Upon their release in 1993, the shorthand descriptors were that THE HITS ONE contained the “clean” songs while THE HITS TWO had all the “dirty” stuff. It's not quite so simple. Even Prince's most chaste material, like the finger-wagging “Pop Life,” has a certain limpid eroticism. “Soft and Wet” and the power-poppy “When You Were Mine,” while nowhere near as blatant as some of The Purple One's other tracks, still raise an eyebrow. What's most interesting is the way the best songs from uneven albums like GRAFFITI BRIDGE and otherwise obscure tracks like the jazzy “Seven” assume a new luster in the company of classics like “When Doves Cry.” THE HITS ONE contains the previously unreleased “Pink Cashmere” and a live version of “Nothing Compares 2 U.”
