Anthology: 1995–2010
Anthology: 1995–2010 is the second posthumous compilation album by Prince, released digitally by NPG Records, in association with Legacy Recordings, through streaming platforms including Spotify and Apple Music on August 17, 2018.
Album information
The compilation was released at the same time that the Prince estate allowed most of Prince's latter period albums—from 1995's The Gold Experience to 2010's 20Ten—to be made available for the first time on streaming platforms other than Tidal, which was previously the only streaming service to have exclusive rights to the catalog from that era. The album was curated with the help of Prince's estate and comprises 37 songs. The songs are arranged non-chronologically.One major omission was Prince's only UK number-one single "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World", from 1994. This was due to a long-running copyright dispute that had not been settled by the time of Prince's death in 2016, effectively leaving the song in limbo; not being able to be re-released. This also left The Gold Experience reissue in doubt for years. The copyright dispute was resolved in 2022, and both "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" and The Gold Experience were reissued.
Reception
In a review for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine stated that a compilation like Anthology was "badly needed" due to Prince's prolific catalog of music after he left Warner. He lamented the absence of Prince's soul covers on the album, but concluded that Anthology demonstrated "not just versatility, but how his sense of craft never failed him".Will Hermes in a review for Rolling Stone expressed a similar opinion to Erlewine's. He also noted the absence of Prince's covers, but praised the compilation as "testimony to the quality of output" during his less commercially successful years.