Nothing Compares 2 Prince
Watch The Purple One Seduce U In Rare Footage
Believe it or not, Prince died two years ago of an accidental overdose in 2016. He was only 57, but had given the world decades of wonderful and memorable music. While his untimely death was indeed tragic, Prince’s estate has really loosened up all of the artist’s music rights and release previously unreleased tracks and unseen videos from his vaults.
For example, Prince’s version of “Nothing Compares 2 U” has been virtually unavailable to hear since the early 80s. There were records of the song from his side project The Family, but recordings were few and far between, while non-existent online. Fans were clamoring for Prince’s original version for years… until now.
Thankfully, Prince’s estate released rare rehearsal footage from the summer of 1984 featuring Prince & The Revolution at Flying Cloud Drive Warehouse in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. The video also features the original studio version of “Nothing Compares 2 U” (with an amazing sax solo from Eric Leeds) for the first time ever!
“One day, he went into a room with a notebook and, within an hour, emerged with the lyrics to Nothing Compares 2 U,” said Susan Rogers, Prince’s sound engineer who recorded and witnessed the Purple One lay “down instrument after instrument, mixing and overdubbing in the same session,” to The Guardian. “The song came out like a sneeze.”
Of course, Prince later gave the classic single to Sinéad O’Connor in 1990. O’Connor’s version was a smash hit for the Irish singer/songwriter, as it won the MTV Video Music Awards: Video of the Year.
And why didn’t Prince want to release the song under his own name? According to Susan Rogers, “he released his material based on what he wanted us to know about him and, wonderful as it is, he didn’t want it to represent him.”
It’s just another reason why Prince was so great. Not only did he write some of the best songs from the last 40 years for himself, he also wrote many hit songs for other recording artists, such as The Bangles, Alicia Keys, Sheila E., Chaka Khan, and many, many others. In fact, before his death, he even worked with Janelle Monáe on the song “Make Me Feel.”
