Prince’s 2006 album, 3121, will be reissued as a deluxe edition, in December.
Despite not delivering any hit singles (‘Te Amo Corazón’ was an odd choice of first 45) the album was a significant success for Prince, featuring a very commercial mix of funk, soul, rock and pop.
After years of testing the patience of all but the most dedicated of fans (bloated triple albums, online exclusives that may or may not turn up, hiding away gems like The Truth…) Prince was, at this time, deciding to keep things relatively simple. For example, this was a digestible 12-track album and it was easily available in ‘the shops’, thanks to a one album distribution deal with Universal. The rewards duly came and 3121 reached No 1 in the US charts (1989’s Batman had been his last chart-topper in North America) and it was a top 10 success in the UK (a few years later Prince was back to his old tricks with the 2 hour 20 minute Lotusflow3r / MPLSound).
Highlights of 3121 include the stripped-down funk of ‘Black Sweat’ and ‘Love’, the hooky pop of ‘The Word’ and the none-more-James-Brown ‘Get On The Boat’.
The new 2CD+blu-ray deluxe edition features the album on CD 1, a selection of bonus tracks on CD 2 (some previously unreleased) and on the blu-ray, promo videos and the complete concert filmed during Prince’s Per4ming Live @ 3121 Las Vegas from January 2007 (the audio of which is being released for Black Friday RSD). Sadly, there’s no Atmos Mix included. There will also be a 3LP+blu-ray edition with the same audio/video content is the CD set.
3121 deluxe edition will be released on 11 December 2026. At the moment it’s only on the Prince store but it should ripple out to normal retail channels soon enough.
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