It’s not surprising that Prince’s home studio recordings are good but the ways in which they’re good are. These are studio quality recordings of Prince drafting songs you know (“17 Days”) and some you don’t (“Cold Coffee + Cocaine” and “Wednesday”) with nothing but a piano and his voice. He gets an entire band out of the piano, playing harder than you expect and finding a full dynamic range in the setting. Hearing him play like this makes clear he was always imagining the song and the band at the same time. This isn’t some kind of cabaret music album—this is Prince dreaming arrangements out loud.