Piano & a Microphone 1983 album cover
Piano & a Microphone 1983

Prince

1983
NPG Records

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.

Sasha Frere-Jones

Who also suggested

If you select your preferred streamer here, we will save your preference and link to that platform if possible. This can always be changed in the Settings menu.

Apple Music

If you’d like to prioritize Bandcamp if available, tap the Bandcamp logo.

Since some albums are only available on one service, you’ll still see logos for other services if the album is only available on that service.

Next