In 1993, Prince's relationship with Warner Brothers Records began to sour, he changed his name to an unpronounceable glyph, and frankly, began nearing the end of his most artistically and commercially vital era. To commemorate the transition, WB put out two compilations simply and accurately titled The Hits. After sixteen years of record making, Prince certainly had enough hits to pack two CDs. There wasn't even room for his number one smash "Batdance", possibly because of rights issues tied to the Batman movie or possibly because it's the weirdest song ever to hit Billboard's number one spot (contrary to popular opinion, it's also awesome).
You certainly can't argue with what's on The Hits 1 and 2. Prince created some of the most exciting, original music of the twentieth century, and much of it is compiled on these discs. While no one with even a passing interest in pop music should live without 1999, Purple Rain, or Sign O' the Times, these two compilations are still very much worthwhile for fans serious and less so because they include a few excellent exclusive cuts, each representing a different stripe of the artist: the slow jam "Pink Cashmere", a live version of "Nothing Compares 2 U" done as a "Purple Rain"-style power ballad, the molten-guitar rock/aural Tex Avery cartoon "Peach", and the fierce, hypnotic rap "Pope".
Half of the remaining songs are single edits and mixes otherwise unavailable on album. These have value both for their minor differences ("Kiss" fades with a bit of squirming guitar instead of the cold ending on Parade) and because they are the songs as we first heard them on the radio and MTV. A disc of B-sides included in a 3-CD edition of The Hits added a great deal of extra value since fab flips such as "Erotic City", "Scarlett Pussy", "Shockadelica", "Irresistible Bitch", "200 Balloons", "La, La, La, He, He, Hee", and "She's Always In My Hair" are not available on album in any form.
Although The Hits were primarily CD releases for a CD age, there were 2-LP vinyl editions released in Europe back in 1993. On the cusp of their thirtieth anniversary, The Hits 1 and The Hits 2 are finally back on vinyl and available in the U.S. for the first time, and they sound pretty damn good to me. No, they aren't very warm, but Prince's space-age funk was never very warm. There's just a touch of distortion as the needle nears the run-out groove. The music is loud and the bass is really heavy, especially on the more hip-hop influenced stuff like "Pope", "Sexy M.F.", and "Gett Off". The spindle holes are reasonably well centered. Both LPs of The Hits 2 had a bit of a wave but that didn't affect the sound. Overall, I'm very pleased with these albums and joyful they were reissued at all. I'll be even more joyful if The B-Sides gets a vinyl release too.
