Only a handful of musicians in the history of music are almost unanimously regarded as the best of all time, andPrinceis one of them. Some have cited Michael Jackson as the GOAT of music (certainly the King of Pop), others mention Elvis, some say Whitney Houston, and it goes on. What is very evident is that it’s impossible to leave Prince out the conversation.
Prince’s level of talent is close to unmatched and part of that comes down to how many studio albums he released. It’s a privilege for some artists to produce and release 40 songs, so for Prince to release 40 albums across a 41-year-long career, averaging an album a year, is shocking. Such a feat is unheard of, and made all the more impressive knowing how many of those albums stand tall as masterpieces.
The following ranking listsPrince’s studio albums from worst to best,not including live albums or compilations.
40The Black Album (a.k.a. The Funk Bible)
Prince’s 16th Studio Album
The Black Albumwas crafted as a direct response to his black audience who felt that Prince had become too commercial and too poppy at this stage in his career. However, Prince reportedly deemed the album too “evil” in a way that his God wouldn’t be pleased with. And those anxieties compelled him to withdraw it one week ahead of its 1987 release, instead releasingLovesexyin its place.
In 1994, though, Warner Bros. Records gave the project a two-month limited release, then Tidal re-released it exclusively in 2016, holding it on their streaming platform until Prince’s death. Some audiences love the album and don’t see whyPrince saw it to be evil. Alternatively, some audiences aren’t comfortable with the prospect of listening to an album that Prince emphatically didn’t want anyone to hear.
39Welcome 2 America
Prince’s 40th and Final Studio Album
Released in 2021,Welcome 2 Americais the first full-length posthumous album released under Prince’s name. The project was recorded and completed in 2010, but for reasons unknown to even his collaborators,Prince opted to shelve the projectfor years. Those who heard the project give it high praise, but without knowing the reason why Prince shelved it, die-hard Prince fans aren’t comfortable listening. Posthumous albums can always be sketchy territory for listeners uncertain whether the late artist had wanted a body of work like this released if they were alive.
38Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic
Prince’s 23rd Studio Album
This is one of the few albums in Prince’s catalog that feelsforced and unnatural. The issue isn’t so much that Prince is consciously chasing a hit single, but instead he’s chasing a more modern sound. He’s attempting to embrace modern music as it sounded in 1999, bringing in rising stars like Sheryl Crow, Eve, and Gwen Stefani to assist him. He deserves props for trying to get with the times, so to speak, but the attempt doesn’t seem to fit and struggles to feel natural.
37The Vault - Old Friends 4 Sale
Prince’s 22nd Studio Album
Vaultdisappoints because it’s just that, a collection of songs from Prince’s vault dating back to 1996 (although unreleased until 1999) to satisfy his contractual obligations with his former label, making this the final album from Prince with Warner Bros. Fans already argue that the released songs are watered down compared to the bootlegs unofficially released prior, so even the best songs don’t achieve their full potential.
At its core, despitePrince excelling in jazz and blues,Vaultis just a heap of songs smashed together without the real cohesion of an actual album.
36HITNRUN Phase One
Prince’s 38th Studio Album
The opening track ofHITNRUNopens with a sample from Prince’s Purple Rain album, which already starts the album on a downer as it makes the listener wish they were listening to that album instead. Not only that, but it makes it painfully evident that, despite remaining competent and consistent, at this point, Prince just wasn’t as immaculate of an artist as he used to be.HITNRUNas a whole makes that distinction far more apparent, making for perhaps hismost uneven and boring album.
35Musicology
Prince’s 28th Studio Album
Musicologyis effectively Prince’s comeback return to the mainstream. It’s easy to see why this brought Prince back to prominence after a series of commercial and financial flops. Prince returns to his atypical sound, and while it is a great sound, it makes forhis least experimental album to date. In fact, the best way to describe Prince’s early 2004 album is with the word “safe.”
It’s not bad, and it’s welcome for fans who wanted Prince to return to his classic sound, but the safe approach can feel uninteresting for fans who love when he experiments with new sounds, even when the results falter. When he falters, he’s at least trying something new, whereasMusicologyflounders because it’s dull.
34Lovesexy
Prince’s 10th Studio Album
There was a point in the ’80s where Prince was on a hot streak of albums that could do no wrong, each ranging from great to phenomenal.Lovesexyeffectively ends that hot streak, as this is an album thatPrince fans either love or hate. It is arguably his most experimental, sonically speaking, from this era of Prince. Some will either rank this among his best, or argue that its production is overproduced to the point of sounding grating to the ears.
33The Slaughterhouse
Prince’s 30th Studio Album
This is another that is more of a compilation of songs rather than a meticulously sequenced body of work. It’s easy to use that fact to blame this album’s mediocrity, consideringThe Slaughterhouseis a collection of NPG Music Club downloads that were all previously released as internet-exclusive singles, hence the subtitle, “Trax from the NPG Music Club Vol. 2” (The Chocolate Invasionwas Vol 1.) This wasone of three albums Prince releasedon the same day, and they can’t all be hits, folks.
32Come
Prince’s 15th Studio Album
A lot of songs drag longer than they need to. The first and title track, for example, starts off great, but overstays its welcome at nearly 10 minutes when the song itself just repeats “Come” over and over again for the most part. Like other songs on the album, “Come” isn’t bad, but is much longer than necessary.
31For You
Prince’s First Studio Album
For Youmarks Prince’s debut, and it is shockingly impressive to witness just how confident and assured in his sound he is at this stage of his career. It lacks the pomp, circumstance, and innuendo that future albums will uphold and, as such, feels like hisleast ambitious and least interesting project.
However, that’s less a knock against the album itself and more speaks to the merits of artistry that Prince reaches for future albums. It may be underwhelming as a Prince album, but on its own, it’s still a good debut that sets a high bar for his music.
