Doing a solid for his hometown, Prince is teaming up with Target to sell some new music (lots of it). The Minneapolis-based discount retailer has signed on as the exclusive purveyor of a three-album set comprised of two discs from His Purple Majesty, LOtUSFLOW3R and MPLSoUND, plus a third by his new protégé, Bria Valente.

The 3-CD package, which will retail for $11.98, hits Target stores and its website on March 29. Prince has offered a rotating set of tracks for preview at LOTUSFLW3R.com since January, some of which hint at Revolution-era brilliance.

The Prince/Target partnership is patterned after recent Wal-Mart exclusives from AC/DC and the Eagles, plus Best Buy’s arrangement to sell Guns N’ Roses’ long-delayed Chinese Democracy. Even Dolly Parton has inked herself a similar deal, scraping the bottom of the Cracker Barrel to sell an expanded edition of her latest, Backwoods Barbie, plus a commemorative book and some pink rocking chairs (yes, really), all out March 23.

While Prince wasn’t first on this particular front—he did offer his last album, Planet Earth, free with purchase of a Sunday paper—I give him props for pursuing a deal with the still-cool Target. Maybe he’ll one-up Dolly by pimping some purple bean-bag chairs at Target: “My name is Prince, and these are lumpy!”