Prince’s ‘Slaughterhouse’ Unearths Ten Fan-Club Outtakes, and Three of Them Actually Work

The Slaughterhouse: Trax From the NPG Music Club, Volume 2 is a fan-club artifact that Prince released in 2004, a collection of ten tracks that never made it onto a proper studio album. It is messy, sprawling, and occasionally brilliant, a document of an artist moving in too many directions at once.

The record exists as a kind of clearinghouse. Prince was prolific to a fault in this era, funneling outtakes and experiments through his NPG Music Club subscription service, and this volume gathers some of that overflow into a single 55-minute statement. It is not a concept album, not a polished product, and not an attempt at a hit. It is a sketchbook, and the sketches vary wildly in quality.

Opening With “Silicon” and “S&M Groove”

The album opens with “Silicon” (4:17), a track that leans hard into synthetic textures. The title suggests a meditation on technology and the body, and the music follows suit — cold, clipped, and robotic, with Prince layering his voice into something almost mechanical. It is a decent mood piece, but it does not quite ignite. The groove is there, but the hook is buried under the concept.

“S&M Groove” (5:10) is more direct. It is funk with a wink, built on a bassline that locks in early and does not let go. The title is playful rather than dark, and Prince delivers the vocal with the kind of smirk that made his best party tracks work. It is not a major statement, but it does what it sets out to do: it moves the body. As an opening pair, these two tracks establish the album’s split personality — one cerebral, one physical — and neither fully lands.

The Long Middle: “Y Should Eye” to “Hypnoparadise”

“Y Should Eye Do That When Eye Can Do This?” (4:33) is the most Prince title on the record, and the track itself is a loose, jam-based piece that feels like a band in a room enjoying itself. The guitar work is present but not showy, and the vocal phrasing is conversational. It is the sound of an artist asking a rhetorical question and answering it with a shrug. It is pleasant, but it drifts.

“Golden Parachute” (5:38) is where the album starts to find some teeth. The title carries a corporate edge, and the track has a darker, more insistent pulse than what came before. Prince sounds engaged here, pushing the arrangement forward with a sense of purpose that the earlier tracks lack. It is not a classic, but it is the first moment on the record where the listener feels like something is at stake.

“Hypnoparadise” (6:05) runs long and leans into a dreamy, mid-tempo haze. The production is lush, with layered vocals and a slow-burning melody that threatens to become hypnotic. It never quite gets there. The track is pleasant enough, but at six minutes, it outstays its welcome, and the paradise it promises feels more like a waiting room.

Back Half: “Props n’ Pounds” to “Peace”

“Props n’ Pounds” (4:38) is a funk workout with a slightly clunky title. The groove is tight, and the rhythm section drives hard, but the track does not develop much beyond its initial idea. It is the kind of song that works in a live set as a bridge between bigger moments, but on record, it feels like filler with a good bassline.

“Northside” (6:33) is a change of pace. It has a more reflective, almost melancholic quality, with Prince exploring a moodier register. The track builds slowly, layering keys and vocals into something that approaches atmosphere. It is one of the more interesting pieces on the record because it shows a willingness to slow down and breathe, even if it does not resolve into a memorable chorus.

“Peace” (5:35) is the closest thing to a statement here. The title is direct, and the track carries a gospel-inflected weight that Prince knew how to deploy. It feels like a benediction, a moment of calm after the earlier chaos. It is not the most ambitious song on the record, but it is one of the most effective, because it commits fully to its mood.

“2045: Radical Man” and “The Daisy Chain”

“2045: Radical Man” (6:37) is the longest track on the album and the most curious. The title suggests a sci-fi narrative, and the music follows with a tense, futuristic pulse. Prince is reaching for something here — a portrait of a man out of time, or a warning about what is coming. The execution is uneven, with stretches that feel like they are searching for a center that never arrives. It is ambitious, and it is also a bit of a mess.

“The Daisy Chain” (6:12) closes the record on a lighter note. It has a playful, almost childlike quality, with a sing-song melody that sits oddly next to the darker material that precedes it. It is not a strong closer, but it is a revealing one: it shows that Prince was not thinking about album flow or narrative arc when he assembled this collection. He was just putting tracks together, and the result is a record that ends on a shrug.

What This Record Is Trying to Do

The Slaughterhouse is not trying to be a great album. It is trying to be a release valve. Prince had a famously enormous vault of unreleased material, and this collection functions as a way to move product out the door without the pressure of a major label campaign. The tracks are uneven because they were never meant to be a unified statement. They are snapshots of a working artist, caught in the middle of different experiments.

That is not an excuse for the record’s flaws, but it is a context. The album rewards patience and a tolerance for sprawl. Listeners who want the tight, focused Prince of the 1980s will not find him here. Listeners who want to hear an artist thinking out loud, trying on different sounds and discarding them, will find plenty to chew on.

Three Tracks That Earn Their Place

If the record has a core, it is these three tracks:

1. “Golden Parachute” — the most focused and purposeful song on the album, with a dark pulse and a real sense of momentum.
2. “Peace” — the most emotionally direct track, a gospel-tinged moment of calm that lands because it commits fully.
3. “Northside” — the most atmospheric piece, showing Prince in a reflective mode that he did not visit often enough in this period.

These three tracks suggest what the album could have been if Prince had edited himself harder. They have direction, mood, and a sense of intent. The rest of the record is mostly padding around them.

Final Call

The Slaughterhouse is a minor work from a major artist. It is not essential listening, and it is not a good entry point for anyone new to Prince. But it has value as a document of a restless mind, and the three tracks listed above are worth the price of admission.

It is a record for completists, not for casual fans. It is a record that rewards patience but does not demand it. It is a record that confirms Prince could be brilliant even when he was not trying to be, and that he could also be merely competent when he was not focused.

7 of 10.

album review · fan club release · funk · NPG Music Club · outtakes · Prince