Barely an album is what fans thought of Timeless ahead of release. Another archival Prince album, a decade on from his death, and despite these claims of hundreds of unreleased songs, this latest is a little light on material. Ten songs and one of them being a live rendition, it’s not all that glittering a package for the veteran performer. But Timeless is still, at the very least, new material from an artist whose vault is still being sifted through. How long that’ll take, who knows? But as many legendary musicians sell up their deep cuts and archival material, the handling of the Prince Vault and all its contents could be a little cleaner. Timeless feels more a testing of the waters to see if there is an appeal in hearing new Prince songs. That should be a question that does not need answering. Of course Prince fans want more, and even those passing listeners will find it interesting to hear what became of the Purple Rain hitmaker either side of his monumental 1980s album. Timeless offers that, though in a limited capacity.
Alternate versions and compiled efforts that were otherwise unreleased — that’s what all these vault releases will be. But their impact is decided not just by the quality of the material but the package it arrives in. Bob Dylan’s team have been releasing floods of archival material from across the decades, shining a light on otherwise unknown classics and recontextualising his greatest hits. The same has happened for Bruce Springsteen and Pink Floyd, but not for Prince, who likely has the strongest available archive. A shoddily packaged extra ten songs, stripped of their context and thrown together with little regard for their history or presence from project to project, is a bit of a misery. Instead, the producers behind Timeless hope that piling together a handful of songs from similar-sounding studio recording sessions will fashion a whole new overlapping meaning for the otherwise disconnected songs. It does not happen, despite the quality of a few tracks here.
Opening song I Am You is a tremendous, funk-laden effort with plenty to love. Classic Prince, whose sex-tinged writing is backed with a tremendously fun instrumental. You can get through much of Timeless without registering the nuance of the material at hand because it feels thrown together. Much of it feels thrown together because there’s a similar, familiar funk instrumental carried throughout all this. The drum machine and backing vocalist additions to I Wonder are standout moments that make up for a relatively lacklustre song. A few too many tonal whiplash moments can be found here. I Wonder into With This Tear is a bit of a stretch, and what magic those two songs could’ve held is lost almost entirely because of this tonal spottiness. Reminiscing about lost loves and hitting some impressive high notes is still worth hearing, just Timeless feels more like a stuttering compilation than anything else.
Outstanding guitar work on The Guilty Ones goes a long way in salvaging the latter half of the album but it’s too misguided to work as a coherent piece of work. Had this been packaged as a collection of individual pieces, or at least with a bit of context around their recording and intended release, then it’d sound that much better. But there’s no way of gauging that from the record alone, though even dedicated fans may be a touch disappointed by the information. Not the music, though. There’s some very best Prince on display here. The Guilty Ones, particularly. Bestest Friend is a bit of a gut punch for those who’ve just lost theirs, but carry on into that somewhat tepid album closer, How Come You Don’t Call Me Anymore? for a tremendously underwhelming end to a spotty album. None of the songs featured are of poor quality, but it’s a little warning light flashing overhead as the Prince estate undersells its archive.
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