Timeless Prince album

Sony Legacy

Extraordinary consistency, curiosity and creative ambition

Issued on the tenth anniversary of Prince’s death, Timeless is the fourth original album of vault material published by The Prince Estate. The compilation comprises ten previously unreleased songs, remastered by Prince’s former sound engineer Chris James, and sequenced in the chronological order in which they were originally recorded.

The oldest track on the compilation is I Am You, recorded in 1978 at Prince’s then home studio on France Avenue in Minneapolis. He performed the song live on only two occasions – his first ever public shows, held at the Capri Theater on 5 and 6 January 1979. Tick Tick Bang, better known as the version re-recorded by The Time and released on the Graffiti Bridge soundtrack in 1990 was originally created by Prince in 1981 at his Kiowa Trail home studio. Prince revisited the track in 1985 during his sessions at Sunset Sound but shelved it until it was resurfaced for The Time in 1989.

Another outtake from his Sunset Sound sessions of 1985, Heaven was laid down 26 May, and although was later considered for inclusion in Prince’s stage musical The Dawn but abandoned in 1986, the song, like others intended for the project was ultimately placed into the vault. The remaining songs on Timeless are recordings made at Paisley Park Studios. The first, being I Wonder, was laid down in August 1989 for no particular project in mind. Prince reworked the track in 1991 when it was retitled Eye Wonder but again with no home found for it the track remained unreleased.

Recorded in November 1991 during studio sessions for Carmen Electra’s self-titled album, With This Tear was originally intended for the debut solo project for Jevetta Steele and thus features Prince’s guide vocals. Orchestration arranged by Clare Fischer was added in January 1992, just days before Prince offered the track to Celine Dion, who re-recorded it with her own musicians and was released later that year as a last minute addition to her self-titled LP. A remastered version of Prince’s original With This Tear was released on 20 April 2026 as a standalone digital single marking the eve of the tenth anniversary of his death.

A casualty from the Emancipation sessions, Stone is a song written originally by Sandra St. Victor, Tom Hammer and Jules Van Veen, and entitled Nothing Left To Give. It was one of five songs Sandra gave to Prince in 1993 in the promise of a collaboration, following the cancellation of the trio’s album for which those songs were intended. The four other tracks Sandra gave to Prince and he subsequently re-recorded became Van Gough (issued via NPG Music Club 2001), Eve’ll Never B Another Fool (re-recorded and released by Chaka Khan 1998), Soul Sanctuary (Emancipation 1996), and a further unreleased track Livin’ 2 Die. Prince’s re-recording of Stone was likewise considered for Emancipation in 1995 but was ultimately withdrawn from the final configuration.

Laid down in 2003, Calabama is an early outtake from the sessions for Musicology. The Guilty Ones is a recording done on 16 October 2007 and is reportedly a dig at the drunken behaviour of audience members at his O2 Arena Earth Tour concert residency. Lyrics from the song were printed in the 2008 book 21 Nights, though the track itself remained unreleased. Timeless concludes with a live recording of How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore, which although dates from 1982 and was released as the B-side to Prince’s breakthrough single 1999 that year, the live version that appears on Timeless was captured during a concert on his Piano & A Microphone Tour days prior to his death in 2016.

This multi-format release is available as a single disc CD and vinyl. There are two versions of the vinyl format, both 140g weight, issued as standard black and purple marble.

Cover story

The image chosen for the cover of Timeless is a shot by Neil Lupin captured at the Hop Farm festival at Paddock Wood, UK during Prince’s headlining performance on 3 July 2011. In the finished artwork he is silhouetted out presumably because the album spans all Prince’s eras.

Performers

Vocals / all instr.

Prince

Drums

Michael Bland ^{With This Tear}

Programming

Kirk Johnson ^Stone

Orchestration

Clare Fischer ^{With This Tear}

Data

Producer

Prince

Label

NPG Records

Distribution

Sony Legacy

Released

Out on 28 August 2026

Running Time

41:56

Orig. Formats

Singles from Timeless

With This Tear

NPG Records

Released

20 April 2026

Distribution

Sony Legacy

US Chart Peak

Did not chart

UK Chart Peak

Did not chart

Format

1. With This Tear (3:51)