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Musicheads Essential Album: Prince, 'One Nite Alone...'

'One Nite Alone...' album art.
'One Nite Alone...' album art.NPG Records
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by Sanni Brown

April 08, 2021

Click above to hear an audio version of this review, with musical selections. Audio produced by Derrick Stevens.

In 2002, Prince released his 25th album, One Nite Alone... The album primarily features Prince singing solo on a piano.

It was gifted to members of Prince's early 2000s website NPG Music Club, and wasn't sold in stores until spring of 2020, when the Prince estate issued the One Nite Alone box set. It's a times jazzy, at times bluesy, and at times, a little gospel.

Prince covers Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You" in memory of his father, musician John L. Nelson, who passed away less than a year before this album's release.

One track off the album, "Avalanche," talks about the exploitation of Black people. At the time, Prince received some backlash for calling Abraham Lincoln a racist, though he stood by his statement and continued to perform the song.

One Nite Alone... showcases Prince's skill on the piano, and while it is sonically simpler than a lot of his other work, it packs a punch in its own right.