Prince’s HITnRUN Phase One: hit or miss?

Prince 2014/2015

Introduced

Generally regarded to be one of Prince’s worst albums ever, HITnRUN Phase One was released on September 7, 2015. Thanks to an elaborate marketing campaign this EDM album gained a lot of traction. Hype or truly interesting?

Announcement

On July 24, 2015, 3rd Eye Girl, the band Prince recorded and performed with since 2012, announced a new album was on the way. The name was tentatively titled HITNRUN, a reference to the “pop-up” shows, events that were announced just days before they actually took place. Incidentally, the 1986 Parade Tour was also known as the Hit & Run Tour.

Prince at the White House, 06/13/2015

The announcement came in the form of a roaring press release:

It’s phenomenal, there are so many hits on this album. It’s super experimental.

Super hardcore Prince fans that know every song he’s ever recorded – we refer to them as ‘The Purple Collective’ or ‘The Purple Army’ – this album is absolutely for them, because it’s super funky.

It’s weird, there’s a lot of experimental sound. It’s just hit after hit and definitely caters to those fans who just love to hear what Prince has to say, rather than wanting to always hear that classic Purple Rain Prince sound.

[First mention of new record, at White House show on June 13, 2015]

We had a big party, it was awesome, Stevie Wonder was there. We were all just dancing and Joshua was DJing and he just started playing all these super funky songs and one of those was Hardrocklover.
He’s throwing out joint after joint and they’re all funky, like each new one is funkier than the last.
It was all new music and everybody was having a good time, digging it. Little did we know that we were just jamming to a completely new album that was just finished that Joshua and Prince had done.

This Could Be Us is such a classic tune that’s so beautiful and the lyrics are amazing, the production is phenomenal.
But then when you hear this new version on the Hit & Run CD, it is totally different – super cool, really industrial sounding.
Joshua and Prince just totally flipped it and turned it into something completely new.

Also there’s a song called 1,000 Hugs and Kisses that is just a super slow jam, to dance with your husband or your wife on the dance floor, it’s a really dope, feel-good love song.

Everything happens really fast here. When an idea comes… it’s translated to the musicians or whoever’s working on it and then recorded and laid down relatively quick and then it’s put out.
Every day there’s something new. It could be one song, it could be a group of songs, you never know.

[Release date]

It’s definitely something we’re thinking is going to be released right away, it’s just not been nailed down yet.
I can’t wait for everybody to get this album, it’s going to be amazing.
It’s definitely in discussion, so as soon as we get those details I’m sure we’ll announce it and get it out to everybody immediately.

3rd Eye Girl interview, BBC, 07/24/2015

Based on the press release alone, this album would be slamming! However, the first two singles released before the album, indicated the opposite. Both Fallinlove2nite (a duet with actress Zooey Deschanel) and Hardrocklover were somewhat nondescript sings. On September 7, 2015, the album was made available exclusively on the Tidal streaming service. The physical CD followed a week later.

The Many Faces of Prince

The Many Faces of Prince

Martin Homent was an illustrator from Londen with a love for Prince (music). For many years he contemplated a project (The Many Faces of Prince), creating simple, tight drawings representing every phase of Prince’s rich career. When he had finally started his project and the first results found their way to the internet, Prince caught wind of them. He liked what he saw, got in touch with Homent, bought the rights and encouraged Homent to keep on going. It would eventually lead to his drawings being used as album covers for HITnRUN Phase One and HITnRUN Phase Two, singles, social media channels, stage backdrops for the Piano & A Microphone tour and other events.

Martin Homent:

I was lucky enough to work with Prince for a couple of years, a partnership that started with a project called ‘The Many Faces of Prince’. The idea was to create a portrait of Prince, one for every year he’s been in the music business, using only simple shapes. He saw the project, got in touch and we went on to create album art, merchandise, staging and more.

More on the The Many Faces of Prince project at another time.

Prince – HITnRUN Phase One

HITnRUN Phase One

The album starts off with samples of For You, 1999 and Let’s Go Crazy, resembling the so-called DAT Intro that introduced the shows of the 1990 Nude Tour. At the time it built on the excitement for Prince shows which already had the crowds buzzing with anticipation, on this album it falls flat, forced even, just as the entirety of the album sounds forced. The production is busy, dated and oftentimes downright ugly.

At times Prince tried to connect to current trends, like he did earlier on albums like Diamonds And Pearls (1991) and Emancipation (1996), the end-result always suffered, as is the case with this album as well. As stated before, the single Fallinlove2nite wasn’t anything special with the duet vocals of actress Zooey Deschanel, but the album version sees her vocals removed, the song is up-dated, making it sound even worse. A feat in itself, but not of the kind we were waiting for.

Someone like Lianne Le Havas must have frowned upon learning her name is connected to this album. Her voice was sampled from the very pleasant Clouds off of the preceding album ART OFFICIAL AGE, so characterizing Mr. Nelson as a duet is somewhat dubious. The song is worse than dubious. Even songs that start off promising quickly descend into hopelessly out-of-date trickery, sounds and patched-up sound waves.

Just when you think Prince just delivered his worst album of all time, he ends the album with June, a nice song that shades everything that came before, and then some.

Prince – HITnRUN Phase One – Tidal screenshot

Review

“Hype or truly interesting?” was the question in this article’s introduction. The answer is simple: hype. At times this is an excruciating experience, it’s musically lean, very lean to be exact. The production is sleep inducing. Prince himself stated in a 2015 Ebony interview: “HITnRUN sounds like today”, indicating he had lost touch with the then current musical reality.

It has been a recurring theme throughout Prince’s career: how would Prince’s output have looked had he allowed outsiders produce his music? Of course, no one even slightly conjured up someone like Joshua Welton, husband to 3rdEyeGirl drummer Hannah Ford and self-proclaimed minister. Welton gave the album an ugly, predictable and boring sound. EDM and Prince don’t really mix that well, at least not on this album, and not in this way. But, to be fair, Prince, and only Prince, is the one that’s actually accountable for this project. In the same Ebony interview Prince comments on Welton: “He’s like me, younger. You know how you can just feel that something’s gonna work and it feels right, it’s a good fit? I knew the relationship with him was gonna work.” It wasn’t the first time Prince trusted someone who was evidently unfit for their role.

Why this album was released to the public, will always be a mystery to me. Fortunately, this wasn’t the last album Prince would release during his lifetime. The next album was entirely different. Titled HITnRUN Phase Two many expected the worst, but it was like a night and day situation. More on that in another article.

I read a review that ran with the subtitle “Can we assume that “direct-to-streaming” is the new “direct-to-video” for really bad albums?”. It made me laugh. It’s a clever remark, which was more than true, unfortunately. HITnRUN Phase One scores a meager:

Prince – HITnRUN Phase One – Singles

Singles

The album produced 3 singles:

• Fallinlove2nite
  (released on March 17, 2014)
• Hardrocklover
  (released on July 7, 2015)
• This Could B Us
  (released on August 28, 2015, not in the US)

Prince – HITnRUN Phase One – Back cover

Songs

All songs written by Prince & Joshua Welton, except This Could B Us written by Prince.

• Million $ Show (featuring Judith Hill)
• Shut This Down
• Ain’t About 2 Stop (featuring Rita Ora)
• Like A Mack (featuring Curly Fryz)
• This Could B Us
• Fallinlove2nite
• X’s Face
• Hardrocklover
• Mr. Nelson (featuring Lianne La Havas)
• 1000 X’s & O’s
• June

Musicians

• Prince – vocals, bass, guitar, unless stated otherwise
• Joshua Welton – keyboards, drum programming, vocals on X’s Face
• Judith Hill – vocals on Million $ Show
• Michael B. Nelson, Steve Strand, Dave Jensen, Kenni Holmen, Kathy Jensen – horns on Million $ Show, Fallinlove2nite
• Stringenius – strings on Million $ Show, Fallinlove2nite
• Rita Ora – vocals on Ain’t About 2 Stop
• Charli Curiel (Curly Fryz) – rap on Like A Mack
• Danielle Curiel (Curly Fryz) – vocals on Like A Mack
• NPG Nornz (Keith Anderson, Marcus Anderson, Lynn Grissett, Joey Rayfield) – horns on Like A Mack
• Donna Grantis (3rdEyeGirl) – guitar solo, background vocals on Ain’t About 2 Stop
• Hannah Ford, Ida Nielsen (3rdEyeGirl) – background vocals on Ain’t About 2 Stop
• Lianne La Havas – vocals on Mr. Nelson (Clouds sample)

Prince – HITnRUN Phase One – CD

After HITnRUN Phase One

In the remaining 7 months Prince would spend on this earth, he released the album HITnRUN Phase Two, an album that was the opposite of HITnRUN Phase One in almost every sense possible, and he planned to start his Piano & A Microphone Tour in Europe, which got delayed following problems with ticket sales and scammers and the six terror attacks in Paris on November 13, 2015, which followed the Charlie Hebdo attacks on January 7, 2015. Prince focused his attention to Australia and the US first. He would never play in Europe again.

In closing

What’s your take on HITnRUN Phase One? Let me know!