Beck Covers Four Prince Classics on New ‘Paisley Park’ EP
Beck took advantage of being the first major artist to record at Paisley Park since Prince's 2016 death, assembling a medley of four of his hits.
The medley, dubbed "The Paisley Experience," includes “Raspberry Beret,” “When Doves Cry,” “Kiss” and “1999,” and is available for stream or purchase exclusively at Amazon Music. The EP also includes new recordings of two of Beck's songs, "Where It's At," from 1997's Odelay, and "Up All Night," from 2017's Colors.
Beck has created a video, embedded below, documenting his experience while working at the famous complex. Three performance clips from the Paisley Park Sessions will follow on Nov. 18, four days before his new album Hyperspace arrives.
"I've heard the name since I was a child, you know, of Paisley Park, and you sort of imagine this place. It's special to be here and see it in person," Beck says in the clip. "Every studio has its own life to it, kind of a special energy. It felt very creative. I didn't have any expectations of what I wanted to happen. I was just kind of coming in here and seeing where it took us – and it was surprising. I think this is a place where a lot of experimentation happens. We tried to take that [and] not just come and play, like, 'this is what we do onstage every day.' Make it something different."
He also discussed the decision to turn these familiar songs into a medley. "It's impossible to pick a cover of Prince," Beck says. "He's a big influence for me. He's an inspiration. His musicality, but also playfulness and the way he performed was really something that I connected with."
Beck earlier covered "Take Me With U" when a 2018 tour took him to Prince's hometown of Minneapolis; he also did "Raspberry Beret" in June 2016.
They crossed paths crossed when Prince presented Beck with the Grammy album of the year award for Morning Phase. Beck initially felt like he made a mistake by showing too much affection.
"I reached out and gave Prince a hug," he told the Sun in 2017. "I immediately felt like I should probably not be doing this! But we were on stage and I was carried away in the moment, I just wanted to embrace him. Afterwards he disappeared somewhere and I never got to talk to him. I kind of cringed for a while that I had made him uncomfortable or overstepped the mark."
That is, until he saw the news photo below which "showed us hugging and I saw he had a huge grin on his face," Beck added. "I had walked around feeling guilty about it, but to see his smile it made me glad I had even just a tiny superficial connection with a hero."