Prince details new solo album featuring Rita Ora and meme-inspired track 'This Could Be Us'

A solo effort and a record with 3RDEYEGIRL are waiting in the wings.

Prince has revealed details of two new albums ready for release. As well as the previously announced PLECTRUMELECTRUM, recorded with his current touring band 3RDEYEGIRL, is a fresh solo LP made with engineer and producer Joshua Welton.

In an interview with Minneapolis’ Star Tribune, Prince didn’t mention a title or release date but did reveal that one song, ‘This Could Be Us’, was inspired by a meme of him and singer Apollonia Kotero in a scene from Purple Rain.

The interviewer got to hear some of the tracks, describing ‘This Could Be Us’ as “a joyful ballad with some ecstatic Prince vocalizing”, while opening track ‘The Gold Standard’ sounded like “percolating electro-funk, an update of classic Prince” and another was a “complex electronic discourse that was hard to grasp first time around.”

UK pop star Rita Ora also features on one of the tracks, described as a “rap song on which the music was as aggressive and menacing as the rapping”.

While PLECTRUMELECTRUM is due sometime this year, there’s no word on when Prince’s solo record might come out. His vaults are already stuffed with unreleased projects, so don’t hold your breath – in the meantime, look out for the remastered 30th anniversary version of Purple Rain and dig deep into his archive with FACT’s guide to 10 Prince songs you never knew existed.

In other Prince news, Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis has claimed that he almost played this year’s festival – but the constant rumours got the better of him.

“We wanted him to play” says Eavis, “and it got to the point where his people were talking to us about him doing it, but before he confirmed he got really upset because he thought we had advertised that he was playing. We hadn’t, but with social media, rumours get everywhere, and one of those rumours was that Prince was coming. So he didn’t want to do it in the end.” [via NME]

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