Winter storm warnings continue in northern Minnesota 

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

is the first posthumous album released by the 

 two years ago. It's an intimate recording of the artist before he was a giant, international star working through songs in a home studio — just Prince and his piano. The never-before-heard recording was discovered in the singer's personal 

 on a cassette tape and takes place in Prince's Kiowa Trail home studio in Chanhassen, Minn. But don't think of this release as some unearthed demos meant for others to hear. As NPR Music critic Ann Powers explains, these songs were for Prince to try out ideas and develop new material.


"We are being allowed into a moment that we don't necessarily get and we never would have had access to, honestly, while Prince was alive," Powers says.


The album contains the fledgling beginnings and snippets of songs like "Purple Rain," which would go on to be one of Prince's most massive hits, a cover of 

's "A Case of You" and a re-imagination of the gospel classic "

Above all, what the stripped-down piano on the album shows listeners is the process of how Prince worked. "What his piano-playing shows us is how he finds his voice," Powers notes. "His vocal style is related to the instrument."


As working tapes, Powers believes that if Prince were alive he would "most certainly not" want this early music out in the world. But she also argues that the release of 

"I think we understand Prince's creativity in a different way because of it and for that reason, it doesn't feel like a violation, it feels like a gift," Powers says.

Arts and Culture

Music

Minnesota News

Prince: His life and music

Rachel Martin

Author

Vince Pearson

Rachel Martin talks to NPR Music critic Ann Powers about Piano & a Microphone 1983, Prince's first posthumous album of previously unreleased material, out now.

The gift of posthumous Prince music

Go Deeper.

Like this?

News you can use in your inbox