Prince 2005–present
 In 1994, Prince's attitude towards his artistic output underwent a notable shift. He began to view releasing albums in quick succession as a means of ejecting himself from his contractual obligations to Warner Bros. The label, he believed, was intent on limiting his artistic freedom by insisting he release albums on a more sporadic basis. He also blamed it for the poor commercial performance of the Love Symbol album, claiming it had failed to market the album effectively. Out of this state of affairs a proposal came about to subject the aborted The Black Album to an official release, approximately seven years after its initial creation. This new release, which was already in wide circulation as bootlegs, also sold relatively poorly.
Following that disappointing venture, Warner Bros. succumbed to Prince's wishes to release an album of new material, to be entitled Come. The label had refused to grant the album a release in the past, believing the music on it to be dreadfully mediocre and lacking a potential hit single. When Come was eventually released, it confirmed all of Warner's worst fears. It became Prince's poorest-selling album to date, struggling to even shift 500,000 copies. Even more frustrating was the fact that Prince insisted on crediting the album to Prince 1958–1993.
Prince pushed to have his next album The Gold Experience released simultaneously as Love Symbol era material. As a test case, Warner Bros. allowed the single The Most Beautiful Girl in the World to be released via a small, independent distributor, Bellmark Records, in February 1994. The release was successful, reaching #3 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and #1 in many other countries, but this was not to be a forerunner of what was to come. Warner Bros. still resisted releasing The Gold Experience, fearing poor sales and citing market saturation as a defense. When eventually released in September 1995, The Gold Experience failed to sell well, although it reached the top 10 of the Billboard 200 initially, and many reviewed it as Prince's best effort since Sign o' the Times. The album is now out-of-print.
The Chaos and Disorder album of 1996 was his final album of new material for Warner Bros., and was one of his least successful. Prince attempted a major comeback later that year, when, free of any further contractual obligations to Warner Bros., he released Emancipation. The album was released via his own NPG Records with distribution through EMI. To publish his songs in Emancipation, Prince for the first time did not use Controversy Music - ASCAP, which he had used in all his records since 1981, rather he used Emancipated Music Inc. - ASCAP. While certified platinum by the RIAA, some critics felt that the sprawling 36-song, 3-CD set (each disk was exactly 60 minutes long) lacked focus, and might have worked better as a single or double disc. Emancipation would be Prince's first album in which he would include covers of songs of other artists; for example, CD number three includes Joan Osborne's Top 10 hit song of 1995 One of Us. The other covers on the album are Betcha By Golly Wow! (written by Thomas Randolf Bell and Linda Creed) I Can't Make You Love Me (written by James Allen Shamblin II and Michael Barry Reid) and La-La Means I Love You (written by Thomas Randolf Bell and William Hart).
Prince released Crystal Ball, a 4-CD collection of unreleased material, in 1998. The distribution of this album was shambolic, with some fans pre-ordering the album on his website up to a year before it was eventually shipped to them, and months after the record had gone on sale in retail stores. The Newpower Soul album released three months later failed to make much of an impression on the charts.
In 1999, Prince once again teamed up with a major record label, this time Arista Records, for a new album, Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic. In an attempt to make his new album a success, Prince gave more interviews than he'd ever done in his career yet Rave failed to make much of a commercial impression. A few months earlier, Warner Bros. had also released The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale, a collection of unreleased material recorded by Prince throughout his career, and his final recording commitment on his contract with Warner Bros. The greatest success he had during the year was with the EP 1999: The New Master, released in time for Prince to collect a small portion of the sales dollars Warner Bros. had been seeing for the album and singles of the original 1999. Both critics and fans panned The New Master, declaring it unimaginative.
A pay-per-view concert, Rave Un2 the Year 2000, was held on December 31, 1999 of concerts taped on December 17 and December 18 and had appearances by many guest stars such as Lenny Kravitz, George Clinton and The Time. It was released to home video the following year. Also, a remix album, Rave In2 The Joy Fantastic, was released exclusively through Prince's NPG Music Club in April 2000.
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