| One Nite Alone... (subtitled Solo piano and voice by Prince) is the 25th full-length studio album by Prince, and the first album of new material to be released exclusively through Prince’s NPG Music Club (Rave In2 The Joy Fantastic, the companion album to Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic, was released through the club the previous year, however).
The album was mailed to NPG Music Club members worldwide in May 2002. Later in 2002, the album was also included as a separately-packaged fourth disc with the NPG Music Club edition of One Nite Alone... Live!, meaning many NPG Music Club members received two separate copies of the album.
The album’s title was the inspiration for the name of the One Nite Alone... Tour which took place in 2002 (starting two and a half months before the album’s release).
Sessions and compiling
Specific recording dates for the album are unknown, but it is believed that the tracks were all recorded in Spring 2001 at Paisley Park Studios, Chanhassen, MN, USA, during the mastering of The Rainbow Children album.
The album is a solo recording by Prince, featuring John Blackwell on drums on only two tracks, Here On Earth and A Case Of U. Prince’s doves, named "Divinity" and "Majesty", are also credited for "ambient singing" on the album.
The album is sparse in nature, focusing on piano and vocals, although (in a similar vein to The Truth focusing on acoustic guitar and vocals) some other instruments and sound effects appear throughout.
Promotion
The album did not produce any singles, but the first four tracks of the album were included as mp3 downloads as part of NPGMC Edition # 12, the final edition of the first year of the NPG Music Club, as promotion for the second year. Pearls B4 The Swine had also been included in NPG Ahdio Show 8, a special show posted in response to the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in the USA.
The album was not available on the commercial market for almost two decades and therefore was not eligible for the charts. On 29 May 2020, The Prince Estate re-released the album on vinyl with Sony’s Legacy Recordings (The Rainbow Children, One Nite Alone... Live! and One Nite Alone... The Aftershow: It Ain’t Over! were also re-released on vinyl as well as a 4CD+DVD box set called Up All Nite With Prince - The One Nite Alone Collection.
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2001: The Rainbow Children ◄
