Prince - The Hits/The B-Sides

by itemvn  |  May 23, 2011

The Hits/The B-Sides is the first greatest hits compilation album by Prince, released in 1993. It is a comprehensive 3-disc set, with a great many of his hit singles and fan favorites. Four previously unreleased tracks — "Pink Cashmere", "Peach", "Pope", and "Power Fantastic" — are also included.

In 1993, Prince wanted to release Goldnigga, the debut album by his band The New Power Generation but Warner Bros. refused and instead decided to finally release the greatest hits collection it had wanted to release two years earlier when Prince instead got Diamonds and Pearls released.

Disc one and two were released separately, under the titles The Hits 1 and The Hits 2 respectively, but the B-Sides disc could only be obtained by purchasing the full set. Most of the songs (A-sides and B-sides) on The Hits/The B-Sides are represented in their single (edited) form, but this was necessary due to time constraints, and the nature of a greatest hits collection. Exceptions to this were "Alphabet St.", "7", "Little Red Corvette", "Sexy MF", and "Purple Rain". This was also the first time the single version of "Kiss" was available on CD. The third disc of B-sides also featured the 7" edits, with the exceptions of "200 Balloons", "17 Days", "Gotta Stop (Messin' About)", "Horny Toad", "Feel U Up", "I Love U In Me", "God", and "How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore?" which were all original full-length recordings from the original singles.