Timeless Prince album

Sony Legacy

album

If it takes too long, Prince starts to sink out of the collective consciousness.

Issued in the tenth anniversary year of Prince’s death, Timeless is the fourth original album of vault material published by The Prince Estate since 2016. The compilation comprises ten previously unreleased songs and is remastered by Prince’s former recording engineer Chris James.

The tracks are sequenced in the chronological order in which they were originally conceived. The oldest is the funk groove I Am You which was recorded in 1977 at Sound 80 in Minneapolis when Prince was aged nineteen. Prince would perform the song live on only two occasions – both during his first ever public shows staged at the Capri Theater on 5th and 6th of January 1979. Tick Tick Bang, better known as the version re-recorded for Graffiti Bridge soundtrack in 1990, was created by Prince in 1981 at Hollywood Sound Recorders intended for Vanity 6. Prince revisited the track during his 1985 sessions at Sunset Sound but shelved it until resurfaced in 1989. The Timeless version is his 1981 ska punk original.

Another outtake of Prince’s Sunset Sound sessions of 1985 Heaven was laid down on 26 May and although was later considered for inclusion in Prince’s stage musical The Dawn, when that project was abandoned in 1986 the song like others intended for it ended up in the vault. The compilation’s remaining tracks are recordings completed at Paisley Park Studios. The oldest of these I Wonder was laid down on 5 August 1989 with no particular project in mind. Prince added overdubs to the track in 1991 when he retitled it Eye Wonder but again finding no suitable project for it the song remained unreleased.

Originating from 19 November 1991 in the studio sessions for the self-titled debut album for Carmen Electra, With This Tear was intended for the debut solo project for Jevetta Steele and thus features Prince on piano and his guide vocals. Accompanying orchestration arranged by Clare Fischer was added to the track in January 1992 just days before Prince offered the song to Celine Dion, who re-recorded it with her own musicians and released later that year as a late addition for her self-titled LP. The remastered version of Prince’s original With This Tear was released on 20 April 2026 as a stand-alone digital single to commemorate the eve of the tenth anniversary of his death – it is understood that at that time Timeless was not yet an active project (officially announced on 4 June).

A casualty from the Emancipation sessions, Stone was written originally by lyricists Sandra St. Victor, Vernon Jeffrey Smith and Jules Van Veen when entitled Nothing Left To Give. It was one of five songs Sandra handed to Prince in 1993 in the promise of a future collaboration following the cancellation of the trio’s own album for which those songs were intended. Those four other tracks given to Prince by Sandra, 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 still as yet unreleased track Livin’ 2 Die. Prince adjusted the lyrics and rearranged and retitled the songs. His reworking of Stone took place on 30 April 1995 and was likewise considered for Emancipation but ultimately withdrawn from the final thirty-six track configuration.

Laid down on 21 January 2003, Calabama was the opening track in an early configuration of the Musicology album. The song is more familiarly known in live shows as the portion performed as Prince And The Band and was an occasional feature in setlists until 2012. Calabama is a rap in which Prince pointedly warns against recording contracts. Prince And The Band was later developed into a separate song the day following the recording The Song Of The Heart in August 2006, when making two versions of the track just days apart – initially a solo recording and then a longer reworking featuring a full band. Both 2006 versions of Prince And The Band and the 2003 unaltered original Calabama were released by the Prince Estate on 9 October 2026 to give transparency because it was subsequently revealed that the version as presented on Timeless contained live horns actually recorded in 2026 a decade after Prince’s death, raising concerns how many other songs either previously released or yet to be published have undergone postpartum alteration at the direction of the Estate.

The Guilty Ones is a recording made on 26 October 2007 and reportedly digs at the drunken behaviour of audience members at his O2 Arena Earth Tour concert residency. Lyrics from the song were reproduced in Prince’s 2008 photo book 21 Nights although the track itself remained unreleased. The compilation’s final studio recorded track Bestest Friend was laid down on 3 September 2012 with no particular project in mind and samples Maybe by Emeli Sandé.

Timeless concludes with the live recording of How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore. Although the song was conceived in 1982 and previously B-side for Prince’s breakthrough single 1999 that year, the live version included in Timeless was captured in Oakland during a concert staged at the Oracle Arena as part of his Piano & A Microphone Tour performed on 4 March 2016, days prior to his death that April. The track thus bookends Prince’s career from one of his earliest recordings, I Am You – created in the year he was first signed to Warner Bros Records – to one of the final recordings made in his lifetime. Timeless is the first compilation in Prince’s discography to include songs covering all five decades of his career as a professional musician.

Timeless is a showreel of Prince’s lesser-known vault outtakes highlighting the scope and quality of his unreleased catalogue. The release was at some point considered to produce a double album with as many as seventy songs being considered for it. Those that were ultimately excluded was on the premise of being more suitable for other theme-focussed compilations planned in the future and that ten tracks was deemed as the sweet spot to make the compilation more accessible to younger listeners by being affordable and short enough to hold their attention.

Commenting on the slow output of releases issued by The Prince Estate since taking over the administration in 2022, its managing partner claimed in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine published on 28 August to promote the release of Timeless, that “many” fans who purchased 2023s Diamonds And Pearls Super Deluxe Edition ($160 retail price) told him had left the set unopened and “sitting on their coffee table.” Whereas no anecdotal evidence was provided to back up his claim, it gave a revealing insight to the Estate’s attitude towards fans.

Timeless was published in physical format as a single disc CD and 1xLP (140g vinyl), as well as digital streaming platforms. It landed in the UK chart at number 62 and performed only marginally better in the US, reaching number 59. According to unit sales – contrary to the Estate’s assertions that Super Deluxe Editions were less commercial due to their high retail price – all Prince’s previous Super Deluxe and Expanded Editions recorded higher first week sales.

Calabama controversy

The accompanying sleeve notes of Timeless credited live horns performed on Calabama as played by Adrian Crutchfield, Lynn Grissett and Greg Boyer. The notes were brief by way of information, providing only the song’s recording date and the musicians involved. Speculation was sparked by the listing of Crutchfield and Grissett as performers despite having not joined Prince’s horn section until 2012 a full decade after the song’s supposed recording. In the days following the album’s release, it transpired that the live horn part in the song had in fact been recorded in early 2026 and dubbed onto the track during its remastering for Timeless. Outrage ensued among the fan community over The Prince Estate’s creative judgement to embellish Prince’s finished recordings and that his original was altered without the fact being noted in the sleeve.

Defending its decision, on 4 September 2026 the Estate issued a clarification that live horns were indeed specially created using Prince’s musicians and layered over his original synthesised part in Calabama in the instrumental break in the song, where Prince twice calls “horns”. The Estate interpreted that Prince intended to insert live horns at this point, but this understanding in him calling out horns in song lyrics (a clear example is found in Face Down) and synthesising the part, highlighted a concerning gap in the Estate’s understanding of Prince’s music and the hallmarks of the Minneapolis Sound. A second discrepancy came to light just one week later when a further error in the sleeve was discovered in that the track I Wonder as credited on Timeless was not the 1989 original but actually the 1991 reworking titled Eye Wonder, raising doubt on the Estate’s ability to guarantee factual accuracy.

Despite originally stating that “nothing had been edited or added to Calabama“, on 1 September the Estate subsequently admitted newly recorded parts were indeed added to the track and went on to acknowledge that the decision behind this was to boost the album’s appeal to a younger audience by adding polish to it. This choice was robustly questioned, particularly given the album’s modest chart impression domestically and internationally. The core concern among fans was that if modifying Prince’s songs was the Estate’s modus-operandi, confidence in the authenticity of future releases would be undermined and historical fact in what Prince left in the vault risked being rewritten.

Following calls to release Calabama in its original form to allow fans to compare the released version with the original recording, the Estate issued Prince’s unaltered ‘raw’ cut of the song on 9 October 2026 as a four‑track EP. This included the Timeless version and his original 2003 recording of Calabama, plus two workings of Prince And The Band which Prince developed out of Calabama in 2006. Prince And The Band boasts entirely different vocal and musical arrangements to the part previously incorporated into Calabama. In their statement accompanying the EP, the Estate strenuously confirmed Calabama was the only song on Timeless to undergo posthumous modification. The EP highlighted that all 2003 and 2006 original versions of the song were not only perfectly suitable but, in the case of Prince And The Band, more vibrant than the 2026 reworking.

Cover story

The image picked 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 in silhouette because the album spans Prince’s entire career a era neutral image was preferred. The design is the work of graphic artist Tora Bliss, and highlights Prince’s most recognisable elements – his signature Hohner guitar, the live‑performance setting, and bold purple tones, possibly drawing influence from the opening shots of Purple Rain movie. Lupin is uncredited for his image used as the basis of the album sleeve. The cover too came under criticism for masking Prince’s image. Whether the design hindered the album’s potential is open to question as Timeless made only modest impact in the US and UK charts.

Performers

Vocals / all instr.

Prince

Drums

Michael Bland ^{With This Tear}

John Blackwell ^{Calabama (2003)}

Cora Coleman-Dunham ^{The Guilty Ones and Prince And The Band [Vault Raw 2]}

Bass Guitar

Sonny Thompson ^{With This Tear}

Joshua Dunham ^{The Guilty Ones and Prince And The Band [Vault Raw 2]}

Programming

Kirk Johnson ^{With This Tear and Stone}

Trombone

Greg Boyer ^{Calabama (2026) and Prince And The Band [Vault Raw 2]}

Michael B. Nelson ^{Bestest Friend}

Alto Saxophone

Adrian Crutchfield ^{Calabama (2026)}

Maceo Parker ^{Prince And The Band [Vault Raw 2]}

Baritone Sax

Kathy Jensen ^{Bestest Friend}

Tenor Saxophone

Kenni Holmen ^{Bestest Friend}

Trumpet

Lynn Grisset ^{Calabama (2026)}

Steve Strand ^{Bestest Friend}

Ray Monteiro ^{Prince And The Band [Vault Raw 2]}

Orchestration

Clare Fischer ^{With This Tear}

Data

Producer

Prince

Label

NPG Records

Distribution

Sony Legacy

Cover/Design

Tora Bliss

Released

2 months ago on 28 August 2026

Running Time

41:46

US Chart Peak

59

US R&B Peak

14

UK Chart Peak

62

Orig. Formats

Tracklist

1. I Am You (4:44)
2. Tick Tick Bang (3:13)
3. Heaven [feat. Susannah Melvoin] (4:29)
4. I Wonder (4:11)
5. With This Tear

   With This Tear (2026)
   (3:53)
6. Stone (3:08) ¹
7. Calabama (3:31)
8. The Guilty Ones [feat. Marva King & Shelby J] (4:15)
9. Bestest Friend (4:38)
10. How Come You Don’t Call Me Anymore [Live at the Oracle Arena, 4 March 2016] (5:54)

Released as a single

¹ Lyrics by Sandra St. Victor, Tom Hammer and Jules Van Veen

Singles from Timeless

With This Tear

NPG Records

Released

20 April 2026

Distribution

Sony Legacy

US Chart Peak

Did not chart

UK Chart Peak

99

Cover/Art

Tora Bliss

Format

1. With This Tear (3:51)

Calabama EP

NPG Records

Released

9 October 2026

Distribution

Sony Legacy

US Chart Peak

Did not chart

UK Chart Peak

Did not chart

Cover/Art

Tora Bliss

Format

1. Calabama (3:31)
2. Calabama [Vault Raw] (3:28)
3. Prince And The Band [Vault Raw 1] (4:28)
4. Prince And The Band [Vault Raw 2] (7:11)

Timeless album review

It cannot be disputed The Prince Estate has an impossible balancing act on their hands. Firstly, it must preserve and protect Prince’s musical legacy for the long haul. Second, it can only achieve the first aim by maintaining and expanding the audience base willing to buy the music. This is where reality and ambition parts company. It is doubtless that Prince Estate must prolong what commercial value remains in the icon’s vault and not just rush its contents out at once, but the uncomfortable truth remains in that the sands of time runs against them.

The Estate’s stated ambition has been to reach new generations of fans through deals with Netflix for a tell-all glossy documentary, plus a high-profile insertion into the grand finale of Stranger Things. There was also a Broadway musical for Purple Rain, which was so woke that a wholesale rewrite was swiftly required. And the documentary? Well that was too ‘tell-all’ to broadcast. So far, only one has come to fruition and even that yielded only short-term success.

What’s been sat under their noses all the while is, of course, the vault – one unmatched in its scale. The Prince Estate has faced down mounting pressure since taking over the reins in July 2022, and since then have been hesitant to issue anything of substance. The music that did emerge, let’s be honest, were mean pickings in terms of content. Whilst anniversaries and commercial opportunities ticked passed, us confounded outsiders pondered if the Estate’s management was blinkered. Were they incurious of the vault of unreleased music at their disposal, or were they strangely unwilling to unlock it? When finally at Celebration 2026 announcement came that the vault would be opened, if only a fraction, the news was met with restrained rejoice. Would Timeless be yet another opportunity wasted?

To sufficiently showcase Prince’s genius through so small a selection of songs is an impossibly difficult undertaking considering the span of five decades covered in the collection’s scope, let alone breadth of the vault. Timeless has no perceptible commonality throughout its tracklisting other to form a compilation of songs created by Prince.

As much as we love Prince, we know he was a poor businessman. The consequences of decisions made decades ago are coming home to roost today. His cease and desist demands to wipe his music from YouTube, social media and online streaming platforms left a whole generation of listeners unable to access his catalogue. His heavy-handed policy in banning cameras at shows is another loss of preserving his stunning creativity as a live performer that younger generations will now never see. His refusal to leave a will still reaps repercussions on the release of his vault.

And that leads to another obstacle, one newly arisen, and the Estate openly admit, that for collections involving other musicians, such as The Revolution and NPG, requires consent from every participant. Nonsense, many will counter, since no hurdle was apparent with Diamonds And Pearls Super Deluxe in 2023 – which must be noted was a package prepared under the Estate’s pre 2022 incarnation. Timeless was mooted as a holding release to appease fans until an actual strategy falls into place. But that’s enough of context.

The collection opens with I Am You, a gloriously funk synth-laden track which would have stood up to anything in For You. It then lurches to punk rock with Tick Tick Bang the original version, full of fire and richer than the later rehash we know on Graffiti Bridge. Third up is the iconic Linn Drum for Heaven, a track circulating for years on bootleg tape of godawful quality, is newly cleaned up and thumpingly divine. The following I Wonder, packing flavours of Traveling Wilburys, is the compilation’s stand out track, with the melancholic With This Tear closing out side A. The flip-side returns the energy, with standard pop but slick Stone, and the outright funky Calabama and the relentless The Guilty Ones. I was blissfully unaware at the time of my first listen of the newly added horns to Calabama. The Estate swiftly learned to their detriment making changes to Prince’s songs is sacralise in the eyes of the fan community and we can only imagine their regret adding the live horns. Whilst the additions enliven the song, the executive decision to alter Prince’s original recording grants the detractors yet more ammunition to question The Estate’s level of knowledge in Prince’s music, particularly the Minneapolis Sound – the use of synthesisers in place of live horns. Controversies aside, Timeless has no skippers and the songs sound marvellous due to their 2026 retouches. Since we do not know the state of the original tapes that may well have needed an uplift to present them on modern audio equipment and to new audiences, keeping transparency in the liner notes is crucial and is promised going forward. Timeless climaxes with the soaring Bestest Friend. Then, inevitably we arrive at the year 2016 with the poignant How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore captured live from one of Prince’s final concerts. The closer arrives oddly in the sequence, like a hidden track after the studio recordings, but is delivered with zeal that our beloved icon maintained right until his end.

Timeless collates unfamiliar tracks – even among the fans. The choice of tracks is phenomenally done and perhaps serve a salient lesson, that Prince fans should perhaps allow more trust in the process, and that also The Estate must now pay more attention to the fanbase. These songs shine in their own merit without reliance on mythical status. However note, I review the content and not the concept here, and so if there is one gripe to be had is the 40min runtime. The listening ends far too soon. With five decades worth of material in the Estate’s hands their selection has boiled down to a mere ten songs and what is the sole meaningful output within the current management’s tenure up to this point. And yes, the Estate might have made more obvious track selections but this selection surprised instead – something Prince did for every album. Does Timeless strengthen Prince’s legacy? Time will tell.

Timeless is rated 4 out of 5 by Goldies Parade.