Only a handful of musicians in the history of music are almost unanimously regarded as the best of all time, and Prince is one of them. Some have cited Michael Jackson as the GOAT of music (certainly the King of Pop), others mention Elvis, some say Whitney Houston, and it goes on. What is very evident is that it's impossible to leave Prince out the conversation.
Prince's level of talent is close to unmatched and part of that comes down to how many studio albums he released. It's a privilege for some artists to produce and release 40 songs, so for Prince to release 40 albums across a 41-year-long career, averaging an album a year, is shocking. Such a feat is unheard of, and made all the more impressive knowing how many of those albums stand tall as masterpieces.
The following ranking lists Prince's studio albums from worst to best, not including live albums or compilations.
40 The Black Album (a.k.a. The Funk Bible)
Prince's 16th Studio Album
The Black Album was crafted as a direct response to his black audience who felt that Prince had become too commercial and too poppy at this stage in his career. However, Prince reportedly deemed the album too "evil" in a way that his God wouldn't be pleased with. And those anxieties compelled him to withdraw it one week ahead of its 1987 release, instead releasing Lovesexy in its place.
In 1994, though, Warner Bros. Records gave the project a two-month limited release, then Tidal re-released it exclusively in 2016, holding it on their streaming platform until Prince's death. Some audiences love the album and don't see why Prince saw it to be evil. Alternatively, some audiences aren't comfortable with the prospect of listening to an album that Prince emphatically didn't want anyone to hear.
39 Welcome 2 America
Prince's 40th and Final Studio Album
Released in 2021, Welcome 2 America is the first full-length posthumous album released under Prince's name. The project was recorded and completed in 2010, but for reasons unknown to even his collaborators, Prince opted to shelve the project for years. Those who heard the project give it high praise, but without knowing the reason why Prince shelved it, die-hard Prince fans aren't comfortable listening. Posthumous albums can always be sketchy territory for listeners uncertain whether the late artist had wanted a body of work like this released if they were alive.
38 Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic
Prince's 23rd Studio Album
This is one of the few albums in Prince's catalog that feels forced and unnatural. The issue isn't so much that Prince is consciously chasing a hit single, but instead he's chasing a more modern sound. He's attempting to embrace modern music as it sounded in 1999, bringing in rising stars like Sheryl Crow, Eve, and Gwen Stefani to assist him. He deserves props for trying to get with the times, so to speak, but the attempt doesn't seem to fit and struggles to feel natural.
37 The Vault - Old Friends 4 Sale
Prince's 22nd Studio Album
Vault disappoints because it's just that, a collection of songs from Prince's vault dating back to 1996 (although unreleased until 1999) to satisfy his contractual obligations with his former label, making this the final album from Prince with Warner Bros. Fans already argue that the released songs are watered down compared to the bootlegs unofficially released prior, so even the best songs don't achieve their full potential.
At its core, despite Prince excelling in jazz and blues, Vault is just a heap of songs smashed together without the real cohesion of an actual album.
36 HITNRUN Phase One
Prince's 38th Studio Album
The opening track of HITNRUN opens with a sample from Prince's Purple Rain album, which already starts the album on a downer as it makes the listener wish they were listening to that album instead. Not only that, but it makes it painfully evident that, despite remaining competent and consistent, at this point, Prince just wasn't as immaculate of an artist as he used to be. HITNRUN as a whole makes that distinction far more apparent, making for perhaps his most uneven and boring album.
35 Musicology
Prince's 28th Studio Album
Musicology is effectively Prince's comeback return to the mainstream. It's easy to see why this brought Prince back to prominence after a series of commercial and financial flops. Prince returns to his atypical sound, and while it is a great sound, it makes for his least experimental album to date. In fact, the best way to describe Prince's early 2004 album is with the word "safe."
It's not bad, and it's welcome for fans who wanted Prince to return to his classic sound, but the safe approach can feel uninteresting for fans who love when he experiments with new sounds, even when the results falter. When he falters, he's at least trying something new, whereas Musicology flounders because it's dull.
34 Lovesexy
Prince's 10th Studio Album
There was a point in the '80s where Prince was on a hot streak of albums that could do no wrong, each ranging from great to phenomenal. Lovesexy effectively ends that hot streak, as this is an album that Prince fans either love or hate. It is arguably his most experimental, sonically speaking, from this era of Prince. Some will either rank this among his best, or argue that its production is overproduced to the point of sounding grating to the ears.
33 The Slaughterhouse
Prince's 30th Studio Album
This is another that is more of a compilation of songs rather than a meticulously sequenced body of work. It's easy to use that fact to blame this album's mediocrity, considering The Slaughterhouse is a collection of NPG Music Club downloads that were all previously released as internet-exclusive singles, hence the subtitle, "Trax from the NPG Music Club Vol. 2" ( The Chocolate Invasion was Vol 1.) This was one of three albums Prince released on the same day, and they can't all be hits, folks.
32 Come
Prince's 15th Studio Album
A lot of songs drag longer than they need to. The first and title track, for example, starts off great, but overstays its welcome at nearly 10 minutes when the song itself just repeats "Come" over and over again for the most part. Like other songs on the album, "Come" isn't bad, but is much longer than necessary.
31 For You
Prince's First Studio Album
For You marks Prince's debut, and it is shockingly impressive to witness just how confident and assured in his sound he is at this stage of his career. It lacks the pomp, circumstance, and innuendo that future albums will uphold and, as such, feels like his least ambitious and least interesting project.
However, that's less a knock against the album itself and more speaks to the merits of artistry that Prince reaches for future albums. It may be underwhelming as a Prince album, but on its own, it's still a good debut that sets a high bar for his music.
30 Chaos and Disorder
Prince's 18th Studio Album
This one may very well be Prince's least cohesive album. The songs themselves aren't bad, but collectively they feel tonally confused. To see Prince dabble with so many genres at once - predominantly rock and folk, but also jazz and funk - is mighty impressive, but the way each song is arranged on the album, it makes the project feel disjointed. Many songs - like "The Same December" and "Into the Light" - are great on their own accord, but lack a consistent tone or vibe when arranged in sequence as a body of work.
29 20Ten
Prince's 35th Studio Album
Prince released this album in 2010, but he feels as lively as ever, as does his funky sound. This is one of the albums he produced late into his career that echoes the same sounds and sentiments of his '80s albums. Honestly, it's impressive that he is still able to capture that sort of vibe in his music in his later years, and the result is solid. Don't expect Prince to reinvent the wheel or experiment with this one, but it's noteworthy to see how willing he is to embrace his past when, previously, his music suggested being anxious to get to the future.
28 ART OFFICIAL AGE
Prince's 37th Studio Album
Behind PLECTRUMELECTRUM, Prince's 2014 album is his second released under a renewed licensing agreement with Warner Bros. Records. While it still incorporates the funk sound of Prince's past records with Warner, it does so with more of an R&B tinge. This album is something of an anomaly, as there are parts that are admittedly uninteresting, and then there are songs that are great. Songs like "THIS COULD BE US" are enough to hold this one together like glue.
27 MPLSoUND
Prince's 34th Studio Album
This album serves as one-half of a package featuring his 33rd album, LOtUSFLOW3R. Of the two albums, MPLSoUND feels like the most mainstream-friendly of the two. It's Prince playing with the idea of pop while fusing it with other genres, such as R&B and even rap. Both are solid attempts, and some may come out of this half preferring the funk-heavy sound.
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The record is most notable for some utterly sweet and tender songs like "Better with Time," dedicated to his Under the Cherry Moon co-star, Kristin Scott Thomas. He also wrote "Valentina" about Salma Hayek's daughter following Salma's complicated pregnancy.
26 Crystal Ball
Prince's 20th Studio Album
Crystal Ball is a 2 1/2 hour-long collection of songs, meaning that it doesn’t have the same level of cohesion that one would from a linear album. Much of the project features unreleased demos and remixes of past songs like “P. Control,” as well as songs from scrapped projects. That’s enough to work against the project, but unlike other projects here with similar criticisms, the box-set manages to be one of Prince’s most intriguing. It displays an eerie mood that one may assume The Black Album would evoke, yet a funky attitude that keeps it lighthearted and fun.
25 HITNRUN Phase Two
Prince's 39th Studio Album
This album would prove to be the final album that Prince released before his untimely death, and he certainly goes out with a bang on a project that is very good. A massive improvement from the disappointing Phase One, Phase Two proves to be surprisingly powerful as well, opening with an emotional tribute to the late Freddie Gray on "Baltimore." Then, there's smooth songs like "Look at Me, Look at U" that display that even in his final days, Prince's expertise on vocals and instruments is unmatched and resonates.
24 Graffiti Bridge
Prince's 12th Studio Album
As this list will come to reveal, Prince could basically do no wrong when it comes to movie soundtracks, and that is very much the case here. Additionally, Prince's soundtrack albums are often better than the movies themselves with "The Question of U" a particularly relevant example of that. This is slightly more feature-heavy than most of his albums, but the likes of George Clinton, Tevin Campbell, and The Time truly assist with bolstering - bettering, even - the sound that Prince is utilizing rather than deterring from it. Each feature perfectly complements Prince's voice.
23 Planet Earth
Prince's 32nd Studio Album
Planet Earth gifted Prince his final Grammy win, winning Best Male R&B Vocal Performance. Understandably so, as Planet Earth boasts Prince at his pop-centered best, but songs like "Chelsea Rodgers" - dedicated to the model of the same name - offer a Southern soul influence on display. "This for Jersey right here," Prince says on "Chelsea Rodgers," seemingly confirming whatever Southern influence can be inferred from the album sonically. At 49 years old, Prince was just as energetic as he was in the '80s.
22 LOtUSFLOW3R
Prince's 33rd Studio Album
The other half of Prince's LOtUSFLOW3R two-pack feels like an amalgamation of his best works, in terms of the vibe he brings to the table. The first half of the album is jazz-heavy, echoing the likes of One Nite Alone or The Rainbow Children, but the longer the album progresses, the more that audiences get the funk-heavy Prince of old. Whether Prince intended to or not, this album feels like a love letter to his discography and an absolute must-listen for long-time fans of his music.
21 3121
Prince's 31st Studio Album
Prince builds off of the comeback attention that Musicology produced for him by crafting an even better album. If Musicology was a safe return to the mainstream, he made the most of his stay by experimenting with the Latin music genre. "Te Amo Corazon" and "Incense and Candles" are standouts that would make any listener want to play them over and over. Piggybacking off his last album's success, 3121 manages to be Prince's first number-one album since Batman and the first time he ever debuted at number one.
