Prince Announces Another New Album, Feat. A Song Named After A Meme
UPDATE 6/26: Prince just tweeted a link to a 36-second preview of “This Could Be Us” downloadable in WAV format via Dropbox.
https://t.co/BnRHFFF8b6 pic.twitter.com/yz0vTrxggX
— 3RDEYEGIRL (@3RDEYEGIRL) June 26, 2014
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In addition to a previously announced album with his band 3rd Eye Girl, Plectrum Electrum (release date TBA), Prince has a new solo album in the works, too. There’s still no official release date or title, but Prince shared a few details today in an interview with the Minnesota Star Tribune (via Pitchfork): “I’ve finally got something that is a cohesive statement,” he says. Produced and engineered by Joshua Welton, the album will include “The Gold Standard,” a “funkier and nastier” remix of “FUNKNROLL,” a rap song with Rita Ora, and “This Could Be Us,” reportedly inspired by the #ThisCouldBeUsButYouPlayin meme that’s been making the rounds on Twitter and Tumblr — specifically, one image macro featuring a still from Purple Rain of Prince and Apollonia Kotero on a motorcycle together.
Despite Prince’s notorious and quite public clashes with the label in the past, his new album will be released on Warner Bros., along with a deluxe, remastered 30th-anniversary reissue of Purple Rain. In the interview, he did manage to get in a little dig at the glacial bureaucracy of the music business: “Every No. 1 song, every Top 10 song, every song in the Top 40 is at least six months old…We should be able to make music and put it out now.”