The Vault… Old Friends 4 Sale (1999)
A canapé of honky-tonk piano and jazz saxophone written for the doomed I’ll Do Anything soundtrack but fortunately one of the few contributions to be saved from its destined obscurity. Plucked, scrubbed, gilded with horns and placed gleaming bright at the start of his Warner Bros kiss-off album, The Rest of my Life is a brisk, in-charge-of my-own-kismet, pep talk. Although not long enough to get its hooks in deep, the production (as with the rest of the album) is faultlessly pristine and doesn’t mess around, throwing you straight into the Vegas-style action with a series of focusing, self-applied cheek-slaps. For all of its forward facing lyrics it lays out the album’s retro blueprint – a warm, analogue nostalgia. Perky in isolation but when compared to the otherworldly Beautiful Strange that Prince unveiled on the same day, you can begin to detect the musty smell of seven years’ storage.