The Prince estate has opened its vault with a 10-track compilation titled Timeless, released Friday, Aug. 28 as part of year-long events marking the 10th anniversary of the artist’s death. The set is notable because it traces recordings from his teen years in Minneapolis through sessions cut just months before he died, offering a cross-section of styles and decades rarely presented on a single release.
A career-spanning vault on one record
Issued in partnership with Legacy Recordings, the collection gathers rare and previously unheard material recorded between 1977 and 2016. According to the estate, this is the first Prince release that intentionally covers every major phase of his musical evolution.
Prince — who died on April 21, 2016 at his Paisley Park studio complex of an accidental fentanyl overdose — left behind a famously large archive of unreleased work. Timeless aims to show how those recordings map across genres and decades, from raw early funk to later, more expansive studio pieces.
Highlights and musical range
The album opens with “I Am You,” a horn-tinged funk track cut at Minneapolis’ Sound 89 in 1977, when Prince was 19. He wrote, arranged and performed most of the parts himself, giving listeners a close view of his early creative instincts.
Later tracks shift rapidly in tone: “Tick Tick Bang” captures a punk-leaning urgency from 1981, while 1985’s “Heaven” offers sparse pop textures and features backing vocals from Susannah Melvoin. The collection moves through gospel-tinged country, piano balladry and straight-ahead rock, ending with a live rendition of a fan favorite recorded at Oakland’s Oracle Arena in March 2015.
| Track | Year recorded | Note |
|---|---|---|
| I Am You | 1977 | Horn-driven funk; recorded at Sound 89 when Prince was 19 |
| Tick Tick Bang | 1981 | Punk-inflected; later reworked for Graffiti Bridge |
| Heaven | 1985 | Sparse pop with backing vocals from Susannah Melvoin |
| I Wonder | 1989 | Gospel-country flavor |
| With This Tear | 1991 | Piano ballad later given to Celine Dion |
| Stone | 1995 | Unreleased slow-burning R&B |
| Calabama | 2003 | Hand-clapping soul |
| The Guilty Ones | 2007 | Rock-leaning track; new official video released |
| Bestest Friend | 2012 | Grand, anthemic arrangement |
| How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore? (Live) | 2015 | Live performance from Oracle Arena, March 4, 2015 |
- Two songs from the set — “With This Tear” and “Stone” — were released as singles ahead of the full collection.
- The album closes with a live performance recorded just weeks before Prince’s death, offering an emotional endpoint to the anthology.
- Stylistically, the tracks underscore Prince’s refusal to be pinned to a single genre across five decades.
Who shaped the release
The compilation was mixed and mastered by Grammy‑nominated engineer-producer Chris James and assembled for release by estate co-manager L. Londell McMillan. The estate frames the project as both a musical document and part of a broader commemoration, saying the material reflects the artist’s enduring influence and that more vault releases are planned.
An official video for “The Guilty Ones” accompanied the album, stitching together archival live footage and clips from across Prince’s career to emphasize the compilation’s retrospective angle.
Timeless is available now on streaming platforms and physical formats, and the estate has positioned it as a central piece of this year’s anniversary programming. For listeners, the release provides a rare, compressed survey of Prince’s restless creativity — and a reminder of how many directions a single artist could take.
