Is Jack White Unearthing a Rare Prince Album?

L-R: Jack White in 2022, Prince in 1986
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Jo Hull/Getty Images; Michael Putland/Getty Images

Jack White confirmed in a recent interview he's working to re-release one of the rarest Prince albums ever - one that wasn't planned to even come out under his own name.

Speaking in the May 2022 issue of Mojo, White discussed plans for his Third Man label and vinyl pressing plant to reissue Camille, an intended Prince project from 1986. To show The Artist's estate that Third Man was serious, White paid $49,375 in an auction for one of the 25 known test pressings of the album that Prince commissioned. (He had previously been outbid on a copy by Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, drummer for The Roots, vinyl collector and Prince fan.)

"We're finally going to put it out," Third Man co-founder Ben Blackwell said. "Prince's people agreed - almost too easy."

READ MORE: New Edit Offers Another Take on a Classic Prince Performance

Camille was intended to be accredited to the unknown "Camille," the name Prince gave a feminine persona with which he experimented in the studio throughout 1986. By shifting the pitch of his vocals up, the unusually high delivery - higher than Prince's own falsetto - furthered the Minneapolis legend's experimentation with gender roles and sexuality. The eight-track album was ultimately abandoned, although all of its tracks have since been released in some form. "If I Was Your Girlfriend," "Housequake" and "Strange Relationship" ended up on Prince's 1987 classic Sign O' the Times, and the others, including "Rebirth of the Flesh," "Shockadelica," "Good Love," "Feel U Up" and "Rockhard in a Funky Place," ended up as B-sides and outtakes on other projects.

Prince's estate previously partnered with Third Man to release a limited 7" singles box set tied to a deluxe reissue of Sign O' the Times in 2020. Additional details for Camille have not yet been disclosed.

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