Prince - HITnRUN Phase Two [2LP]

Prince signed off with horns blazing on HITnRUN Phase Two, the last album released in his lifetime, presented here as a double LP.

It appeared on streaming late in 2015, just three months after Phase One, and fans at the Australian and New Zealand dates of his Piano & a Microphone tour were handed CD copies early in 2016. The wider release came only weeks after his death that year, which gives the record a poignancy it never set out to carry. Recorded at Paisley Park between 2011 and 2015, it is the warmer, more organic half of the HITnRUN pair.

Where Phase One flirted with electronic production, this set leans into funk, soul and pop, with the NPG Hornz brass section front and center. Baltimore is a heartfelt response to the death of Freddie Gray and the unrest that followed, a plea for peace with a chorus made for singing along. Rocknroll Loveaffair returns from its earlier life as a single with fresh horn overdubs, while Stare struts on a lean, wiry groove that winks at his own back catalog.

Political one minute and flirtatious the next, Phase Two shows a musician still writing with real hunger right to the end. Spread over two LPs, those horns get all the room they need.