The Very Best of Prince

Lore & Background

The album contains most of his commercially successful singles from 1979 to 1991 including the US number 1s 'When Doves Cry', 'Let's Go Crazy', 'Kiss' and 'Cream'. The Very Best of Prince does not include the US number 1 hit 'Batdance' most likely due to the licensing of the character Batman. Music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine believed that the Batman album was unofficially being written out of Prince's discography. All the songs included in this compilation were all previously included in the 3-disc box set The Hits/The B-Sides (1993), with the exception of 'Money Don't Matter 2 Night'.

In Their Own Story

The neon hum of Paisley Park bled through the studio glass at two in the morning. Prince sat cross-legged on the carpet, a half-empty glass of something amber beside a tower of cassette tapes, running a finger along the spines of the masters. Outside, the Minnesota wind stripped leaves from the oaks in a slow golden spiral. He was listening—really listening—to the sequence, feeling whether the transition from the horn-heavy opener into the slow, aching ballad in the middle third still made a stranger's chest tighten. He nodded once, barely, and whispered a word to the engineer in the control room. The engineer nodded back. Neither of them smiled. They didn't need to. The music was doing the talking, and it had always been enough.

Reader's Guide

On the chart dated August 18, 2001, The Very Best of Prince debuted at number 66 on the US Billboard 200. As of September 21, 2004, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for selling 1 million copies in the United States. The Very Best of Prince sold 179,000 album-equivalent units (100,000 in pure album sales) in the week following Prince's death in April 2016, thus allowing the album to re-enter the Billboard 200 at number one on the chart dating May 7, 2016; this makes the album Prince's fifth number-one on the chart. The following week the album fell to number two on the Billboard 200 chart, selling 391,000 equivalent copies (216,000 in pure album sales) behind Beyoncé's Lemonade. In 2016 alone, the album sold 660,000 recognized copies in the United States in addition to the over 2 million copies sold prior to 2016.

Did You Know?

• The album does not include the US number 1 hit 'Batdance' most likely due to licensing of the character Batman.
• All songs on the compilation were previously included on the 3-disc box set The Hits/The B-Sides (1993), except 'Money Don't Matter 2 Night'.
• The album re-entered the Billboard 200 at number one in May 2016 following Prince's death.