Prince Preps Funky New Disc '20Ten'

After unveiling the title for his new album on his shirt at the BET Awards on June 27th, Prince has announced that he will release his new record, titled 20Ten, on July 22. The album — his follow-up to 2009's triple disc Lotusflow3er — will be included as an add-on to a German issue of Rolling Stone, which will also feature an interview with Prince. (Check out the album artwork at left.) While no plans for a U.S. release have been announced yet, Prince has also joined forces with three other European newspapers (England's Daily Mirror, Scotland's Daily Record and Belgium's Het Nieuwsblad) to release the album on July 10. This marks the second time Prince has put out new music as a newspaper add-on: in July 2007, the artist released the album Planet Earth with Britain's Mail on Sunday.

20Ten will boast guest appearances by saxophonist Maceo Parker and singers Shelby J, Liv Warfield and Elisa Dease. Prince wrote, produced and recorded the album, which is described as having "strong funk and new wave elements," at his own Paisley Park studios in Minnesota. Prince will follow the release of 20Ten with a European tour.

While Prince hasn't announced how 20Ten will be released in America, the fansite Dr. Funkenberry reports that Prince recently held meetings with Warner Bros. to plot out how his new album will be distributed in the States. As Rolling Stone previously reported, Prince last teamed with the retailer Target for the exclusive release of the triple-disc Lotusflow3r package, which also included his funk-heavy album MPLSound. A tracklisting for 20Ten is below:

1. "Compassion"
2. "Endlessly Beginning"
3. "Future Soul Song"
4. "Sticky Like Glue"
5. "Lavaux"
6. "Act Of God"
7. "Walk In Sand"
8. "Sea Of Everything"
9. "Everybody Loves Me"
10. "Untitled Bonus Track"

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Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

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