the mediocre-to-disappointing albums Planet Earth and Musicology that consisted of boring songs played expertly. Throughout the first decade of the 21st century Prince was often surrounded by highly talented musicians who were a little too in awe of his royal badness to push him into new directions. When it comes to the work he did with his bands, there is a clear difference in quality with the Revolution, the first incarnation of the New Power Generation, and 3rdeyegirl versus what he did with other lineups, which largely consisted of highly skilled but mostly personality-free players who tended to fall in line, rather than raise the stakes or add colors to the mix. The man released albums' worth of superlative material that just poured directly from his brain with no intermediation. Broadly speaking, Prince's musical output was almost always improved when he was collaborating with musicians who kept him on his toes creatively.