It is estimated that Prince left thousands of unreleased songs behind when he died in 2016.

At a very early stage in his career, it became clear that the extraordinarily prolific singer / songwriter / multi-instrumentalist could not be held back by the release schedule of mere mortals.

Instead, Prince began funneling his excess output through an ever-expanding family of proteges such as the Time, Sheila E., the Family, and many more.

He was also known for handing hit singles over to fellow artists such as Sheena Easton and the Bangles, sometimes while operating under fake songwriting names such as Jaime Starr and Alexander Nevermind.

Even with all of those outlets, Prince quickly filled the famed “vault” of his Paisley Park studio with mountains of unreleased songs. Over 100 of those tracks have been posthumously released since his far-too-early death ten years ago.

That’s not nearly enough to please an increasingly vocal sub-set of Prince fans who think his estate isn’t opening the vault doors fast enough, but it’s more than enough to require some curating.

Here are the 10 Prince songs released since his death that are most worthy of your attention:

“Moonbeam Levels”
From: 4Ever (2016)

Recorded during the 1982 sessions for the album 1999, this haunting power ballad  – mistakenly titled “A Better Place to Die” on some early bootlegs – almost made its way onto the Purple Rain, Around the World in a Day, and Parade albums before finally becoming the first posthumously released Prince song in November 2016.

“I’d think, ‘At last! I’m so happy, this beautiful song is going on the record,'” Prince’s longtime engineer Susan Rogers recalled about the times “Moonbeam Levels” was in consideration for placement on those famous albums in the book Prince and the ‘Purple Rain’ Era Studio Sessions: 1983 and 1984. “But he would pull it [off the record.} He’d always pull it.”

“Wonderful Ass”
From: Purple Rain (Deluxe Edition, 2017)

Prince helped put the expanded version of Purple Rain together prior to his death, adding 11 previously unreleased songs to an already generous collection of B-sides, remixes and the complete audio from the Prince and the Revolution: Live concert movie.

Reportedly inspired by his one-time girlfriend Vanity, “Wonderful Ass” rides an absolutely filthy funk guitar riff as Prince thinks up dozens of reasons the couple shouldn’t be together – only to repeatedly return to the one thing that kept him around.

“Mary Don’t You Weep”
From: Piano and a Microphone 1983 (2018)

Piano and a Microphone: 1983 was the first archival album released after Prince’s death, and it featured a bold and unique concept. The record’s title explains things completely: This is 35 minutes of Prince singing and playing piano all by himself, running through hits, covers and previously unreleased songs without a break.

The album’s centerpiece is his powerhouse take on the pre-Civil War spiritual classic “Mary Don’t You Weep,” which had previously been performed by soul legends such as Aretha Franklin and James Brown.

“Baby, You’re a Trip”
From: Originals (2019)

The self-titled 1987 debut by Prince protege Jill Jones sank without a trace in America, despite the fact that her superstar mentor wrote every song and played numerous instruments all over the record.

Originals, a 2019 album featuring the Prince-sung demo versions of songs he gave to artists such as the Time, Sheila E., the Bangles and Martika over the years, gave this sultry ballad the second chance it always deserved.

“Do Yourself A Favor”
From: 1999 (Deluxe Edition, 2019)

Before launching his solo career, a teenage Prince spent time in the late ’70s as the guitarist in the band 94 East. A half-decade later, as his solo career was taking off, Prince revisited those years by re-recording his former band’s “If You See Me” as “Do Yourself A Favor” during the 1999 sessions.

The song, which juxtaposes peppy keyboards with a melancholy breakup story, sat in Prince’s vault until the 2019 release of an expanded edition of 1999, although former Time guitarist Jesse Johnson released his own version of “Do Yourself A Favor” on his 1986 album Shockadelica.

“Adonis and Bathsheba”
From: Sign O’ the Times (Deluxe Edition, 2020)

Operating at the peak of his creative powers, Prince spent nearly a year recording his 1987 double-album masterpiece Sign O’ the Times.

Along the way he abandoned (or was forced to abandon) earlier concepts such as the triple-album Crystal Ball, the double-album Dream Factory and the single-disc Camille.

The 2020 expanded box set edition of Sign O’ the Times is a testament to the abundance of riches this era produced. It showcases nearly four dozen previously unreleased studio tracks, including this exotic and hypnotizing mash-up of Greek and biblical mythology.

“In a Large Room With No Light”
From: Sign O’ the Times (Deluxe Edition, 2020)

Our second selection from the expanded Sign o’ the Times box set is a dazzling jazz-fusion exploration that once again finds Prince confidently pushing against the boundaries of pop music.

Together with fellow Times outtakes such as “Crucial,” “Last Heart” and “Power Fantastic,” the jazzy, sophisticated “No Light” is a tantalizing hint of all the fertile territories Prince visited but never got the chance to fully explore before his untimely death.

“17 Days / Lovergirl”
From: Welcome 2 America (Deluxe Edition, 2021)

In April and May of 2011 Prince played 16 shows at the Los Angeles Forum, reportedly donating a large portion of his earnings back to the famous but struggling venue in another one of his many (and often unpublicized) charitable acts.

The April 28 concert was professionally filmed and released 10 years later on the deluxe edition of the first-ever complete posthumous Prince studio album. Welcome 2 America was stiff, disjointed and probably best left in the vault, but the concert is incredible.

If you somehow don’t think you have time to watch the whole thing, at least check out this nearly nine-minute rendition of the Purple Rain-era B-side “17 Days,” which finds Prince’s three backup singers exploding out of the darkness to deliver a powerful rendition of the chorus to Teena Marie’s 1984 hit “Lovergirl” six months after her death.

“Pain”
From: Diamonds and Pearls (Deluxe Edition, 2023)

In a rare alternative to his typical methods, Prince re-worked a song written by D. Channsin Berry – originally intended for a solo album by New Power Generation vocalist Rosie Gaines – while recording his own 1991 commercial comeback Diamonds and Pearls.

Prince’s version didn’t make the album, instead languishing for decades in his fabled vault. But “Pain” refused to vanish. A new recording of the song by his hero and frequent collaborator Chaka Khan appeared on the 1997 soundtrack to the TV series Living Single.

Nearly two decades later, on the day after Prince died in 2016, Gaines released her version as a tribute to her former boss.

Seven years later, Prince’s own version of the evocative, emotionally complex song was released as part of an expanded box set edition of Diamonds and Pearls. It proved to be well worth the wait.

“All A Share Together Now”
From: Single (2023)

Attendees of the 2023 edition of the annual birthday celebration at Prince’s Paisley Park home and studio were gifted a USB key featuring two previously unreleased tracks. Our man comes off like a smoother Gil Scott-Heron on “All A Share Together Now,” mixing blissful jazz with unblinking social truths.

Although the song sounds like a perfect fit for Prince’s final studio album – 2015’s HITnRUN Phase Two – it was actually recorded nearly a decade earlier and originally considered for inclusion on 2009’s Lotusflow3r.