While Prince had hundreds of hours of music hidden away in a vault in Paisley Park, there's no telling how or if fans will ever hear it. Late last month, fans were teased with a new Prince EP of unreleased songs. Independent record label Rogue Music Alliance and producer Ian Boxill announced the Deliverance EP and shared the title track. But before it could be released, Prince's estate sued him and put a stop to the EP's sale.
A week later, NPG and Warner Bros. Records detailed the upcoming Purple Rain Deluxe edition—a massive release which includes six new songs. Today marks the release of "Our Destiny / Roadhouse Garden," two songs, which Prince often combined live. "Our Destiny" features vocals from Lisa Coleman, and "Roadhouse Garden" has Prince back on vocals with support from Dr. Fink. The song was recorded at First Avenue in Minneapolis in 1984, on Prince's 26th birthday.
Warner Bros. has also recently released the studio version of "Electric Intercourse," a song that was only known to have a live recording before the studio recording was found in Prince's vault.
But as we've found, Prince's music rights can be messy. Just this week, Universal Music Group asked a court to cancel and refund their $31 million deal with Prince's estate over his recorded music. As Rolling Stone reports:
In February, Universal struck a deal with Prince's estate to obtain the rights to distribute the music he recorded after leaving Warner Bros. in 1996, as well as the classic albums he released on Warner between 1979 and 1995 and unreleased music from throughout his career. UMG expected it would be able to start re-releasing Prince's pre-1996 catalog in 2018, though the label soon discovered that Warner's existing deal with Prince did not expire until 2021.
Of course there's also the ongoing battle between Prince and streaming services. Only recently, Prince's music was finally put on Apple Music and Spotify after years of resistance while the artist was still alive. His estate is still involved in a legal dispute with Tidal over streaming rights.
It's unlikely that any legal drama will derail the release of the upcoming Purple Rain Deluxe edition, but you probably should get as many listens out of this while you still can. Just in case.
