"The Gold Experience" by Prince

I take a closer look at one of the most underappreciated albums in the Purple One's catalog.

This album review revisits a criminally underrated entry in Prince’s studio canon, a dazzling funk-rock odyssey recorded during his most trying time as a public figure.

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Genre: Pop, Funk, New Jack Swing

Label: Warner Bros.

Release Date: September 26, 1995

Vibe: 💜💜💜💜

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👉 Click the GIF to stream the album on your favorite platform

In a just world, Prince’s The Gold Experience, which turns 30 later this week, would’ve been a zeitgeist-shifting moment. It’s a portrait of a genuine musical genius at his most volatile, unpredictable, and, in many ways, nakedly honest, set against some of the decade’s best blend of funk, rock, and R&B. But, for many years, it never looked like it would find an audience. Casual music fans largely ignored it, probably because of how detached Prince was from the record’s promotional rollout. At the time, some argued that he was losing touch with what consumers wanted out of their pop music, though it’s not like this LP is bereft of hooks or touches that cater specifically to the hip-hop generation Prince was slower to embrace than others (see Michael Jackson’s Dangerous from a few years earlier for an interesting compare/contrast session). Some albums don’t get a second chance, but this one may be on its third or fourth, and it’s entirely deserving of those repeated resurrections.

Before discussing the music, it’s important to situate The Gold Experience in the context of Prince’s career from 1990 to 1995. In five years, he starred in another box office flop (Graffiti Bridge), formed the New Power Generation, released five studio albums (six if you count The Black Album), opened a chain of nightclubs, collaborated with one of the most respected dance companies in the world, launched an interactive CD-ROM game, and, as if that weren’t enough, kept up a punishing touring schedule. Smack in the middle of that timeline, on June 7, 1993, the day he turned 35, Prince let it be known that he’d dropped his name in favor of the unpronounceable symbol that had graced the cover of his 1992 album (another criminally slept-on record, but that’s another story for another time). He was officially “the artist formerly known as Prince” and would no longer be performing any songs released before the name change, as they belonged to a past self.

Speculation spread almost immediately that this move was his attempt to worm his way out of his Warner Bros. contract, a six-album deal with an estimated value of $100 million. No one, not even Jackson or Madonna, was getting paid like him. Yet, despite what looked like a win-win on paper, the professional relationship soured soon after. Prince wanted to release music at the same rapid-fire pace he was recording it, continually pushing his label to make his massive backlog of unreleased material public. But Warner Bros. wanted to maximize their commercial yield and space albums out accordingly (which is funny to consider in the streaming age, when there’s so much pressure for artists and their corporate overlords to get new music to market as quickly as humanly possible before another viral star eats their lunch). Prince interpreted the strategy as an inhumane control mechanism, famously dubbing himself a slave with a facial marking. By the time he changed his name to a glyph, it was the latest salvo in what was blossoming into an all-out war.

“It’s fun to draw a line in the sand and say, ‘Things change here,’” he told journalist Alan Light in 1994. “I don’t mind if people are cynical or make jokes—that’s part of it, but this is what I choose to be called. You find out quickly who respects and who disrespects you. It took Muhammad Ali years before people stopped calling him Cassius Clay.” A few months later, he’d drop Come, a solid-if-disjointed album that features cover art of Prince standing in a cemetery, with an ominous “1958-1993” floating under his name. It’s not horrible as LPs go, but it’s cold and detached by design, making it clear he was in a quiet quitting phase. There’s nothing all that intriguing or surprising about that record, whereas there’s plenty to write home about in The Gold Experience. That was the project he was clearly more invested in, but Warner Bros. held it back after accepting the final mix, fearing oversaturation in the marketplace. Prince responded by performing much of the material live long before the album ever hit store shelves, all while the album jacket was put up on screen behind him, complete with the caption: “Release: Never.” It’s maddening and also delightfully petty.

Recorded primarily between 1993 and 1995, the Gold sessions were part of a protracted period that saw Prince writing and producing new music at an unprecedented pace, even by his standards. I’ve read unverified accounts that he recorded something like 500 songs during this period, but the number reads as so outrageous it’s likely a myth. Much of what ended up on this album was tracked at Paisley Park, where he’d cycle through personnel like teenagers go through TikTok trends. Even though the final tracklist suffers a bit from too many meandering, spoken-word interludes, it’s so alive with purpose that you can’t help but get swept up in that energy. Here was an artist who had nothing left to prove, creatively or commercially, but insisted on demolishing the old house and building it back up from stud anyway. Back then, it was considered too avant-garde a business move to be taken seriously. Now, with bigger and bigger names taking control of their legacies and creative output, it feels prophetic.

It’s worth mentioning that I don’t think this larger narrative would matter so much if the music were subpar, but The Gold Experience is anything but. Prince opens the album with a provocation, "P. Control," a manifesto disguised as a synth-funk banger. Laced with innuendo, racially-charged lyrics, and a level of swagger that borders on cartoonish, it doubles as a stealth feminist power anthem. Prince knew the title alone would raise eyebrows, and he leaned into it, telling a story of a woman who “hired the heifers that jumped her and made every one of them work for free.” That tension between raunch and revolution, between sleaze and sincerity, sets the tone for the rest of the LP. "Shhh," a devastatingly sensual ballad written initially for Tevin Campbell, is a masterclass in sonic restraint that recalls tracks like “International Lover.” It’s a quiet storm wrapped in velvet, his falsetto whispering just above throbbing guitar and gentle percussion.

It gets weirder from there. "Dolphin" and "Endorphinmachine" toggle between surreal poetry and raw power. The former is his way of processing ridicule and public mockery, asking: “If I came back as a dolphin/Would you listen to me then?/Would you let me be your friend?/Would you let me in?” It’s an absurdist form of grieving, a quiet peek behind the curtain into Prince’s true headspace. Conversely, the latter is pure, unbridled chaos, anchored by a guitar riff that would fit nicely beside rock radio darlings of the period like Pearl Jam or the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It’s Prince at his most feral, testing the limits of his audience’s tolerance for genre experimentation. It also makes me pine for a Prince record that’s nothing but hard rock heaters. You know he’d be able to pull it off in technicolor, too.

Oddly enough, the biggest hit off The Gold Experience, “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World,” is among my least favorite cuts from the tracklist. It’s enjoyable but perfunctory when considered next to its less cookie-cutter brethren. However, due to a copyright lawsuit that was only settled in 2022, it’s also the song that led to the album going out of print and largely out of circulation digitally. But today, with remastered physical media and streaming versions available, it’s finally getting the overdue attention it deserves. Beyond being a fascinating turning point in his career, it’s a seriously underrated collection of music. If nothing else, it proves that Prince was far more capable as a musician, writer, producer, and force of nature than some industry pundits and critics gave him credit for. From glam rock to rap to R&B grooves that have more than a faint hint of New Jack Swing in them, he really could do it all and then some.

Maybe The Gold Experience was always destined to be misunderstood. Most folks weren’t ready for it in 1995, and if you only know him for his work on 1999 or Purple Rain, then you may not be either. Maybe it’s not even the music itself that matters as much as his contribution to the death of monoculture. The rise of niche online fandom. What was once considered erratic and unhinged feels far more substantive with hindsight. Even the title hits harder the more you consider its implications. The eponymous precious metal is an apt metaphor, casting him as a mythical, Tutankhamun-like character who was buried by his label with vast quantities of wealth, with ancient Egyptians believing that those riches were essential to his continued existence in the afterlife. Gold was literally considered “the flesh of the gods” and a sign of divine power.

Need I say more?

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Where does Prince’s 90s material rank for you compared to his 80s releases? Sound off in the comments.