What with all the hoo and indeed ha surrounding Michael Jackson's upcoming O2 residency (the Bankruptcy Tour 2009/10) it's worth noting that when Prince performed there a few years ago he also played a ridiculous amount of shows and kept prices down to less than £40 a ticket. Neither singer has released new material to match their eighties heyday, but at least Prince has recently proven himself to be a reliably amazing performer and looks as if he can still stand up unaided, which is one up on Jackson.



Only time will tell whether we see the return of the King Of Pop (and if you have tickets for the shows in early 2010 then good luck to you), but for now Prince has a new album coming out. In fact he has THREE new albums coming out. Why three I hear you scream? Good question. One is called LOTUSFLOW3R (his caps and his use of the number), the other MPLSoUND and the final one is called Elixer and is an album by his protege Bria Valente. Phew. None of them will include anything as good as 'Raspberry Beret', 'Kiss' or 'Darling Nikki' or even 'Get Off' or 'Cream', so I'd save your money if I were you.

This is a new song, 'Ol' Skool Company', performed the other night on the Jay Leno show:



When he threw his guitar at that man! The little scamp. It's a great performance, but is it a patch on this, taken from the Grammys in 2004?

No.