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Any new Prince album is a major event. But, from my sneak preview, I can tell you that what makes the release of 20TEN truly momentous is that its as good as his all-time classics like Purple Rain and 1999.

20TEN is a comeback on a par with Elvis reinventing himself in Las Vegas in 1968. 20TEN is as good as anything Prince has done which means it is as good as anything that anyone has done.

I have admired Prince for more than 30 years because he is, in a word, a genius.

He broke down barriers. The barriers between rock and soul, black and white, sex and romance, the sacred and the profane. Only

the all-time greats are capable of breaking down the barriers that divide music, that separate people. Elvis did it. And The Beatles. And Michael Jackson.

There have been many times hearing 1999 for the first time, hearing Thieves In The Temple for the 1,000th time, seeing him live in Washington in 1984 in his swaggering, purple prime when I believed with all my heart that Prince was the greatest of them all.

Prince could do everything. He is a multi-instrumentalist on a par with Stevie Wonder. He dances like James Brown.

He plays guitar like Jimi Hendrix. And as for doing the splits in high heels only Ginger Rogers and Prince can do the splits in high heels.

His songs could make you smile, and make you dance and break your heart. And help your broken heart to start healing.

I loved him early on. The songwriting just blew me away songs like I Wanna Be Your Lover, and Head and When You Were Mine hot-buttered funk, romantically lush, with a side order of lust. And when you saw him live, he had you for life.

His big breakthrough album, Purple Rain, came out in the same year, 1984, as the Milos Forman film Amadeus and Prince clearly identified like mad with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In fact, he dressed like Mozart on acid.

And why not? Fifty years of popular music have produced only a handful of characters who could legitimately claim to be a genius. Prince is top of the list.

He has produced 10 platinum albums and 30 Top 40 singles in his career, but that does not even begin to do justice to his talent.

From his debut in 1978 until the Gold Experience in 1995, he released an album a year. And many of them Diamonds and Pearls, Sign o the Times, 1999, Purple Rain were among the greatest albums of all time. It was a winning streak that is almost without parallel in pop probably only The Beatles have come close.

And they had three people writing their songs. And they couldnt keep it up for as long as Prince.

There were hard times ahead. Contract-ual battles. The death of his first child. Marriage break-ups. But genius does not fade. And genius does not go out of style. And genius the kind of musical genius owned by Prince Rogers Nelson of Minneapolis is forever fresh.

Now Prince is back with his best record since Sign o the Times 23 years ago.

And there is something else... its not released via the internet or record companies.

20TEN is a real exclusive for readers of the Daily Mirror this Saturday. Its the only place you can get it... and I strongly recommend you do.

Track by track

COMPASSION

Classic Prince. Save the world but dont forget to get down. Musically it recalls Delirious on 1999, but this is Prince at his most socially conscious since Sign o the Times. Full of references to the greedy ones and melting polar ice caps.

BEGINNING ENDLESSLY

Thick slices of Prince at his most funky. The Purple One contemplates a dying star and a girl in a bar. Impossible to know what he is going on about. Possibly a love song, or a contemplation of reincarnation. Or both. A slick, blistering guitar solo to rival Purple Rain.

FUTURE SOUL SONG

Prince at his most soulful, and most romantic exactly the kind of lush, lavish romanticism that made The Most Beautiful Girl in the World one of the greatest love songs ever written. Like a twenty-first century Marvin Gaye, or a thin Barry White. Gorgeous stuff.

STICKY LIKE GLUE

A reminder that Prince has a PhD in deep funk the ghosts of Parliament, Funkadelic and Earth, Wind and Fire stalk the double innuendos. Benny Hill hits the dance floor. Oooh, you are awful, Prince! But we like you!

ACT OF GOD

Dirty fat bankers, Prince hisses over a track that would have sat nicely on his soundtrack for the first Batman movie hard party man funk, as Prince reflects on the money men who have brought us such misery. He doesnt like them much.

LAVAUX

Jazzy, swinging and chilled as a cucumber with hypothermia - it could be Steely Dan in their prime a track to remind us that Prince was always and forever open to any kind of music. And then he made it his own.

WALK IN SAND

He always did wistful so well. Longing, loss, yearning nobody ever did it better. A bittersweet love song with an ache in its breaking heart. And I have no idea if it is about the woman by his side, or a girl he lost years ago.

SEA OF EVERYTHING

Prince at his most spiritual, and his most romantic. A slow burning cheek-to-cheek love song for late at night when there is only one couple left on the dance floor. Prince sees the universe in a grain of sand, and the meaning of life in a young womans smile.

EVERYBODY LOVES ME

Playful Prince. Prince at his most light-hearted. Mucking about. Prince having a bit of a disco burn-up. Prince when he is in one of those moods that say we have saved the world, and we have found true love what do we do now? Oh, I know. Lets go crazy. Lets go nuts.

SECRET TRACK 77 LAYDOWN

Dont miss the secret track 77. From the heart of Minnesota here come the purple Yoda. Wow, a Star Wars reference! Rocks along like a bitch Erotic City, the great Prince carnal classic, comes immediately to mind. And there is enough the-wonder-of-me boasting on there to remind us that Prince is the missing link between Muhammad Ali and hip-hop. And when Prince says that you need to lay down, you know hes not talking about your afternoon nap.

More Prince

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Prince - 20TEN the first review: This is his best album for 23 years says Tony Parsons

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Prince - slave to his music: Record label rows then a creative renaissance

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