20Ten

Lore & Background

Prince revealed the name of the album when receiving a lifetime achievement award at the 2010 BET Awards in June 2010. He stated to the Daily Mirror that he chose the title because, 'I just think it's a year that really matters. These are very trying times.' He considered the album a personal diary of the year. Over 2.5 million copies were distributed by Trinity Mirror, the publisher of the Daily Mirror and Daily Record. Prince was featured in the publications, to which he granted his first interview in a British newspaper in over 10 years. The issue of the Mirror cost 65 pence; the album was not available as a digital download or in retail stores. Prince stated to the Mirror that this method of releasing the album was 'the best way to go... no charts, no internet piracy and no stress,' although the album is easily available for illegal download via peer-to-peer networks. The publisher released that sales of the Daily Mirror increased by 334,000, and sales of The Daily Record increased by 45,000 copies on the day it included the album. Prince released his album Planet Earth in July 2007 under a similar arrangement with the British newspaper The Mail on Sunday. No plans for a U.S. release have even been announced. On October 8, 2010, Prince told French radio station Europe 1 that he was reportedly planning on releasing an updated edition of the album called 20Ten Deluxe.

In Their Own Story

The studio lights at Paisley Park hummed a low amber glow, the kind that makes everything look like a memory already forming. Prince sat at the console, sleeves rolled, a half-empty glass of something dark sweating on the rack beside his headphones. On the monitor, the waveform of a song he had written twenty years ago pulsed like a slow heartbeat. He pressed record, closed his eyes, and let the guitar find a voicing that didn't exist in '87 — something wider, sadder, more alive. The engineer in the booth didn't breathe. The tape rolled. Outside, Minneapolis snow fell on the parking lot in thick, silent curtains, and for a few minutes the whole world was just a man, a guitar, and the ghost of a song that refused to stay dead.

Reader's Guide

20Ten received mixed reviews from most music critics. Columnist Tony Parsons reviewed the album for the Daily Mirror, the newspaper marketing the album. He wrote that it was 'as good as [Prince's] all-time classics like Purple Rain and 1999' and that it was 'his best record since Sign o' the Times 23 years ago.' Joachim Hentschel, writing for the German edition of Rolling Stone, viewed the album as Prince's best effort since 1992's the Love Symbol Album. Jason Draper of NME gave 20Ten a 4/10 rating, stating that while it 'has its moments', the album was 'no way' his best in 23 years, but likely his best in four years. MusicOMH writer Luke Winkie gave it 2 out of 5 stars and described it as 'one of the slightest albums the man has ever recorded; fluffy, anti-climatic, and utterly boring'. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic gave the album 2½ out of 5 stars and wrote that its songs feature 'enough of a shape to be attractive from a distance, not enough to withstand closer scrutiny... hooks don’t sink in, funk jams are stuck in low gear, sensuality only simmers, the rhythms are somewhat stiff, and Prince’s deliberate mining of the past only highlights how he’s stripped the freakiness out of his entire persona'.

Did You Know?

• Some titles of the tracks from the album were revealed as clues in Prince's song 'Cause and Effect' which was released to radio earlier in 2010.
• Tracks 10 to 76 contain five to six seconds of silence.