Anthology: 1995-2010 (2018)


  
  
 1. Emancipation
 2. Black Sweat
 3. P Control
 4. Crucial
 5. The Love We Make
 6. Eye Hate U
 7. The Greatest Romance Ever Sold
 8. Eye Love U, But Ey Don't Trust U Anymore
 9. Gold
 10.Guitar
 11.Dream Factory
 12.The Work Pt. 1
 13.Call My Name
 14.Strays of the World
 15.Shhh
 16.Dreamer
 17.Chaos and Disorder
 18.Endorphinmachine
 19.Musicology
 20.Northside
 21.When Eye Lay My Hands On U
 22.Beautiful Strange
 23.Future Soul Dong
 24.Empty Room (Live)
 25.3rd Eye
 26.U're Gonna C Me
 27.Dinner with Delores
 28.Ol' Skool Company
 29.4Ever
 30.West
 31.Xpedition
 32.Muse 2 the Pharaoh
 33.Somewhere Here On Earth
 34.U Make My Sun Shine
 35.1+1+1 is 3
 36.Chelsea Rodgers
 37.We March

 

This is the era most casual listeners tend to skip – and perhaps with good reason. The mid-'90s to early 2010s were not, by any stretch, Prince’s commercial or cultural peak. This was the phase where his eccentricities became the headlines: the unpronounceable symbol, the split from Warner Brothers, the digital-only releases, the name change, the occasional brush with classical orchestration. A time of boundary-pushing for sure – but not always in the direction his audience wanted.

And yet, Anthology: 1995–2010 performs a minor miracle. It manages to shape this era into something coherent, even compelling. For the uninitiated, it’s a guided tour through Prince’s most misunderstood years – and it offers just enough quality to suggest that perhaps we weren’t paying close enough attention at the time. The more committed fans will know most of this material, but even they might appreciate hearing it framed in a way that highlights both the breadth and depth of his late-period output.

The collection pulls together his most successful attempts at reinvention, but also isn’t afraid to include moments where the experiments didn’t quite land. Not everything here is brilliant – some of it isn’t even especially good – but all of it feels intentional. And that, in itself, is a kind of statement.

It’s worth noting that this anthology doesn’t take us right up to the end. Prince would go on to release more material after 2010, up through the years just before his passing. So no, it isn’t complete. But as an overview of an often-dismissed stretch of an otherwise dazzling career, it more than earns its place.

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