A comprehensive Prince discography

• This discography aims to feature every version of every song ever willingly made available to the public by Prince, or any other legal owners of the songs (such as Pépé Willie for the 94 East material).

• I've also included "semi-official" material, i.e. songs recorded by Prince with other artists that were later streamed online or released by said artists without Prince's, or the Estate's permission, including all 94 East material. I consider a collaborator legitimate enough to make a track they worked on available to the public, even if they do not own the masters. Same goes with posthumous videos streamed by the authors of said videos, as long as they were filmed with Prince's consent in the first place (the authors of the videos do not hold the copyright for the music and Prince's image, but hold at least part of the copyright for the film). However, all those entries will be clearly labeled as being released without Prince's (or the estate's) consent. Note that Prince obviously didn't personally approve these occasional edits made by international divisions of Warner Bros. outside of the USA. However, since he allowed Warner to use the material in the first place, these aren't labeled as released without his consent. 

• The list includes both physical and digital, audio and video formats for either released, promotional, aired, broadcast and streamed material. Additionnally, I've included those few promos that were sent to stores to play to customers, since they were mass produced and copies were expected to survive, be resold and leaked.

• The list features studio recordings as well as live recordings.

• The list even features Internet snippets, as well as the numerous snippets of live songs sent to TV channels (or that they were allowed to film) while promoting tours. However, since the latter have never been inventoried anywhere, it's unfortunately likely that I've missed many of these. It's also impossible to know how long the actual footage sent to TV channels (or that they were allowed to film themselves).was, since it's likely some channels chose to play shorter snippets than what they actually possessed, so for lack of any better information, the length featured here will be the length of what was aired.

• Posthumous releases are included, but in a separate section. The reason for this is simple: I won't live forever, and the Estate will go on releasing material long after I'm gone. Since Prince left before me, I'll have been able to cover the entirety of his own musical journey, but I won't be able to cover his posthumous catalogue forever. So you can think of the 1976-2016 list as the true, completed project, and of the posthumous list as a kind of bonus. The day posthumous releases stop showing up, you'll know I got too old or too dead to keep adding them. That said, I'm still alive and the posthumous section hasn't been updated in quite a while, for the simple reason that my priority has been to complete 1976-2016 first.

• Similarly, I indicate it when a non-album song was later released on a compilation or rerelease (such as a b-side on 1993's The Hits/The B-Sides, for example), and I originally started to do this with posthumous compilations/rereleases as well. For the same reason, I will not do this anymore and the existing annotations will be deleted: things will get rereleased long after I'm gone. Only things that were rereleased in Prince's lifetime will be mentioned. 

• Princevault being the other most comprehensive resource when it comes to Prince's catalogue, I've tried to mention every occurence when I've dug out something they've missed or when I have solid evidence of an information that seems to contradict theirs: this is for the sake of clarity and to avoid readers being confused by occasional differences between the data collected on both websites. 

• This discography aims to record all the music that was made available, not the objects. Therefore, a release that contains no new music (such as a single or a compilation with only previously released material on it) won't be featured here. So don't be shocked if such or such single isn't there: it's because all the music on it had already been made available at an earlier date. Similarly, an album may appear to miss some tracks, but in that case it simply means said tracks were made available at an earlier date, usually on a single or online.

• No bootlegged or unofficially circulating material will be included, nor will songs that were broadcast or put online without Prince's or any other legal owner or creative participant's consent.

• I've excluded remixes of songs featuring Prince only as a musician if Prince's parts were removed from said remixes (I've kept remixes of original Prince songs given to other artists even when said remixes don't contain any part from Prince's original recording, though).

• TV shows that feature lip-synched performances are included as long as 1/ they feature some additional live elements (if only the live drums that can be heard over the tape, and sometimes additional vocals or instruments), 2/ they're unique edits or 3/ different, previously unreleased versions or mixes of the track. However, a lip-synched performance that is absolutely similar to a previously available version will not be listed. Live TV and online performances by The Time (until 1984), as well as a few other TV/online live performances by associated artists are included, because Prince personally arranged and/or produced said performances. The question of other live versions of songs given to other artists performed by said artists is pending. Princevault randomly lists some and not others. I will probably end-up including them, but it will take time. 

• I've excluded songs that have Prince credited as an "executive producer" if they don't have any direct creative input by Prince (Prince making a phonecall to book a studio or negociating a contract with Warner Bros for a Paisley Park artist doesn't make a song eligible for a Prince discography).

• As I said, promo releases are included, but I didn't include cancelled projects of which a few copies have survived, such as the 1987 Black Album, the 1994 Undertaker or Milk & Honey, since such copies were never meant to circulate in the first place. The few in-house samplers that are circulating among collectors aren't featured either, for the same reason.

• I've excluded promotional material that was exclusively played in NPG Stores, Paisley Park or any other place (clubs, theatres, etc.), because they weren't mass distributed and no copy was supposed to end-up circulating.

• Of course, this list doesn't include cover versions of Prince songs, nor songs sampling Prince. This is why Eric Leeds' Aguadilla isn't included: though Prince was credited as co-writer, it was actually a reworking of the song Desire, with no direct input from Prince.

• I've only included songs or edits that were featured in movies when it was an original use of previously unreleased music that hadn't previously appeared on the movie's soundtrack, or a version of a song that was exclusive to the movie itself. The only exceptions to that rule are Purple Rain, Under The Cherry Moon and Graffiti Bridge, since Prince was directly involved in those films' editing. Films, ads or TV programs that used previously released Prince songs as "stock music" (such as Beverly Hills Cop using Nasty Girl or Striptease using If I Was Your Girlfriend) are not included. 

• Princevault gives entries to posthumous remasters. However, each format (vinyl, cassette, CD, digital, etc.) always required a specific master, and various digital platforms (iTunes vs. HDTracks, for example) also used different masters for the same recordings. Thus, I don't believe it makes sense to cherry pick some masters over others, and since the music remains exactly the same, I don't think alternate masters or remasters qualify as alternate versions anyway, so none will be featured here.

• Songs and albums that were first aired/broadcast/streamed then, later, physically/digitally released are featured at the broadcast/streaming date, since it was the first time the material was made available to the public. So don't panic if you see a video concert or a song featured before its release date: it's likely the date of its first broadcast/streaming. When an aired/broadcast/streamed song was released at a later date, I've mentioned it, though.

• Songs that have been released on singles (or other formats) before the album they belong to was released are featured at their original release date. So don't panic if a song is missing from an album's tracklist: it's that it's featured on the date of its original release (or airing/broadcast/streaming) earlier on the list.

• Many singles have had various different releases that featured different remixes. Until I know of specifically different release dates for them, they'll be reunited as a single release to avoid confusion (the list is as complex as it is without adding 3 or 4 different variant singles of the same song if they were released on the same day). Promos are listed separately in every case, though.

Good question! It actually took me a while to sort it out myself, but here are the basic guidelines for the chronological list:

• I've tried to keep the genuine name of each song as it was credited when released the first time, which is why I didn't add "extended version" or "live" or "edit" to the titles of the songs that were released with no such mention. That's also why songs that have seen their title changed when new or live versions were later released are credited as such (therefore, if Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad or The Cross or Hit U In The Socket were credited as Y U Wanna Treat Me So Bad or Christ or In The Socket, that's how they'll be featured here. Now, a 2009 broadcast of I Feel For You with no written credits won't be written Eye Feel 4 U: with no official data available, I'll stick to the original title). Now I understand that this discography would be nothing but a complete mess if no explanations at all were added to the nature of the various versions of the songs, so I've added such information and I did it (this way). 

• We need, some might say, a point of reference for each song. Therefore, an album version, when it exists, is ALWAYS considered the "definitive" version of a song here, meaning that it won't be credited as an "alternate mix" or a "rerecording". When a non-album track has several versions of it available (or when a song is featured on several albums), the first released version ALWAYS gets to be considered the "definitive" one, regardless of the fact that it might be a snippet/edit/remix of a later version. If several versions were released on the same day, well... then we'll use our brains and everything should be fine. There's a little mishmash at the moment, with some "definitive"/album versions also being "new live recordings", and not being clearly credited as being the reference version. I will eventually clear that up.

• Considering the above, we have the following categories of songs:

1. The album or "definitive" non-album song: no additional mention unless it's an album version that was released before the album it belongs to, in which case we'll have: (included in the [title] album on [date]). To make non-album songs and alternate versions easier to track down, I'm also using this method to signal "best of" rereleases of a non-album song at a later date. 

2. An alternate mix or edit of the album/"definitive" version. This includes remixes, edits, extended versions, snippets and mono versions altogether: (alternate mix of the [title of album] album version/[title of the non-album song]). I try not to drown into too many details in order to keep it as simple as possible, but for the sake of legibility, I'll give more details when necessary (edit, mono version, snippet, alternate title, etc.). I realize that the word "mix" isn't always accurate, because some edits did not involve any proper remixing, but for the sake of clarity, the word "mix" covers any kind of alteration of a song's album/"definitive" version here. It's also more cautious, because some single edits are know to have been very slightly remixed, but it's rather hard to tell which was and which wasn't.

3. A complete studio rerecording of the original album/"definitive" version: (rerecording of the [title of album] album version/[title of the non-album song]). Some songs have been rerecorded several times, so the prime reference will always be the album/"definitive" version. Therefore, as long as you just see (rerecording of the [title of album] album version/[title of the non-album song]), it means it's a brand new recording, independently of any other rerecording. Note that this list doesn't take recording dates into account: a "rerecording" of a song may actually have been recorded before the album/"definitive" version. Rehearsal versions of songs are considered studio recordings/rerecordings without any specific, additional mention.

4. An edit or an alternate mix of a rerecording (yeah, it's happened a few times!): (edit/alternate mix of the [title of album] rerecording/[title of the rerecording]) 

5. A live recording of a song, no matter how many studio overdubs have been added later (this also include lip-synched performances as long as vocals or at least one instrument were played live): (new live recording) 

6. An edit or an alternate mix of a live recording (yeah, it's happened, too!): (edit of/alternate mix of the [title of album] album version/[title of the non-album song]). Note that unless you see such a notice, a live song is, by essence, a rerecording, regardless of how many other live versions of the same song have been released earlier or since.

• Keep in mind that there's been so many alternate versions and rerecordings of so many songs that it can be really tricky at times: you will find numerous exemples of a "rerecording" or an "alternate mix" being released before (or many years after) the album/"definitive" version. I considered making the first released version of every song the reference track, but I realized that it would make things even more confusing, so I decided to stick to that system despite its (fewer) absurdities. 

• Also, if there's an apparent conflict, don't believe the actual title of the song, believe ME instead: in some occurences, you will see that a song dubbed Album Version is actually an (alternate mix) (in a similar fashion, a Long Version can also be an edit)... Yeah, welcome to the Dawn: you've just accessed the magic of the Maxi-single Experience ^^ 

• If a song was released under a title of its own while it's actually an alternate mix or a rerecording of another released song, it will be specified this way: (alternate mix/rerecording of + also known as [title of song]). On the other hand, if two different songs share the exact same title (Girl, for example) it will be specified as well (different song than...). Some remixes or edits may have been released under various nicknames (a single mix can be credited "extended remix" here, "radio remix" there and "album edit" on yet another release), in which case I'll use the first chronological nickname I know of (so don't get too confused with the remixes of Gett Off: Prince was a real bitch on this one, and even though all of them are listed here, they might not fit with the titles you have written on your single's cover. Remember the magic of the Maxi-single Experience? Well, you just got deeper into it!)

• When a segue was released under a name other than Segue, I've specified that it's a (segue) in order to avoid it being confused with a song. Prince copyrighted some untiltled films' incidental music as [Name of the film] Cues at ASCAP, so I've kept this "title" for all the films' incidental music tracks that aren't credited in the film's end credits. Note that Princevault dug out several titles for these cues from their copyright registration. However, since these titles were never made public outside of registration, I just kept the generic Cues title for all of them. Even though they weren't credited at all, I've also used the title Segue for some of the actual, untitled segues on video albums, NPG Ahdio shows, etc. 

• I didn't go into detailed writing credits on the chronological list, but I did on the alphabetical list. Of course, I couldn't specify who arranged and/or played on each song, so if a song is included with no further notice, it means that Prince was involved as a composer AND as an arranger AND as a musician. Now, I wouldn't want you to think that Prince composed Creep, or that he played on Baby Go-Go, so if a song features Prince as a composer only, an arranger only, a musician only or, on rare occasions, an engineer only, it will be (specified).

• Another thing while we're at it: the length of a song is often a good way to differenciate it from its counterparts (sometimes an edit is a three seconds edit, no joke!), and some of you will probably claim that the length of such or such song as written here isn't absolutely accurate. Please keep in mind that there's no definitive length for a song: depending if you read it on the album's cover, on your mp3 player, on Wikipedia or on Princevault.com, you will notice a few seconds' difference on the length that's attributed to such or such song. There's a reason for it: you will notice that even your CD's cover and the actual CD track in your player may give you different numbers! It indeed depends on the format (length is definitive on CD and mp3 but both may differ even for the same song, and there's no absolute length when you're talking about vinyls or cassettes, where you can miss a few seconds depending on the subtelty of a fade, and also what do you do when the CD track says 3:36 but these 3:36 actually contain 3 seconds of silence at the end of the track? Etc.). In most cases I've gone with the length given by Princevault when available. This list is just too much hard work without me bothering with the absolute length's accuracy of each and every one of the 1000+ tracks listed here.

• You're having a headache and you're totally confused after reading all this? Well, SO DO I AND SO AM I!!! But fear not, for it'll never be as difficult for you to use this discography as it was for me to make it. So just go roaming on the site and enjoy it, you'll actually find it more practical to use than it seems when you read these long explainations! Just go and have fun, while I keep scratching my head wondering if I didn't forget or misplace anything ;-)

There MUST be mistakes and/or ommissions, either with song names, release dates or God knows what else: with such an amount of data to collect and order, it's just impossible for me not to have missed, misplaced or mispelled a few things! Besides, new data regularly surfaces. Thus, if you notice any mistake or any ommission, whatever it is, please send an email to lotus[dot]flow3r[at]ymail[dot]com or contact me thru Prince.org if you are a member (my orgname is "databank"). I don't check this email address often, so please don't be mad if the reply comes late. Any help to make this site as comprehensive and accurate as possible is much welcome! If you choose to send an email, please clearly specify that it's about Prince in the mail's title, or it may end-up unread and in the trashcan, confused with a spam (I get a lot of spam on this particular email address ^^). 

In the case I am not 100% certain about something or some data is missing, (my questions are added to the entry as NOTES). If you have an answer for me for any of those, please let me know!

As mentioned above, one thing that is particularly hard to list is those countless live snippets that were sent to TV channels (or that they were allowed to film) across the globe over the years, in order to promote tours. This website is literally the only attempt ever made at listing them, so I really have to hunt them down one by one, and it's very likely that I've missed dozens of them, as most were only aired once on one channel in one country. Local fans have recorded many of them over the years, but not all have appeared (or remained) online, and some are probably even hidden in plain sight on YouTube that I never found. If you have or know of one that isn't listed here, I'm particularly interested in getting a copy and/or as much information as possible about it (on which channel and on what day it was aired, what song was played, how long was the snippet, etc.).

My other main problem is with exact release dates. 

Release dates are mentionned between brackets after the title of every release, so when the info is (??/??) or (month/??) it means that I don't have either the day and month, or just the exact day of release. In these cases, placement is tentative. I've searched the internet as much as possible, but some data just seems to be impossible to find. Yet, it HAS to be available somewhere! Any contributions to that would be welcome, as I would like this discography to be as chronologically accurate as possible. 

There are also some cases when it's likely that I'm not aware of separate releases for a 7'' single and its associated 12'' maxi-single (or different release dates for different versions of a CD single or a music video). For exemple, many 80's 12'' were released a few weeks or months after the 7'', but I only have this info for some Prince releases, and nothing is said anywhere about his other singles, or about related artists singles, for which release dates are less documented. Now why would it be that Prince's 12''s were often released after the 7''s, but that The Time or Sheila E. would always have their 7'' and 12'' released on the same day?! Therefore, it's possible that I list several maxis much earlier than their actual release dates, which might even mean that some album songs are said to have been released before the album when they actually weren't. I have a similar problem with music videos containing alternate mixes, since they weren't always released on the same day the corresponding singles were. Any help about all this is super welcome.

Finally, there are sometimes contradictions between sources when it comes to release dates, so I've done my best to try and figure out which is correct, and if I really couldn't tell, I've mentioned it.

I own a copy of each and every song on this discography, except for the songs that are listed here. If you can provide me with a digital copy of one or a few of these songs (or any other song that might be missing from this list, meaning that I'm not aware of its existence), or any information about the missing/wrong release dates, or help me correct any other mistake or omission, or if you can solve any of the questions I ask alongside some entries, I'll be happy to send you as many songs as you want in return. 

This project is the result of my own research and music collection: I started gathering data and Prince recordings in the early 90's. However, many gaps have been filled over the years by many people. Even though I never interacted with most of them personally, my main thanks go to Borisfishpaw, Dawnation, Duane Tudahl a.k.a. Madhouseman, Per Nilsen, Prince Associates Live!, Princevault, Scififilmnerd and Uptown Magazine: their outstanding work almost always allowed me to collect the data that I hadn't found by myself. 

For filling smaller, but nonetheless important gaps, I also want to thank 2000sboy, 3rdeyedude, AaronReturn2005, Airth, Andrewm7, Aristotle, Atomic_Monkey, Bart Van Hemelen, Bhanlarouge, Billy Bobbins, Billymeade, Chastity, Chopingard, DannyD5050, Darkroman, DavyLovesPurple, Deepwater, Delirium, Discie, DJdaffy1227, DJ Richie P, Dodger, EddieM, Embmmusic, Eric L, Errant, Eyewishuheaven, Fms, Frédéric Babayan, Jamiestarr1uk, Jorge Poveda, JorisE73, K Nicola Dyes, Kares, Langebleu, LLFunk, Lurker316, Luvsexy4all, Marco81, Marvinlovell, Michael Dean, Motherfunka, Mplsmike, Neversin, Nothinbutjoy, Oldfriends4sale, Olivier Bruchez, Olb99, OperatingThetan, Paisleypark4, Pascal Comet, The Peach & Black Podcast, Purplemusic, Purple Yoda, Mynetcologne.de, Revolution81, Rlittler81, RodeoSchro, Roverlo, SchlomoDaHomo, Scratchtasia, Shaun, Squirrelmeat, Steve Wask, TheBanishedOne, TheDigitalGardener, Timmie, TrivialPursuit, Ufoclub, Unique, Virgile LeFaou, Voiceinside.jp, Xenophobia2002 and Xibalba. When it comes to a few things, Wikipedia and Discogs also remain vital tools in my research. I also owe many other contributors I forgot the names of, on the Internet in general and on the Prince.org, Housequake.com and "Purple Dagobah" boards in particular. Their names got lost in the battlefield but I thank them all, and I ask them to forgive me for not naming them: it's not on purpose. Finally, I'd like to say a heartfelt thank you to the late Richard Kuhn aka BigChick. May you rest in peace, Rich, you are missed... 

As for who I am... Well... I'm a French dude from Lyon, and I've been a Prince fan since I purchased Batman at the tender age of 12, back in July 1989. I've had quite a few careers in my life: writer, publisher, cultural projects manager, musician, tour manager, language teacher... Besides France, I've lived and worked in Cambodia, India and China, and I'm currently freelancing in Berlin as a academic proofreader and copywriter for websites. I don't do much as an artist anymore for now, but if you know French and you want to read/listen to some of my stuff, it's there.

Some of you might also wonder why on Earth would anyone spend so much of their free time doing this?! To give you an idea of the stubborness it requires, compiling and ordering the data for each year of the chronological list took between 12 and 24 hours of work (some years were busier than others). Therefore, with 40 years to cover (not counting pothsumous releases), the first draft of the chronological list took a good 3 months of my life (if you count 8 hours = a day of work). Add to that all the data I'd been gathering for nearly 20 years before I began the project, the proofeading phase, establishing the alphabetical list and the constant corrections/additions, and by the time I'm completely done (if I ever am), I'll probably have devoted 6 months to a year of work to this project. I wish I was paid to do this, but I'm not: it's just a hobbie! So if you wanna thank me, don't send money: help me correct the mistakes, help me fill the gaps and send me digital copies of the songs that you have that I don't!!! Completing both this website and my collection will be a sufficient reward!

Coming back to the "why" question, well... To make a long story short, I've been looking for such a discography since I became a fan and realized how massive Prince's output was, but I never found it anywhere. Some sites and books are quite comprehensive, and Princevault is definitely the ultimate Prince database, but the songs are sorted by categories, and there's always something missing here and there. Some alphabetical lists that I've seen are quite impressive as well, but they're not comprehensive either and, being alphabetical, they don't make much sense from a purely "historical" perspective. So, basically, I've never found a complete chronological or alphabetical list of EVERYTHING (every version, audio and video, Prince and related artists, digital and physical, releases and promos, broadcasts and streaming...). So, well... somebody had to do it! I'm sure many people can use this discography to make their hobby an easier thing and discover many songs or alternate versions that they weren't aware of! This website will be my small, but necessary contribution to Prince's legacy and the Prince fandom.

Prince is important enough an artist to deserve to have his work as documented as possible, and seeing all these songs allows one to realize how impressive his production was. And, as I've already said, seeing them in the chronological order they've been made available allows one to understand it from a historical perspective. It also allows both old and newer fans to remember or understand the adventure that it's been for many of us to seek each and every new song month after month, year after year. Yeah: I got kinda nostalgic when I started working on the early 90's, because I could remember how I felt putting my hands on each and every new release, back then when I had to roam in record stores for hours, looking for CD's, cassettes or vinyls, and asking the clerks and other fans I met if anything new had been released lately (instead of roaming online for hours looking for both information and audio files, as I do now). Now we get everything quite easily with the Internet, but at the time, every new discovery was like a rare gem for us fans, and believe me, it was just SO HARD, if not plain impossible to put one's hands on quite a lot of out of print and confidentially released material. Then, suddenly, most of these rare gems surfaced online in the early 2000's: it was the begining of an intense era for us fans, because nearly everything was at long last easily available, but it became somewhat less adventurous! As some have said before me, the music we listen to is the soundtrack of our lives, so if you're a Prince fan who followed him when he was alive, this site is kind of a reminder of your own life's soundtrack... 

In passing, since I'm sometimes being asked that: legacy is also the reason I chose to not create a proper website or URL for this project, and went for a basic Google site instead: the day I'm gone and I stop paying for it, the site would go offline. This is for posterity, and a simple Google site should survive me. However, if Google sites ever go down or get through an update that trashes the layouts entirely, look for it on the Internet archive, where it should be saved.

Of course, this site is NOT affiliated with the Prince Estate, Paisley Park Enterprises or NPG Records. Neither is it affiliated with any other Prince fansite or organization past and present, including the ones mentioned above.

And I've said it all! So until the Prince Estate actually delivers "more than 500 experiences to choose from" on an official website, please enjoy your experience revisiting Prince's musical journey ;-)