I read this New Yorker piece a couple of months ago that really tore me up about listening to posthumous work from Prince. His estate released a shelved album from 2010, Welcome 2 America, on July 30, 2021.

Critics immediately branded it as genius, addressing social issues that resonate today, and everyone publicly wondered why Prince shelved the album after its completion a decade earlier.

Here’s the thing, though: He did.

I listened to Welcome 2 America, after torturing myself a bit, wondering if I should. I figured it couldn’t hurt. It’s good. It’s maybe genius. It addresses social issues that resonate today. But it’s just a Prince album.

It’s a Prince album.

The next ten, twenty - one hundred - posthumous Prince albums released will also be Prince albums. They’ll be polished. They won’t hold all the haunt of a final Jeff Buckley demo, or a latter-day Chris Cornell acoustic performance. They’ll just be Prince albums, likely intended for a catalogue and definitely not intended for public consumption, especially if he completed and shelved them for 5+ years

The dude had a state-of-the-art recording studio within his home estate, and professionally recorded everything he ever incepted. There are thousands - nay, maybe even millions of polished Prince recordings we have yet to hear. But that doesn’t mean we need to. And it doesn’t mean we should.

It’s sad to think about. And it’s mind-blowing to consider what’s out there in the spoils of his estate, and what’s left to be unearthed. But I kind-of prefer the haunt. Let’s leave well enough alone, and respect the artist and his vault. 

Let’s be clear: We definitely will not do that. No human I know would be capable of it, and in the face of money to be made, it will be impossible. But it’s a nice thought, to think that we could lay exploitation to rest, even just for one guy.