To my suprise, I found an authentic cassette copy of The Black Album in a second hand record store. It was used of course with the case broken up but the tape appeared to be in good shape. I didn't purchase it because I already had a CD copy of the album that I paid a lot of money for years ago.

Interesting find though.

I found Apollonia 6 on cd on a complete fluke. I was going thru a series cds reading the side of the j-cards and saw one with Japanese writing and I thought, "what is this"? i pulled it out and it was Apollonia 6 which I had been looking for for 15 years or more. It was $6 buck........I laughed all the way home. What luck.

I found the lenticular version of Diamonds And Pearls on CD at a market stall at Norwich here in the UK, which really amazed and surprised me. And I love that you mentioned New Power Soul OP, I've only just got into that album myself last week!! Still need to get that on CD but I'm working on it

not exactly 'by surprise' but back in 1993-1996 it was very hard to find albums like 'exodus'
and '1800 New Funk' etc at regular record stores. and don't even THINK about getting them
on the day they were released.

but I stumbled across this record store in the town where I went to college and they had one
of THE most amazing PRINCE sections, with the Carmen cd, both Mavis albums, George Clinton,
The Time, Ingrid's album, many many singles from associated artists etc.

that's when I knew I'd found a place that would carry all those 'wilderness years' albums and
they did. it was so nice to be able to go there the day Exodus came out and be able to pick up
a copy - AND have a talk about it with the guy who owned the store who was obviously also a
big prince fan.


then in 1998 the only Prince album I had totally missed would be released was NPS. I was in a pretty bad place at the time and was so distracted from, well, everything in my life that I hadn't even heard about a new prince album (I'd also missed the singles I guess). so that was the only time in my life
so far where I walked into a record store and was caught by surprise, seeing a new prince disc on the shelves. cringed a bit at the cover, but then the excitement took over

The Family on vinyl at Vinatge Stock for a dollar

[Edited 6/24/21 14:52pm]

Came across a copy of The Black Album at a used CD store for only $11 when I was first getting into Prince, but I passed on it because the only reviews I had seen of it at the time seemed less than positive.

God now I regret that decision.

Also came across Newpower Soul at the same store for about $7, and I snatched that right up. Also Rainbow Children for around $10 and a 7'' of The Glamourous Life.

I'm not sure if this counts, but I was working a local record store that sold new and used music back in 1999. A customer came in wanting to sell the Crystal Ball 4 disc set, I told the customer that we only take used music in for instore credit, the most I could offer for store credit was $15 for the set or (I dug into my pocket to see how much money I had) I could give him $12 cash from my pocket. He was so excited to actually get cash, I was so excited to get new(ish) Prince that I hadn't heard before.

--Finding The Family on vinyl a few years ago. My 85 tape was on its last legs, so I thought it was a real score. When, then I realized the vinyl was pretty easy to find on ebay.

--Also I had no idea Come was out...this was during my very lowest point of my Prince-fandom. I saw it my local wrecka stow and saw the dates like he died. I was like, huh?? I thought it was a boot for a second. So picked it up and was not impressed. Of course it grew on me and now its one of my faves of the 90s.

When I was a teenager, the local library had Jill Jones' CD. Man, I wanted to swipe it so bad. Stupid morals.

I remember I used to frequent this old independent record store in Downey, CA called "Middle Earth Records". They are long gone now.

Anyhow, I wandered in one day and as always I checked the Prince section, as this was the type of place that sold both official and bootleg stuff right off the shelf. So I see something I didn't recognize. I'm looking at it and it looks official, but I never heard of it (and I tried to keep up with everything Prince). I said to myself "no way, this has to be a bootleg trying to look official." But as I studied the CD packaging, I became more and more convinced that this was indeed an official new release.

Chaos & Disorder. Out of nowhere! The only new Prince album ever that I didn't count the days to release and buy on day 1.

Only similar stories I have are:

Hearing "I Hate U" on the radio in the background at home and only realizing halfway through the song that this was Prince and that it was a new song.

Finding the CD Single for NPG's Get Wild (Money maker mix version) at Tower Records in the CD Singles section filed under "NPG". Had no idea this was coming out, and hadn't heard before.

Hearing the Extended version of Pop Life playing on the radio in a hardware store back in 1985, and saying "Hay! That verse is not on the album! What in the world is happening here!?!" Which was my revelation that the 12" singles had long versions and remixes, which started me down the road to go back and find all of the previous 12" versions I missed.

Just found an Ultimate Rave package with Un2, In2, and the year 2000 DVD. Never knew there was such a package. Looks like issued by the estate in 2019... (And I never did have In2, so I picked it up.)

LILpoundCAKE said:

not exactly 'by surprise' but back in 1993-1996 it was very hard to find albums like 'exodus'
and '1800 New Funk' etc at regular record stores. and don't even THINK about getting them
on the day they were released.

This got me thinking...

Back in the '90s I'd stopped following Prince as closely because I wasn't really into the direction his music had taken. And even if I'd wanted to follow him, I didn't have the internet, so I'm not sure how I would have been aware of his more obscure releases. None of my friends at that time were Prince fans, so there wasn't anyone to give me a heads-up. And I rarely went to records stores, so it's not like I could stumble across them on accident...

Yet, despite all of that, I definitely did get some of his slightly more obscure stuff upon release, like New Power Soul, Chaos & Disorder, the Vault: Old Friends for Sale, Crystal Ball, etc. I also picked up Rainbow Children upon released in 2001.

I'm trying to remember how I was aware of those and knew to order them. I have no clue. It's a mystery to me.

[Edited 6/25/21 18:18pm]

Chaos and Disorder - Never even knew it existed and it was new. I begged my mom to buy it for me

New Power Soul...just was walking past and saw it at Sam Goody...waited until I got my $20.00 allowance money for cleaning all week lol.

The Family. I saw it as a kid in the NPG Store in Uptown but I didnt know what it was. Found it at Cheapo Records and copped it immediatley for $3.50 used. It was from then on I really started looking for his side catelogues (with the help of a Per Nilesn book too) but The Family was the first one...

My most surprising find was a VG+ EX UK copy of LV47 Gotta Stop(messin about)/Uptown/Head in a second hand record store in Darlinghust in Australia. I brought it to the counter and they told ma that the price was wrong, and then proceeded to mark it down from $7 to $3! You don`t get that lucky too many times in a lifetime

lurker316 said:

LILpoundCAKE said:

not exactly 'by surprise' but back in 1993-1996 it was very hard to find albums like 'exodus'
and '1800 New Funk' etc at regular record stores. and don't even THINK about getting them
on the day they were released.

This got me thinking...

Back in the '90s I'd stopped following Prince as closely because I wasn't really into the direction his music had taken. And even if I'd wanted to follow him, I didn't have the internet, so I'm not sure how I would have been aware of his more obscure releases. None of my friends at that time were Prince fans, so there wasn't anyone to give me a heads-up. And I rarely went to records stores, so it's not like I could stumble across them on accident...

Yet, despite all of that, I definitely did get some of his slightly more obscure stuff upon release, like New Power Soul, Chaos & Disorder, the Vault: Old Friends for Sale, Crystal Ball, etc. I also picked up Rainbow Children upon released in 2001.

I'm trying to remember how I was aware of those and knew to order them. I have no clue. It's a mystery to me.

[Edited 6/25/21 18:18pm]

I remember that I used to watch "MTV New" (or whatever it was called) - a show that came on every sunday (?) and was about an hour long and only showed new single releases and that's where I first heard about "Chaos & Disorder" since they previewed the "Dinner With Delores" clip.

Some record stores used to have a whiteboard where they would list all the upcoming releases with
dates or expected dates. I distinctly remember going off those whiteboards from 1990-1995 for all of
his major releases. It was agony when the date would be pushed back

With the advent of the internet, it became a lot more easy and that's how I know about most of the niche releases.

The Jill Jones album in Summer of 1987. Didn't know Jill had an album out. Turned out to be the B side to my Senior year in High School along with SOTT.

My biggest find was by my son who brought home the crystal ball cd from a charity shop. He bought it for me! Think it was about 3 quid!

In 1987 I found the original US pressing of For you in a charity shop in Macclesfield, Cheshire for £2. Would love to know how it ended up there..

I had no idea that the Black album had been released until I stumbled across the CD in WHSmith in 1994 after school. That must have been a long bus ride home - I'd read about its reputation but had never heard it at the time.

Same a couple of years later in Our Price record shop with the Girl 6 OST, but obviously less exciting.

Just a couple of weeks ago I found a copy of the New Power Soul cd at a Goodwill. Paid .99 cents for it! It's in excellent condition! A few weeks before that I found Purple Rain cd also at Goodwill. I bought that one to keep in my car.