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Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesA copy of Prince’s most hard-to-find recording, The Black Album, has been found in Canada and is being sold for $27,500.
According to Discogs, the copy is a previously unknown original Canadian pressing of the album that was discovered by a former Columbia Records pressing plant employee.
The Black Album, aka The Funk Bible, was originally scheduled to be released in 1987 as the follow-up to Sign o’ the Times. However, Prince supposedly became convinced that the music was evil and ordered all copies to be recalled, releasing the more upbeat Lovesexy instead the following year. The Black Album eventually enjoyed a limited release in 1994 and is one of Prince’s most bootlegged recordings.
The original, cancelled release version of The Black Album is so rare that in February, a copy was sold for a reported $42,000.
Jeff Gold, a former Warner Brothers Records executive, announced in December 2017 that five copies of the American release has been found.
“As word spread of the discovery of the five sealed copies, a former Canadian record pressing plant employee contacted me with an unbelievable story of his own,” Gold says. “In 1987 he was working at Columbia Records Canadian pressing plant in Canada. When The Black Album was pulled and the copies that had been made marked for destruction, he kept one copy for himself. He never realized its rarity or value until reading about the discovery of the U.S. copies in Rolling Stone and contacted me.”
If you’re feeling flush, you can buy the newly discovered The Black Album copy at Discogs.com
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