Prince: The Truth [LEGACY]

Why you'll love it

This pressing comes with a printed inner sleeve carrying the lyrics. The Truth is Prince's 21st studio album and his most intimate, built mostly on acoustic guitar and his own layered voices, and its 2021 vinyl run took it to No. 2 on the UK R&B albums chart.

This edition

• Printed inner sleeve with lyrics
• Pressed in the EU
• Stereo mix

About the album

Prince could summon a full funk band out of thin air, so it's a treat to hear him with little more than an acoustic guitar and a microphone. The Truth first arrived as the fourth disc of the Crystal Ball set, sent out to fans who ordered direct by phone and internet in early 1998, and it plays like a private recital.

He produced and sang everything, adding his own guitars, keyboards, bass, drums, beatboxing, whistles and finger snaps, with Rhonda Smith on bass on a few tracks and Hans-Martin Buff engineering. The title track and "Don't Play Me" went out together as a CD single, "Dionne" is a tender ballad, "Animal Kingdom" and "Man in a Uniform" (both co-written with Smith) bring the groove, "3rd Eye" turns hypnotic, and an acoustic "Welcome 2 the Dawn" closes it gently.

NPG Records put it on streaming services in 2018, and a Record Store Day vinyl edition in 2021 sent it into the Billboard 200. Prince recording an album mostly on one acoustic guitar is the musical equivalent of a Formula One driver popping out on a bicycle, and frankly he still wins.

Also at Kops: more Prince on vinyl · browse 70s Soul On Up

Tracklist

Listen

On NPG / Legacy (cat# 19439956891), a reissue of the 1998 album.