prince

don't put RIP on this thread

― nomar, Thursday, April 21, 2016 1:23 PM

― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius)

Don't do it

whoever did it UNDO IT

Thread Title Edit request

what the fuck

No.

why do you guys want to remove the rip?

because Prince can't ever really die. (no sarcasm, whatsoever)

got a lot of strength from PRINCE's music. helped make life better.

thinking about the first time I saw the video for Little Red Corvette, the first time I heard Darling Nikki and my next door neighbor friend's older sister explained what "grinding" was, picking out "Starfish and Coffee" on the piano as a kid and years later playing it at some uber-rich friend's Halloween part on a big white grand piano, my girlfriend/future wife's extensive collage of Prince posters/ephemera in her walk-in closet wall

fuck

so gutted

i think having a separate thread to mourn, as we did with Bowie, is the best solution, so i started one.

i feel like i'm going to vomit, like i'm surrounded by ppl stabbing me or beating me w/ clubs. i had the weirdest feeling about this, there was the illness and this year, but i shrugged it off. i've listened to prince more than anyone else in my life and it's not close. i loved him as a fanatic and as a nerd and then in a more casual way like breathing. his music is a part of me in a much more concrete way than anyone else's. every second just feels like i'm learning it again, just a shock wave after shock wave. i loved that man so much.

http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-super-bowl/0ap3000000633788/Prince-rocks-out-Super-Bowl-XLI-halftime-show

xps because if we keep doing this every single artist's thread will have RIP after it.

use a separate thread IMO (like the one Morbs just made)

^^^

removed the rip. not sure who put it in there but I'm sure it was only with the best of intentions.

Balls otm
I cannot begin to articulate how important prince is to me
This is intolerable

go here: Prince RIP

Did that party at Paisley Park take place night? I knew there was on scheduled. This is unreal. RIP

When he was hospitalized with the flu I had this thought 'what if he is like Jim Henson and won't slow down and stop working to recuperate'

Prince in the "Batdance" video, the assless pants dance on the MTV awards, audio taping half of my collection for an old lover while my new lover disapprovingly watched, dancing across college campus to "Pope", blowing fifty dollars on my first boot, watching bad "Kiss" karaoke, wearing a 0+-> earring in high school and having it ripped out in a fight, being overjoyed to discover that my new dorm room was #319, shaving lightning bolts into my goatee after seeing the "Slave" portrait, crying over "Another Lonely Christmas" after my girl left me, having my first doubts after buying the 1999 Remix CD, digging through piles of thousands of cassingles looking for "Cream" and the "Horny Pony" B-sides, fingering an until-then platonic high school girlfriend at her house while we were both listening to the Diamonds and Pearls album, exploring Prince bulletin boards in a pre-google greenscreen internet, loudly shouting the words to "Billy Jack Bitch" out the window of a moving van on the way to Queens, asking my folks for the "Hits and Bsides" box for Xmas (didn't get it), discussing the grammatic disorder of "Darling Nikki" with a flirty man at a bar, meticulously practicing the accompanying sign language for I WOULD DIE 4 U, falling in the shower while jumping up and down to "Housequake", spending two days unsuccessfully P2P hunting for the extended version of "Shockadellica", "what the fuck is Kirstie Allie doing on this?", ecstasy when I found the Prince Interactive CDRom in the remainder bin (where'd I put that damn thing?), lost in the suburbs for hours looking for a party with "A Love Bizarre" playing on the Walkman, going through a brief period in which all email communication of "you" was spelled U and "for" spelled "4", numerous frustrating redneck confrontations over a mostly naked Prince Parade-era Tshirt, calling for a taxi in New York while listening to "All the Critics Love You In New York" just as Prince yelled "Taxi!", bargaining a copy of the "Bright Lights, Big City" OST off of a friend in exchange for my stolen Fu-Schnickens CD (so worth it), a few years in the mid nineties where all first dates would begin with the litmus: "So do you like The Simpsons? Do you like Prince?"

my first kiss was to "Erotic City"

http://www.thecurrent.org/listen

Thank u for that list <3

nice list <3

was your first sex to "kiss"?

funny you mention it but the first time i got head was on a bed with the parade poster hung on the ceiling

funny you mention it but the first time i got head was on a bed with the parade poster hung on the ceiling

dirty mind poster would have been more appropriate but i'll let it go

morning noon and night

i had the poster from purple rain taped to my bedroom closet doors, with a split right down the middle, where the doors opened and shut

new links for Perfect Unreleased Prince, #1 & #2 (liner notes upthread)

https://www.sendspace.com/file/i7xjpd
https://www.sendspace.com/file/xu6kvx

thanks! this is so good. "beautiful ass"! "I can't love you anymore"! "electric intercourse"! good lord.

lisa!

extra loveable!

Downloading those Unreleased comps right now, but Holy Shit at the existence of "Manic Monday!"

sadly, it's a watery recording... still wanna hear a nice crisp prince manic monday recording before i die.

god yes

and a good recording of his demo of G-Spot

linked on the RIP thread, but this is his final public performance.
https://soundcloud.com/misterpancakes/princelives

also a great hilton als piece from Harper's about Prince and sex
http://harpers.org/archive/2012/12/i-am-your-conscious-i-am-love/1/

The "Manic Monday" demo, though hardly perfect, sounds cleaner than i'd expected. Who's singing it with him? It sounds like Vanity, but I'm guessing not.

It's Brenda Bennett. Same as the Bangles version.

I love how, in her review of Purple Rain, Pauline Kael wrote "He's a cutie when he dances."

man "Visions" is so good, such pretty understated playing

These two unreleased comps are really blowing my mind

Wonderful Ass is all time great

Train is also just ridic

No lie-- after I charged it my iPod shuffle mysteriously deleted every song on it except for 1: Joy in Repetition. I listened to it all day yesterday bc it was the only song on there and I think it might actually be a year long now.

That is amazing

I unplugged it a few days ago and finally listened to it yesterday on my walk to the train. It was a super cool coincidence when that was the first song that popped up, and then when it played twice I thought I had a weird setting wrong (and I was thinking it was still a pleasant coincidence but maybe one I didn't want to let persist for the rest of the day). But I pressed all of the buttons (2) multiple times and turned it off/on many times and it was the only song that came out of that thing all day. What a guitar solo! Dang.

Wonderful Ass is all time great

― Iago Galdston, Saturday, April 23, 2016 11:39 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Train is also just ridic

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand),

And 'I Wonder' is, while not quite 'Kiss', almost at that level

"Emale" from Emancipation is dope. I like his cover of "I Can't Make You Love Me" and "Betcha By Golly Wow" on there too.

Come underrated as well.

Gold Experience is uneven but "Gold" is a helluva pop tune.

wasthiswomanhehadnevernoticedbeforehelosthimselfinthearticulatedmannerinwhichshesaidthem

Love this Prince-sung version of "Dance Electric:" https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=aa84c4b3a0b419f0&id=AA84C4B3A0B419F0!670&Bsrc=Share&Bpub=SDX.SkyDrive&authkey=!AkMHXfqSwGpxnB8

Was thinking today how Prince really only flirted a little with rap, but boy did he dig into New Jack Swing.

i could use some moonbeam levels right now

just now i listened to Partyman and Gett Off back to back and fuck's sake, they are just monumental. the hard lock of the beats, New Jack Swing with the toughness of the guitars in there too. ffffffuuuuuuck.

it is weird how his dying has completely opened up all these songs for me again.

Gett Off is unbelievably great

It's so dense with information that I don't even ever feel compelled to listen to the long version. It gets (getts) the job done.

what is Princes nw album called. thankyou

why, because it look interesting?

prince didnt really do anything approximating new jack swing until acknowledge me around 92/93 or so or love sign. partyman is def not NJS. the drums are too rhythmically straight for that.

OK I admit I'm not a connoisseur. Maybe I should have said that the things I like about it sound a lot like the things I like about NJS. The utter lockedness of the beats, the remorselessness, the interplay between synthetic and live.

Art Official Age (2014) is a p good album

tracer this comp is fucking beautiful, thanks so much for reposting <3

:D

thanks for posting those too :)

Violet the Organ Grinder is the definitive version of Gett Off for me.
https://vimeo.com/126665778

^ ewwww, wait a minute i think you better trip on this (apologies for the bad mix, amazed it's even on the web at all tbh)

"I'll die but I won't go away"

Tru-dat.

Thanks to tracer for uploading those comps. For those of us champing at the bit, could Alex or anyone do the same for those deluxe versions mentioned upthread? I missed the boat and am in full-fledged "listen-to-everything-before-I-collapse" mode.

The sign o the times one has been uploaded to the 'son of readers links' page on w1ll@rds w0rmh0les within the last couple days

The Prince links on that site have been getting shot down fast though

Re: SOTT super deluxe

how are all these links being shut down but youtube is getting new uploads every day? seems weird. unless princes superstar team of laywers are too busy right now.

WW's had Dream Factory which I grabbed – not sure if it's the same version as the one Alex posted upthread and Alfred raves about but I'm really happy to finally have it. The SOTT that was up there was just the regular record (which is weird – I feel like a thief!).

Agree with those that praise I Wonder – just a great track. Feel like that version of "Come" deserves some, er, love as well.

You have to look on the Son Of Readers Links page that's where super deluxe SOTT links are. It's one of the most recent posts

Ah! My word search missed it as it hid Prince's name. Got it. Damn ... 10 CDs. If ever there were an artist, record or era that deserved an official treatment like this, it's Prince in the run up to SOTT -- the finished double record is the product of three different unreleased records (Dream Factory, Camille, Crystal Ball) and it's kind of unquestionably his most fruitful period. The sheer breadth of it all also puts into perspective Prince's battles with WB -- yes, the material is amazing and, yes, any one of these alternate releases almost certainly would have sold worse than SOTT ultimately did.

feel like the title track off Herbie's "Future Shock" fits here

er sorry wrong thread

http://www.today.com/video/prince-s-paisley-park-al-roker-gets-first-look-inside-untouched-museum-779588675703

I heard a Prince song last night and it was longish (like 5-6+ min, prob longer) and roughly around 125 BPM had a synth bit that sounded like "Flashlight" and the very end of the song was Prince saying three syllables that sounded something like "innocence" or "in a (something)" and it was probably a single but idk. What song was this????

dmsr?

no i think it was faster and more upbeat a la "lady cab driver" or "erotic city"

All The Critics Love U in New York?

I think he sings "in New York" a few times at the end, doesn't really have the Flash Light synths.

hm not that either

idk if it's from 1999 tho? it sounded maybe later than that

"my name is prince"?

no but it was definitely this kinda vibe! I wonder if it's somewhere on the love symbol album

P-Control

Maybe "i'm the _____" or "in the _____"? I'll check p control!

I always thought that song was called Pussy Control

This one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSCymwwk8K0

neither of those but goddamn I am discovering some great Prince songs today

well as long as we're playing that game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHk9T2rD4Ms

?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISQnGEpGgMo

Bii iiii iiiiiitch

i am listening to THE B-SIDES right now and it's f'in sweet

B sides is utterly indispensable

It is fitting that those songs got remastered so long before a lot of albums did

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryLYOEHx8OM&app=desktop

My love for Prince is eternal but what was going through his head when he decided to send Joni Mitchell this demo...would of love to of been there when she heard it...

just a guess... "shit, man, i love joni but she needs some serious help. she can do way better than 'dog eat dog' and this michael mcdonald shit."

https://pitchfork.com/news/prince-estate-announces-new-album-piano-and-a-microphone-1983-shares-song-listen/

never thought I would say such a thing but that's a somewhat underwhelming prince and a piano live recording from 1983

happy 60th prince

;_;

This is such an underrated pearl of a song

https://open.spotify.com/track/5he5lB7ZYa7EIICHn4WPOk?si=3tcgD2oLQ_-Po2O8hohOdg

The 1995-2010 albums are now available on Spotify, etc. Also, a new comp:

https://pitchfork.com/news/princes-albums-from-1995-2010-are-now-streaming-listen/

pretty solid track selection on that comp too

Yeah, I definitely agree with that - pretty much everything I would have chosen is on there!

Could use more 3121 tracks imo ('Satisfied' is my favorite hidden gem)

yeah they prob could've left off a few thousand minute jazz fusion jams

man I'd forgotten how solid Musicology is.

It's appropriate the anthology has godawful cover art in spirit with the period's albums

now everyone will get on the Musicology train with me & love Cinnamon Girl :D

that Ani DiFranco collab is something https://open.spotify.com/track/6ymv3Che2utTDRiICwaDwN

Can't think of a single situation where playing Sign O the Times would be inappropriate.

::SPOILER ALERT::
I thought his song in the closing credits was the best part of BlackkKlansman.

I'm sure I could think of a few.

(x-post)

is there anyway to hear that blackklansman song without seeing the movie? (it's not in theaters here)

it's his version of Mary Don't You Weep that surfaced a few months back

it's on Piano and a Microphone, yeah?

that's the one

aah ok, thx

oh sick, I'm seeing that today. psyched

was watching that WMGGW RRHoF solo again and had never thought of before how ballsy a move it is to not only throw the guitar after the solo, but Prince is wearing a hat while doing this, and how easily could it have tipped his hat, but of course no, because Prince can somehow by sheer will pull these things off

like the way he enters the car at 1:30 in this video, which surely is a first take, but how does he know that he can do this and it won't go wrong:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rqf9fJM6JsQ

cause he's really short!

"How do you feel tonight, Prince?"

"I feel with my hands, Martha."

FINALLY

https://soundcloud.com/prince/17-days-1

is this the best thing i've ever heard

relatedly i recently realized that the b-sides disc of the hits/the b-sides is my favorite prince album

Damn.

relatedly i recently realized that the b-sides disc of the hits/the b-sides is my favorite prince album

― lowercase (eric), Thursday, September 6, 2018 1:10 PM (nineteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

great choice tbh

this is gonna be on the piano & mic alb, right?

it's amazing, such a deep groove

it is indeed voodoo. I've been listening to this in terrible quality for several years.

this is so great, totally sold on the album

KEXP replaying Kevin Cole’s 4-hour tribute right now, really wonderful.

New collection of demos for songs he wrote for other artists out June 21 (two weeks earlier on Tidal):

https://pitchfork.com/news/prince-album-of-unreleased-demos-announced/

oh that's great !
although on some of these songs you can basically hear him already...

Awesome. Shame they didn’t include G-Spot but great looking release nonetheless

This should be a fun one, even to hear mastered versions of the ones I've heard already.

My wife and I visited Paisley Park yesterday. While there's no way it could have lived up to expectations, the whole thing seemed particularly bittersweet.

Our tour guide had moved from Tennessee two years ago presumably when Graceland got involved and it seemed she hadn't a particularly passionate fan. She kept blankly saying things like "Yeah...how about that? Isn't that cool?" about whatever item or room she described, which was maddening. There were some basic questions that she didn't seem to know the answers to. That said, the few display cases were great to see -- a cassette demo w/ "Andre Prince Bobby Matt" written on it, the lyrics to "Soft and Wet" handwritten in neat teenage cursive, the Linn (!), an original drawing for the 1999 cover, the "Dreams" notebook that turned into Purple Rain...

A while back I remember reading that they'd only been like 5 or 10% of the way through archiving, cataloging, etc. Also that the tax implications of not having a will meant that the process of turning it into a museum was sped up to generate revenue for the estate. Two years in, it still felt kind of thrown together. There's so much that they didn't cover, I have to think it's still a work in progress that will be built out over time. I hope to get to go back in a few years for a proper tribute.

Thanks for sharing that! My partner and I have been considering making the pilgrimage.

We saw Princess (Maya Rudolph's Prince cover band) the other night and while the singers definitely could have put more energy into it it was still a great show. The band was super-tight and they played mostly upbeat stuff from 80-83, including the extended live version of Lady Cab Driver and a really funny version of Cool by Morris Day and the Time.

Oh my!

http://www.superdeluxeedition.com/news/prince-sign-o-the-times-1987-concert-film-reissued-as-4-disc-deluxe/

Eh. Where's the super deluxe version of the album itself, with b-sides and outtakes and alternate tracks and stuff? The fan-made version of that is awesome. Don't think I need or want a DVD set with duplicate DVDs/blu-rays and commentary and docs.

Auro-3D 11.1 mix though!

"I Would Die 4 U" popped up on shuffle while I was driving to work this morning, and I turned it up and just thought, "Not only did nothing sound like this in 1984, nothing sounds like this NOW."

i will prob buy this bc it's one of the greatest concert films of all time

no US version?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnPX-uI7ivM

As much as I love Sheila's percussion, the minimalism of the Glamorous Life demo is really nice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkV-EOvoqiE

Bummed this is a Tidal exclusive

That was just temporary - out on all platforms today

as of friday actually!
i like the boot copy of glamorous life with prince's vocals dialed down a bit, female vox up and the general production more out of control

Wow, this is so remarkably un-Princely!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37k0JufZ3iM

oh sick! thanks for the heads up

Really good piece here based around a new interview with Magnoli.

https://variety.com/2019/music/news/prince-batman-at-30-how-film-saved-his-career-1203251356/

In theory I should love this comp but I basically find it... meh...
Some of the tracks I already knew, some nice, some so-so.
I’m not sure I’ll listen to it a lot.

It's mostly crap.

I don't know how much replay value it'll have in the long run, but I'm enjoying it at the moment. His "Love...Thy Will Be Done" effectively renders Martika's unnecessary, for me.

Worth it for “Make-up” in pure coldwave arrangement, with a listless male voice.

Otm. I like the opener, “Blecch Shooter,” which seems to be the same track as the hit but with different vocals.

Wait, was it a hit? Don’t have chart info handy.

This is great!

this comp is the epitome of robbing of dead people. what i heard was abominable crap.

Watching them work out the choreography for the "When Doves Cry" video in that "Manic Monday" clip is cool as hell though.

I had forgotten how much I love "The Glamorous Life"

^Can understand the words better on this one too.

Wow, I never realised how similar "Manic Monday" and "Money Don't Matter 2 Nite" are.

here's the aforementioned rougher mix of glamorous life; i much prefer this to the cleaned up one on originals

also: twice as long!

this comp is the epitome of robbing of dead people. what i heard was abominable crap.
what exactly is so offensive about this collection? are you 100% against any prince vault releases?
maybe i just have a higher tolerance for demos / rough drafts.

yeah I do NOT, and I'm surprised I prefer the versions sung by his clients.

these are really polished demos. If they were low quality, sounded tossed off, sure; but I'm really impressed by how much work Prince put into these pieces (I assume there was no recent overdubbing done).

yeah it's clear he wasn't just like "here's an idea for a song" with these recordings — he was like "HERE'S THE WHOLE THING" (for the most part).
if there's a weakness to my ears it's that occasionally his vocals are less stellar than usual. but i think it's an interesting listen overall.

most of these are great

"Manic Monday" is the only one that seems demo-y and off to me, Bangles really polished that

but yeah some of it like Glamorous Life or the Time, it's so close even little things he came up with

it's a good comp and i'm glad it exists. it's in the cultural interest to have original versions of "nothing compares," "glamorous life," "jungle love," and "manic monday" out in the world. and the martika and kenny rogers songs are genuinely revalatory.

but yeah some of it like Glamorous Life or the Time, it's so close even little things he came up with

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, June 25, 2019 9:57 AM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

even the "somebody bring me a mirror" line in "jungle love"!

and the martika and kenny rogers songs are genuinely revalatory.

what exactly is so offensive about this collection? are you 100% against any prince vault releases?

I'm not against things he never got around to releasing, or got distracted and moved onto something else, being released while branded as vault material. This is a bunch of stuff he very specifically never intended the public to hear, and absolutely did not intend to be regarded as the "original" version of these songs, being spruiked with painfully gross lies:

In the spirit of sharing Prince's music with his fans as he wanted, the album will also be available to stream in Master quality via TIDAL's HiFi subscription tier. Members will be able to hear the recordings just as the artist intended the tracks to sound.

He dead

that last sentence is just TIDAL hype about their sound quality. Poorly worded IMO but I don't think anyone is going into this album believing that these are songs Prince worked on for himself.

ha well yeah, that's a pretty dumb way of promoting it

but yeah some of it like Glamorous Life or the Time, it's so close even little things he came up with

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

With The Time stuff it's literally his track with Morris singing over it. So yeah.

That's what I like most about this, hearing the little details of his playing on the tracks, and how he didn't treat it much/any differently from cutting album tracks.

Also at this point I honestly don't care much about what he would have wanted released (maybe I'll feel differently once they start hitting the bottom of the barrel and releasing terrible Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic c-sides).

I had forgotten how much I love "The Glamorous Life"

My favourite track on this is clearly "Love thy Will Be Done" but I already had it...
And the choice of "Manic Monday" as a "single" is dubious since it's a pretty basic demo (and far from the greatness of the "official" version).

that last sentence is just TIDAL hype about their sound quality. Poorly worded IMO but I don't think anyone is going into this album believing that these are songs Prince worked on for himself.

I wasn’t even thinking of that last interpretation as a possibility: congratulations, you have lowered my opinion of this hype by defending it

what exactly is so offensive about this collection? are you 100% against any prince vault releases?
maybe i just have a higher tolerance for demos / rough drafts.

Oh my gosh...sounds like he'd had three or four books in mind. I cried reading this.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/09/the-book-of-prince

that's a great piece, i miss prince

yeah, that’s a wonderful piece

The idea of mixing his autobiography with a handbook on approaches to music-making may not have ever panned out, but what fascinating framework to organize his insights. Kinda like the David Byrne book, but could have been so much more.

!

https://www.musictap.com/2019/09/10/prince-classic-1999-reissues-in-remastered-5cd-dvd-10lp-dvd-boxes/

CD1/LP1&2 (Original Album with 2019 Remaster)
01 1999
02 Little Red Corvette
03 Delirious
04 Let’s Pretend We’re Married
05 D.M.S.R.
06 Automatic
07 Something In The Water (Does Not Compute)
08 Free
09 Lady Cab Driver
10 All The Critics Love U In New York
11 International Lover

CD2/LP3&4 (Promo Mixes and B-sides, 2019 Remaster)
01 1999 (7″ Stereo Edit)
02 1999 (7″ Mono Promo-Only Edit)
03 Free (Promo Only Edit
04 How Come You Don’t Call Me Anymore
05 Little Red Corvette (7″ Edit)
06 All The Critics Love U In New York (7″ Edit)
07 Lady Cab Driver (7″ Edit)
08 Little Red Corvette (Dance Remix Promo Only Edit)
09 Little Red Corvette (Special Dance Mix)
10 Delirious (7″ Edit)
11 Horny Toad
12 Automatic (7″ Edit)
13 Automatic (Video Version)
14 Let’s Pretend We’re Married (7″ Edit)
15 Let’s Pretend We’re Married (7″ Mono Promo Only Edit)
16 Irresistible Bitch
17 Let’s Pretend We’re Married (Video Version)
18 D.M.S.R. (Edit)

CD3/LP5&6 (Vault Tracks Pt 1, recorded between November 1981 and April 1982)
01 Feel U Up
02 Irresistible Bitch
03 Money Don’t Grow On Trees
04 Vagina
05 Rearrange
06 Bold Generation
07 Colleen
08 International Lover (Take 1) [Live In Studio]
09 Turn It Up
10 You’re All I Want
11 Something In The Water (Does Not Compute)
12 If It’ll Make U Happy
13 How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore? (Take 2)

CD4/LP7&8 (Vault Tracks Pt 2, recorded between April 1982 and January 1983)
01 Possessed (1982 Version)
02 Delirious (Full Length)
03 Purple Music
04 Yah, You Know
05 Moonbeam Levels (2019 Remaster)
06 No Call U
07 Can’t Stop This Feeling I Got
08 Do Yourself A Favor
09 Don’t Let Him Fool Ya
10 Teacher, Teacher
11 Lady Cab Driver / I Wanna Be Your Lover / Little Red Corvette (Tour Demo)

CD5/LP9&10 (Live In Detroit at Masonic Temple Theater, Masonic Hall (Late Show) – November 30, 1982, Previously Unreleased)
01 Controversy
02 Let’s Work
03 Little Red Corvette
04 Do Me, Baby
05 Head
06 Uptown
07 Lisa’s Keyboard Interlude
08 How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore?
09 Automatic
10 International Lover
11 1999
12 D.M.S.R.

DVD (Live at The Summit, Houston, TX, – December 29, 1982, Previously Unreleased)
01 Controversy
02 Let’s Work
03 Do Me, Baby
04 D.M.S.R.
05 Keyboard Interlude
06 Piano Improvisation
07 How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore?
08 Lady Cab Driver
09 Automatic
10 International Lover
11 1999
12 Head

WHY NO I WILL NOT ENJOY THIS.

fuck

... man, two discs of vault tracks

blurgh

04 Vagina

lots of exciting looking cuts in there

yeah this looks good

holy shit

Someone should totally do a Mark Lewisohn Beatles style triple volume book series, i mean fuck who on earth *wouldn't* read that?

Ned something v weird is going on with that link? is it just me?

This is the way I wanted WB to milk me from the get-go!

There were gripes about the Purple Rain remaster being crappy sound-wise (brickwalling, etc). I only listened to the extras disc so i've no idea how bad/good it was.

perfectly happy with my OG vinyl copies, but I do want those extras

Moonbeam Levels is great

I pasted it as a joke, but "Vagina" is one of the few tracks in that collection I don't think I've ever heard of before. I mean, you'd think I'd remember!

heh

Prince fans rejoice: 10 lps/5 cd/1 DVD 40+ songs (can't wait for y'all to hear "Vagina" haha) excited to hear what i lived w on lo-fi hiss quality for like 3 plus decades. and happy to play this stuff (finally) w/o getting the ("where u get that from???") calls https://t.co/SksRXlLILf

— Questlove from @SongsThatShook Oct 13th @AMC_tv (@questlove) September 10, 2019

Holy shit

What news!

so great but i'm still disappointed the early take of "i could never take the place of your man" isn't on here :(

Whoah!!!

Just finished the New Yorker article. It’s really tremendous. The part that brought tears to my eyes:

“I trust you. Tell them I trust you”

“He once told me that if you ever want to write a hit song, just act as if you’re writing for five-year-olds,” singer Jill Jones, who is featured on the song “1999.”

Once, he said, he’d seen one of his former employees on TV saying she thought it was her God-given duty to preserve and protect the unreleased material in his vault. “Now, that sounds like someone I should call the police on,” he told me. “How is that not racist?” People were always casting him—and all black artists—in a helpless role, he said, as if he were incapable of managing himself.

this was hard to read. Because on the one hand he's right about the general pattern of behavior towards black artists, and then on the other hand he is very wrong because he definitely wasn't capable of managing himself. I mean, he didn't even have a will delineating ownership over his work, he routinely made ridiculous business decisions etc.

Word on Prince.org is that the employee was S---n Rogers which makes it extra sad, if true.

So torn on this 10LP box. Will there be bundles with a t-shirt / pins etc? I've been burned pulling the trigger to soon before and want to wait and see. I don't think Rhino do limited editions, so I'm not sure this will sell out for several years.

nyer article was great — though I can't help but think if Prince had lived we might be reading a story by the same writer titled "I Was Hired To Co-Write Prince's Memoir — Here's How It All Fell Apart"

haha I had the same thought

I don't think Rhino do limited editions, so I'm not sure this will sell out for several years.

They may not do numbered limited editions, but you can be sure they've done extensive research on exactly how many copies of this thing they absolutely must press to turn a profit. Don't wait too long, is my advice.

Pssht, that's what they said about stuff like the Complete Funhouse Sessions, then they went ahead and reissued it anyway.

My favorite part of the New Yorker article might have been Prince negotiating a clause that would allow him to delete his book at any time for any reason.

They may not do numbered limited editions, but you can be sure they've done extensive research on exactly how many copies of this thing they absolutely must press to turn a profit. Don't wait too long, is my advice.

Hi there -- they do numbered limited editions as desired, believe me. (Says a guy with one of the full Woodstock sets.) They don't always number, certainly.

of all the things to rerelease, The Versace Experience is up for streaming. dunno if there's anything to recommend but I'll certainly replay as the last time i heard this it was on a bootleg audio cassette

What? Lolol

yeah, this is a nothingburger of leftover madhouse and npg drippings plus unnecessary noodling over and excerpts from stone cold Gold Experience classics.
There's some vague amusement to be had hearing Prince list famous models' names ("....Stephanie.... Siezemore...")over a pussy control remix ("Chatounette Control" if you wanna check it out) but the only genuine notable keeper is the lovely 45 second instrumental overture to the Kamasutra ballet and even that is just a wicked tease.

so great but i'm still disappointed the early take of "i could never take the place of your man" isn't on here :(

― sock fingering, baby (rushomancy), Tuesday, September 10, 2019 7:36 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I had the same thought.

wasn't Do Yourself a Favor already officially released and remastered in the last 3 years? if not, really glad that's coming out, such an amazing song.

we got promo track
Prince - "1999 (Live at Masonic Hall, Detroit, 11/30/1982 - Late Show)" - 10.25
https://open.spotify.com/track/1c2Pp5LtfUdqkm9LuKBDs2?si=kWOwa1dgT9OQh1z7-FDqEg

i am bracing for the red hot "thought piece" about how some megafan is wrestling with the fact that they would never be able to listen to all this stuff if prince was alive so...

You can watch that entire concert online, I think.

goddamn this is amazing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X80LChZpCyo

I always feel like his (somehow) most underrated skill is as a rhythm guitarist or at very least it gets highly overlooked compared to his work playing lead and he's KILLING that acoustic. Also, there are several good melodies in that demo he didn't even use, that's how overflowing he was.

His rhythm playing is all time. The stuff at the end of iirc Lady Cab Driver, for example.

yes! one of the best examples

Rhythm playing on Dirty Mind and Controversy is all time

yikes
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/oct/26/prince-private-archive-memoir-comic-strips-snaps-selfies
http://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/ba2d9ca5be3a81119847ab303787a733480133ac/112_323_1603_2098/master/1603.jpg

i will definitely wanna read this book tho

trying that again:
http://i.imgur.com/yZ7FoBU.png

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyNQhz-higo

the more i listen to prince as i get older, the more i realize that he was one of the best guitarists ever. he could seemingly play anything as well as, if not better than, the acknowledged best in any given style.

wish he had lived long enough to have a fahey-revival phase because it would have absolutely ruled.

i grew up a couple miles from paisely park in eden prairie, minnesota. we used to marvel at it when we'd pass it on drives in the car—prince lived there and it has some impressive architecture—and i vividly remember there being a golden, square pyramidal temple across the highway. it looked like an incan pyramid, a few stories tall but instead of a couple dozen layers it had just a few. my parents told me it was the headquarters of the satanic church. but i've looked on google maps for it recently, because it just couldn't have been what my parents told me, could it? but according to the maps there's just an empty lot there now, so i wonder what the hell i saw.

I see something called the Temple of ECK on Google Maps now, looks like a pyramid thing. That it?

Sit in an easy chair with your eyes closed, and chant the word Gopal. Gopal Das is one of the guardians of the Temples of Golden Wisdom. He guards the fourth section of the Shariyat-Ki-Sugmad. This is the holy book for those who follow Eckankar.

The word is chanted in two syllables. It is a sacred name and must be sung as GOH, then pahl.

Keep this up with a clear mind, and you will suddenly find yourself out of the body. You will be accompanied to the Temple of Golden Wisdom where you can listen to Gopal Das speak on the Shariyat-Ki-Sugmad.

Davey - you're thinking of this weird cult church in Eden Prairie

holy crap, that ECK thing is definitely it! thank you to the homies for answering this. i'm so glad to know what it actually was. i guess it was on the map and i had missed it. :)

cool building but what a super weird thing their religion is.

Ha, yeah, it is weird. I don't know that I'd have looked into it any further if the name "TEMPLE OF ECK" hadn't popped up on google maps. Too intriguing not to, honestly.

Is anyone else flipping out over the vault tracks on the 1999 super deluxe reissue? It's like an alternate universe version of the album that's just as good. Unreal that tracks like Purple Music, Rearrange, and If It'll Make U Happy have been unreleased for so long

Tried to buy it at rough trade on Friday but they’d sold out. Gonna check back today

Purple Music is fantastic.

Is anyone else flipping out over the vault tracks on the 1999 super deluxe reissue?

I came here to more or less literally post the exact same thing, as I got a text from a pal asking *me* almost literally the exact same thing this morning.

Uh, Previously unreleased tracks are kinda a mixed bag, but still great to hear them all plus the live ones

imagine 1982 prince releasing a song called "Vagina" with a chorus of "half boy/half girl/best of both worlds"
this demo version of Irresistible Bitch is out of control

a lot of the unreleased have been circulating for years in various forms. And I'd argue that 1999 is perfectly compact and not much would add to it. It's a great box tho.

Shocked by "Vagina," in a good way; his most explicitly queer song?

That said, the song sounds way more like a Dirty Mind track than something off the more expansive 1999. Great to have this stuff finally out there, though.

lots of this was on some bootleg chaki posted once, love moonbeam levels

Shocked by "Vagina," in a good way; his most explicitly queer song?

― Maria Edgelord (cryptosicko)

He wrote "If I Was Your Girlfriend"...

True. "Vagina" is just more direct about the gender (presentation) of the song's subject.

True - it's also third person, an appreciation of someone else... for me the first person directness of "If I Was Your Girlfriend" hits harder with me.

"if i was your girlfriend" is '''''queer''''' if you look at the title but don't actually listen to the song i guess? never understood that take on it

well, it's a tricky thing for me to talk about because i fully support the right to self-determination and i don't think prince did ever, or would ever, have identified as genderqueer. all i can tell you is that, speaking as a genderqueer person, i find "if i was your girlfriend" extremely relatable. regardless of what he may have intended by such actions, adopting (and recording a record as) a female persona known as "camille", dressing in a less than completely stereotypically "masculine" fashion, changing his name to a combination of the symbols for "male" and "female"... there is a lot about prince that i find extremely relatable, and having lived through those times, knowing how much it didn't accept gender nonconforming people, it's hard not for me to be inspired by his courage.

i understand, that makes sense. i never actually knew about the camille persona and am intrigued that that song was originally going to be released as part of that project -- i suppose it's fair to say that he imbued the song/recording with more meaning(/s) and ambiguity than i may be attuned to in the course of my usual experience. i appreciate you sharing how his presentation, art and actions resonate with you and apologize for the perhaps excessive flippancy of my prior post

Dyl, if you have not already, listen to shockadellica a few dozen times as it is a song i love super dearly

it's cool, i took it as a serious question that deserved a serious answer!

I've heard "1999" the album 100 times of course, but I've never listened so closely as to recognize it as his most explicitly sexual album, not just the sex noises but lines like "I sincerely want to fuck the taste out of your mouth." I never noticed that before!

Wow, “Do Yourself A Favor” contains within it the roots of “Bob George.” Kind of amazing that he let that idea simmer for another five years before recording it.

Great news, everyone! Duff McKagan wrote the liner notes to the new Prince reissue! https://youtu.be/K8fTK-h5_Ls

everywhere in my neck of the woods has sold out of the five disc set (i.e. the only one i'm interested in). was really hoping to not have to amazon it. curses.

My 14yr old self is loving the vault tracks

Had to resort to amazon. This is the last time, I swear.

Duff always seems like a good dude

I've heard "1999" the album 100 times of course, but I've never listened so closely as to recognize it as his most explicitly sexual album, not just the sex noises but lines like "I sincerely want to fuck the taste out of your mouth." I never noticed that before!

― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 8 December 2019 16:51 (one week ago) link

that exact lyric you're quoting is one of the more monumental "holy shit" prince moments for me, and this is even for someone that had written "sister" earlier.

Wow, “Do Yourself A Favor” contains within it the roots of “Bob George.” Kind of amazing that he let that idea simmer for another five years before recording it.

There's also a couple of songs among the unreleased ones ("Bold Generation", "Can't Stop This Feeling I Got") that he reworked for Graffiti Bridge, eight years later.

I got no beef with Duff, but I'm wondering why Rhino stopped their search for appropriate liner notes writers with him. Mind you, I've not read them yet, maybe he is history's great unknown historian of early Prince.

But yeah the remaster is terrific — the bass sounds really shine through -- and it is shocking how good much of the unreleased material is. Vagina, good lord; Purple Music, wow.

I always felt that 1999, unlike most of his other records, really sounded like a collection of 12" mixes. Most of the songs are a little long for listening, but a great length for dancing. It's great to have the reissue to focus collective attention on it again.

The booklet has three different essays, one of them by McKagan, plus notes on all the unreleased tracks, so it's not like he was the only Prince expert available. His essay is not bad, it's more personal and less journalistic than the other two. IMO including all three was good choice, it's a good balance of historical writing and more sentimental reminiscing.

been idly reading the Duane Tudahl "Prince and the Purple Rain Era Studio Sessions". It makes an admirable attempt to be exhaustive, sort of like Lewisohn's "Beatle Studio Sessions" book, and seeing the day-to-day productivity laid out that way is pretty mind-blowing. Tudahl, unfortunately is neither a musician nor a particularly sharp writer, so he doesn't always focus on the right thing or get technical details correct.

One thing that's really striking that hadn't really registered with me before is how much Prince loved pre-sets. There's multiple quotes (both from himself and his engineers/collaborators) noting how he never bothered learning any gear enough to customize sounds or really grasp the possibilities as much as he would just instinctively fiddle with stuff until he found a sound he liked and then go from there. Which kind of explains why his records started to sound shittier in the 90s - when the quality of pre-sets for synths and drum machines generally degraded, and he started to sound more like everyone else and not so unique.

I'm sure that's not the whole story, but I like that thesis!

Well ditching his key collaborators was also a big part of it I imagine

Can you explain what you mean when you say the presets degraded in the nineties? Also, while it's well known that in the early years of his career he did indeed use pretty much just presets, I'm not sure if that applies to the nineties. At the very least either he or someone working for him had learned to use a sampler.

I really don't think his synth work degraded in any way in the '90s, there's still a bunch of cool and unusual synth sounds on his records, the difference comes more from him adopting a fuller and more traditional R&B sound, where the freaky synths and were rarely the lead instrument anymore, and his unique drum machine loops were mostly replaced by "real" drumming or hip hop breaks.

One thing that's really striking that hadn't really registered with me before is how much Prince loved pre-sets. There's multiple quotes (both from himself and his engineers/collaborators) noting how he never bothered learning any gear enough to customize sounds or really grasp the possibilities as much as he would just instinctively fiddle with stuff until he found a sound he liked and then go from there. Which kind of explains why his records started to sound shittier in the 90s - when the quality of pre-sets for synths and drum machines generally degraded, and he started to sound more like everyone else and not so unique.

Also true of Miles Davis. When he started using synths heavily in the early '80s (as opposed to the electric pianos and organs of the early to mid '70s) there were more than a few tracks where the keyboard sound was literally whatever sound was "A-1" on the keyboard.

I find Michael Bland to be terribly uninspiring as a drummer

https://www.theringer.com/music/2020/1/29/21112539/prince-halftime-show-oral-history-super-bowl-xli

That's incredible.

I mean, holy shit at this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kkq4FNgNAWQ

That's a nice history and worth accidentally reading part of the introduction of

Coplin: I had made a call downstairs to the backstage area: “Are we good, are we good?” And then I finally heard from one of the people downstairs and I said, “Is Prince OK?” And then he said, “He wants to know if you can make it rain harder.” I was like, “We’re gonna be OK.”

He smiled at us and he invited us in and we were walking and he was gliding, and the reason why he was gliding is because he was wearing these kids sneakers with the wheels on them. He was wheeling down the floor and the lights of his sneakers were lighting up in the back, the same color as his canary yellow suit.
<3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMVFYGYr76A

they appear to be dropping daily cuts from this concert btw:
http://www.youtube.com/user/prince/videos

That is so badass. I mean that lightweight Page had to rely on a Theremin for his spacenoise

Love when he pulls out the classic rock warhorses, too -- I once saw him and the band do "Soul Sacrifice" at an after-party

I wonder why they are leaning so hard on later stuff for reissues, videos, etc.?

Maybe the newer stuff is simpler to deal with? I imagine it takes a lot of effort and time to work out something like the 1999 box, whereas a Rainbow Children reissue must be comparatively effortless and something they can put out while working on bigger projects. Just speculating.

I would love a Sign O The Times box.

The concert DVD that came with 1999 had awful sound and picture quality, and that was seemingly the best they could find, since it was on the official release. I guess it's just easier to find good quality unreleased material from the vault from more recent shows?

And I would presume the next box set will be a Sign o' the Times one... I can't imagine they'd move to reissuing his 1990s albums yet, cos those are more divisive, and SotT seems like the most obvious choice after the Purple Rain and 1999 box sets, since those three are his most acclaimed albums.

Tell you what, I would love to see the actual live footage shot for the SoTT concert film. I never will though, I guess.

Wasn't there some issue with that footage, that it turned out looking bad? And that's why Prince decided to reshoot the whole thing in Paisley Park? I guess seeing the first footage might be historically interesting to hardcore Prince fans, but can't imagine a larger audience caring about it much, since we already got the awesome SotT film with the same song material. Maybe it will included in the eventual SotT box, though? (Unless Prince had it destroyed.)

I don't like the kind of studio-lit vibe of the released film, and the idea that they're miming to the recorded show kills the vibe for me. I watch concert films to see the artists in the act of expression, not recreating it. I'm kind of baffled that it's so loved, I was really disappointed when it came out (and I was a BIG fan at the time).

sorry for the double-vibe vibe there

https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/prince-revolution-concert-youtube-coronavirus-relief-1234604515/

This is on now and up for a couple of days, I guess.

a joy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRa8ZH_iOXo

How Come You Don't Call Me is supernatural

hilarious too

I used to watch that performance every time they played it on ABC-TV's "Rage" in the 80s-90s-00s, and it always looked better than this. The image has been juiced to the point where things flare out to blank white and the colour is way overdone.
Doesn't matter I guess because the show is FIRE, but it looks like they got an old VHS and pressed "contrast max" on everything.

Yes, exactly.

not the sort of Revolution I need right now but they tried

what a show. some of the arrangements they played were heavenly

That was great. Prince’s vocal range, guitar playing, dancing, and he & the band at times with James Brown inspired funk.

I didn’t let the VHS transferred video quality bother me

One of my main takeaways from this show is what a trip it must have been working on the road crew for that tour. Imagine the orders going around...

"Eyes on the bathtub!... Remember, Darling Nikki's panties need to be on the third step of the staircase...Has lube been applied to Prince's firepoll?...Is the ejaculating guitar loaded? Prince wants a nice, thick stream flowing straight to the fifth row!"

I will never understand people who think Prince was a bad singer

People think that?

I have seen people post elsewhere that Prince was not a "very good" "technical" guitarist.

I think that as a *lead* guitarist he is still very good, but on that front a lot of people lean hard on "Purple Rain" (the album) as proof, even though on that album he's kinda cheesing it up with effects and stuff. But as a rhythm guitarist he is next level. Esp. throughout "Controversy" and "1999;" the guitar touches in "Lady Cabdriver" are crazy tight.

Either way, wouldn't kick him out of my band to make room for anyone.

The bit of that concert that blew my mind was when the band dropped out during "I Would Die 4 U" and Wendy just tore up that insane rhythm guitar part

Wendy playing that fast part on the "Computer Blue" solo, too, is just incredible.

I felt really bad for Dez and his bad vocal day; his low range was completely gone

Was Dez in the band at that point?

lol I have thought Brown Mark was Dez Dickerson for decades, apparently

I had to blink last week and look it up to remind myself tbh.

I thought Modernaire was Mountaineer for decades.

I mean I knew it wasn't Dez–or André!–but for some reason couldn't remember BrownMark's name.

I thought Modernaire was Mountaineer for decades.

― peace, man, Monday, May 18, 2020 10:44 AM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lolol

He did do a song about “Mountains” so not so far off

So anyway, I carved out some time for myself and watched this whole thing last night. Loved it of course. But did anyone get the feeling like they were having monitor troubles in the beginning? There were a few songs where they just weren't sounding tight to me. I don't remember exactly which ones and I wasn't taking notes, but it was a distinct impression that I got through several songs. Of course, there were also reworkings of songs that were intentionally looser, but this didn't feel like that, imo. I was also pretty stoned though, so that's another alternate theory.

Before it aired I did a quick scan of social media, and Prince diehards were apparently super disappointed that of all the reportedly filmed sets, they chose to air the same show that was released on VHS back in 1985, then later as part of the "Purple Rain" 2017 reissue. Still awesome, though.

I used to have a boot of I think the final "Purple Rain" show in Miami, so curious I looked it up and found this awesomeness instead:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4I7Fuosx-s

This is a cat whose *soundchecks* were apparently epic and impeccable.

yeah I have listened to that soundcheck a bunch it's a really hot one

I thought that other live broadcast was supposed to go away after three days, but it still seems to be playable.

the Dead had great soundchecks, they often went on for three or four hours

Reminds me of some quarantine meme I just saw on Friendbook.

https://i.imgur.com/VrilQfe.jpg

https://youtu.be/m8mg7CxAYUM

I am in love with Wendy and Lisa. This video for “waterfall” slays: https://youtu.be/mdfAhCG3oDo

Just listened to that album a couple days ago

god help me i'm starting to fall for computer blue

yes, Lisa

i can't imagine a time before having fallen for computer blue. but the 'hallway version' took it to a whole new level

otm

I’ve been thinking about the Prince/Sony deal.

Prince’s songs that were written for the original cut of James L. Brooks’ 1994 film I’ll Do Anything have been unavailable since the film was re-edited to delete all of its musical numbers. With Prince’s catalog with Sony, and the film being a Sony/Columbia property, is there a possibility that his demos and/or the original cut of the film (which has been bootlegged) can be released?

Granted, with the songs included, the film is still a total shit show. There is one scene where Albert Brooks tortures the audience by singing among a parade of limousines that I can’t unsee

i honestly didn't know about this and would like to see this bootleg! somebody ilx a fellow or let's ilplex this up!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9fTd776KZI

Cinefile Video in L.A. (the last and the best video rental establishment ever), has it for rent. You can probably find it on backchannels, too. It’s a sixth-generation VHS dupe of a workprint; don’t expect it to look presentable

I am kinda not expecting it to either look or BE presentable honestly but am morbidly curious; somebody plz ilxmail me if you got it digitally.

Whoa. Love the psuedo-New Orleans groove on that one.

Wouldn't know how to begin finding the actual movie online, but a trailer of the original cut remains! A few snippets of some musical numbers, plus the music that soundtracks the trailer (what sounds like a "cast" version of the Prince song above). Apparently James L. Brooks has said, recent-ishly, that he would like to put out the original cut of the film sometime, but who knows if that'll ever happen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-V5nw8KI08

really painful hearing him do this less than a month before his death :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfGoNojom7A

So wished I got to saw ‘The Piano And A Mic’ tour...I think that’s when he was at his best just sat playing the keyboard

https://open.spotify.com/track/4IR4v23yUq31dz4opUOpce?si=lZdmlfpPRtuu1MMlS4zBAA

A lost Camille track?

Actually, not a question. A lost Camille track. Despite it being a demo shopped around for other artists to sing. Not sure who would’ve tackled this successfully in the 86/87 Top 40 landscape tho.

I was just wondering last week what Prince might have been up to right now. Concerts from home? Tons of new songs and/or albums released? Protest anthems? Unreleased music dumps?

Options 1 and 3, plus recording a slew of stuff he wouldn't release. Would all be on piano, which after four more years than he got he would feel he is finally starting to fully master as he felt it.

https://open.spotify.com/track/4IR4v23yUq31dz4opUOpce?si=lZdmlfpPRtuu1MMlS4zBAA🕸

A lost Camille track?

see for me it's different

for me it's thinking how prince would react to being called out for his abuse, for being called out as part of #metoo

thinking about how prince would react to some of us trans people pointing out that uh honestly "if i was your girlfriend" has some really big trans feels to it, given his documented hostility towards gay people

as devastating as prince's and bowie's deaths were and are, i find certain parts of their legacy easier to deal with knowing that neither of them are going around hurting anybody else

Didn't Prince's hostility towards gay people only come about because he joined the Jehovah's Witnesses, and as a result of their doctrine? Not that it's any excuse for his homophobia, but he was way more queer-friendly in the '80s, and the conversion was in the nineties. I know he stopped playing some of his more sexually explicit songs after that, but I dunno if the same happened with songs like "If I Was Your Girlfriend"?

Sounds like it. The Star Tribune in Minneapolis published an oral history on Prince in 2004, which was re-published right after Prince's death, and Wendy Melvoin touches on this:

"We tried to put together a (Revolution) reunion tour in 2000, and he declined because of my homosexuality and the fact I’m half-Jewish. It came back: Go have a press conference denouncing your homosexuality and that you’re converting to Jehovah. I was like: I guess we’ll never hear from him again. And I had to kind of mourn him. It was devastating to think we’ve kind of lost him."

FWIW, the article ends with this anecdote from 2004:

WENDY MELVOIN: Me and Bobby (Z) and Susannah wanted to go see him at the House of Blues [the L.A. club where Prince played on Grammy night]. I called his guitar tech to let Prince know that the Revolution wanted to be there. Bobby got this call saying, “Bobby can go for free, but everybody else has to pay.” What the hell is this? So we get there; none of us has to pay, but it was incredibly difficult to get in. There’s Steven Tyler [of Aerosmith] and Beck walking by us, and all these other people.

We finally got shuffled off to this room where there wasn’t a seat for us. He called a whole bunch of people onstage but didn’t call any of us. I thought, “Well, that’s it.” His wife introduced herself, and I told her to thank him for the tickets and goodbye.

Then the next day, I get this call: “Prince would like you to come and rehearse with him on acoustic guitar for `The Tavis Smiley Show’ he’s doing.” Curiosity got the best of me. I went down, and he was remarkably kind and open, and gave me a huge hug. He had me sit in with his band, and I hung with him for two hours.

The next day, it was just him and me, and he was gorgeous. He was the guy I knew when I first met him. He was the guy who spent the night at my and Lisa’s house on our pullout bed. I held on to him and kept kissing him and hugging him and telling him I loved him. I don’t know what to think of it. He knows we all love him.

He seemed to go full Witness starting around 2001, but I saw him play a club in 2000 and he was plenty profane. There must have already been murmurings of his religious turn, because it surprised me at the time that there was so much sex stuff and cursing, iirc. By the time of his Musicology arena tour in 2004, which felt like something of a big comeback, he had cleaned up a lot of the songs, but it didn't seem terribly disruptive or distracting.

Yeah, I don't think it really took over his music outside of the Rainbow Children album and tour. He may have toned it down afterwards, but one could have chalked that up to mellowing with age if they didn't know about Prince's conversion.

There were a few good stories related to all that after he died. My two favorites are probably the one where a Time reporter impressed him so much that he tried to convert him (helped that he did his homework and correctly guessed that Prince would be much more open to discussing Christianity in his interview), and Erykah Badu running down her encounters with Prince, including the following:

The time Prince "evolved " and wouldn't sign yo mama's 'Dirty Mind' album cover cause he said he wasn't into that no mo and yo mama told him "well you shouldn't have made it then" and you were embarrassed.
The time Prince had a "swear jar" and you just put a 20 dollar bill in it when you walk in.
The time Prince and Larry Graham had you cornered in a Jehovah's Witness...well, witness session.

iirc his deep dive into Jehovah's Witness madness was connected to the death of his child? Of course there's ample evidence that he groomed mayte around age sixteen.

That's a tough question to answer unless Prince left a more definitive statement somewhere. It's reasonable to think it played some role, even if it's indirect, but it's still speculation. Losing a child (and the miscarriage that came with their next attempt) meant a lot of plans and a lot of dreams or ideas about the future were let go, and that's obviously enormous, even traumatic.

It's been documented that Graham made in-roads with converting Prince when his family visited and there was an issue with taking them to his shows. I think the "Face Down" number (great track from Emancipation) was the one that brought this to a head, but generally it was Graham saying, "why do you have to do that on stage?" and that conversation became a bigger one that led to Graham convincing Prince to try a different direction in life. But the context of losing children and the prospect of building a family, etc. I think that probably played a role.

Question, I'm looking into Duane Tudahl's book on the Purple Rain sessions, and it looks like there are two versions? How can I tell them apart? I would like the expanded version if at all possible.

nevermind, i couldn't tell from the amazon page which version the ebook was but the sample made it clear that it was, in fact, the expanded/revised edition

god, this madrid '93 encore, he's just killing it here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDgB5Jd-tT8

Just an update, I am up to May 1984 and I am _really_ impressed with Duane Tudahl's book so far. It has exceeded my expectations. I bought it just looking for a super-nerdy deep dive into, you know, Prince's recording sessions, when did he record this song, when did he track this song, and that information is all in there and all incredibly edifying. Tudahl's book is so much more than that, though.

Part of the reasons my expectations were tempered going in is that this is Tudahl's first published book. His bio talks about his professional career, which isn't in publishing. His career has been in producing TV documentaries on channels I don't watch, about topics I don't care about. It didn't seem like something that would particularly qualify him to publish a book about Prince.

It's weird for me to say this, as I've never seen any of the documentaries he produced and don't plan to, but reading the book I can really see how he applied his professional skills from his day job to the book. The man knows how to tell a coherent story, which is important in this case because both the underlying data he's working with and, ultimately, Prince himself, are topics that defy easy categorization, reason, often sense.

Even though the goal of his book is only to make sense out of the music Prince recorded in 1983-1984, the way he goes about it naturally leads one to learn far more than this. He never met Prince, never talked to Prince. This isn't a book Prince would have wanted anyone to write. Tudahl knows this but still, you know, loves Prince's music. He's what sometimes seems the rarest sort of fan - one whose eyes are open to the flaws of the person they're a fan of, but reconciles, on an ongoing basis, that knowledge with their deep and abiding love for their work. It's a weird thing to say of Tudahl that he does the work, echoing a Prince song, when the work he's doing is in direct opposition to anything Prince would have wanted... but Prince esta muerte.

What survives is the work he did, yes, and more than that, the people around him. This is the real brilliance of Tudahl's work, his ability to present, clearly and honestly, the voices of those around him, many of them alive, those who love him and were hurt by him and were betrayed by him. Prince the man was inseparable from his music, and so to talk about his music, Tudahl centers the voices of the people who knew him. And they talk about his kindness, and his gentleness, and his shyness, and his absolute inability to understand boundaries, and how he understood women, loved women not just as sex objects but as kindred spirits, how he thought a lot about what he would be, would he would do, if he was a woman, and then about all of the ways he controlled and manipulated the people who were around him, who were mostly women. Because, again, Tudahl understands that these things are necessary to talk about if we want to understand the music he made?

I'm really looking forward to his next book, which I think is supposed to be on 85-86 - my personal favorite Prince era.

thank you, great post, now I'm curious about the book

For those of you desperate to hear Tracy Ullman sing 'Don't Talk 2 Strangers'

http://www.princevault.com/index.php?title=Album:_I%27ll_Do_Anything_(1994)

https://wetransfer.com/downloads/fdb74b7304d350fd6f046d449593893a20200822140721/3b3b2c24a848b053bf9a50559e14b0a620200822140800/d7b4ce

Some odd things in here!

After Karina Longworth's series on Polly Platt I am definitely interested in this.

no idea why that vault link isn't working but:

l Do Anything is an unreleased soundtrack for the James L. Brooks movie I'll Do Anything, with songs written by Prince. The album features eight tracks sung by actors Nick Nolte, Albert Brooks, Tracey Ullman, Julie Kavner, Whittni Wright (all of whom had a part in the movie) and by singer Melissa Etheridge.
The project began when Prince was approached in 1992 by James L. Brooks to write original songs for his planned movie musical I'll Do Anything. Carole King and Sinead O'Connor were also asked to contribute. Prince wrote and recorded ten new songs between mid-late March 1992 at Paisley Park Studios in Chanhassen, Minnesota and mid-April 1992, in Australia while on the Diamonds And Pearls Tour: I'll Do Anything, Make Believe, My Little Pill, Don't Talk 2 Strangers, Poor Little Bastard, The Rest Of My Life, There Is Lonely, Be My Mirror, Wow and I Can't Love U Anymore. An eleventh track, Empty Room was pulled from the vault and also considered, but was not rerecorded for the project by the actors.

Of the proposed songs, eight were considered for the movie and were subsequently re-recorded by the cast and unidentified musicians for the soundtrack and musical scenes: Wow, Make Believe, My Little Pill, There Is Lonely, Be My Mirror, I Can't Love U Anymore, Don't Talk 2 Strangers, I'll Do Anything.

Wow was re-recorded by the ensemble cast for the movie, basically as a solo vocal performance by Tracey Ullman (who also sings lead on Don't Talk 2 Strangers) and was weaved into the movie at six different points during a rough cut of the movie. Five versions of Wow were recorded, one of them using the music of Sexy M.F.. Two versions of Make Believe in the movie were made to appear at three different points in the movie : one by actress Julie Kavner and the second by the ensemble cast. My Little Pill was also sung by Julie Kavner, as was an early version of I Can't Love U Anymore. After a first test screening and sub-par reactions to her vocals, a second version of I Can't Love U Anymore was made with Melissa Etheridge. Nick Nolte re-recorded Be My Mirror as a duet with Whittni Wright who played the role of his young daughter in the movie.There Is Lonely and I'll Do Anything were sung by Albert Brooks. Prince was not involved in the re-recording sessions, which also comprised a medley of some of the songs and a track called DNG Groove (containing no input by Prince), which was placed as an intro for I Can't Love U Anymore. Two other songs without Prince input ("This Lonely Life" by Sinead O'Connor and "You Are The Best" by Carole King) also appeared in the first cuts of the movie but were not planned for the soundtrack album.

After different test-screenings, and overwhelmingly negative reactions to the music, all production numbers from the film were cut, and the proposed album was canceled. James L. Brooks shot new scenes and I'll Do Anything was released in 1994 as a satirical comedy-drama film and not a musical. Despite the new editing, the film was a commercial and critical failure. None of the songs Prince wrote specifically for the movie were used in the film or the released original motion picture score, which is made of four instrumentals composed by Hans Zimmer and a track ("You Are The Best") written by Carole King and sung by Whittni Wright.

None of the re-recorded Prince tracks by the I'll Do Anything cast saw the light of the day. Prince would later release his own versions of some of the songs planned for this project:

Don't Talk 2 Strangers would be used for another soundtrack, Girl 6 in 1996. Another version, sung by Chaka Khan would be included on her Come 2 My House album, produced by Prince and released by NPG Records.
My Little Pill and There Is Lonely would be included in The Vault... Old Friends 4 Sale, as was The Rest Of My Life.
In 1995, Prince made a video for Empty Room, which was not recorded for the film, but offered for consideration. A live version recorded during a soundcheck in 2002 was released as a download by the NPG Music Club and later included on the C-Note album. A rehearsal take with 3rdEyeGirl was streamed on YouTube in 2014.
Be My Mirror, Wow, I Can't Love U Anymore, I'll Do Anything, Make Believe, and Poor Little Bastard remain unreleased.

i never listen to podcasts but i could maybe make an exception
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jLtcGgdTG0

Love these podcasts. But the professor interviewed there does know prince was quite the Reagan supporter in the early/mid 80s right?

the podcast is good yes. susan rogers seems like such a fun interview

saving folks a click: that is a 46 second video that, in second 45, reveals that it is an advertisement for an eight-part podcast about the making of Sign O' The Times.

the podcast does not appear to actually exist as a podcast, only on streaming / walled-garden services, but transcripts of each episode can be found at the website of the MPR station that created it, and the mp3 files can be downloaded by reading the source code of each transcript page.

well whatever it is I just subscribed to it

Eh? It's a regular ol podcast, I subscribed to it through Apple's app.

i feel this way every time one of these deluxe editions has come out but it's wild to me that i'm listening to "all my dreams" and it's not a bootleg

It's a regular ol podcast, I subscribed to it through Apple's app.

That's a walled garden!

yr such a commie

if it cannot be cast to a pod, then the people are not truly free it's not a podcast

lol

Unless I’m missing something, I see it as a regular podcast, using my (non-Apple) podcast app. It’s the most recent four episodes of Prince | Official Podcast.

Thanks! Couldn't find anything websearching, and MPR are aggressively hiding it - from the Art19 link I found that The Current also produced The Story Of 1999, on whose transcripts they link to four external account-required services, vs only two for SOTT. Especially bonkers since they host mp3s of it themselves.

fwiw the Art19 files are 128kbps, the MPR ones are 192 but with no metadata ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

_It's a regular ol podcast, I subscribed to it through Apple's app._

That's a walled garden!

This kind of a drag, literally, but the Dutch show on the new Sign 'O' the Times super deluxe box set runs a hair too slow, which means everything is a touch flat. You have to speed it up by 2% to get everything back to the correct pitch.

Not the worst thing in the world - the show still sounds great - but FYI.

*This is kind of a drag

I'm in tears thinking songs like "Cosmic Day," "Blanche," and "There's Something I Like About Being Your Fool" exist.

Was the off-pitch live show ported over from a previous release, and did it have the same problem on the previous release?

Of this era, "Adonis and Bathsheba" I think has always been my favorite outtake. I just think the song is so lovely, I can't believe he just dumped it in the vault.

can’t believe we can hear “wally,” and it rules

Dang, box not arriving until next Tuesday, was really looking forward to getting it day-of-release and diving in over the weekend...

Other folks got theirs?

I like how he rummaged through "Adonis..." so he can write "The Question of U" later.

my friend who works at rough trade brooklyn said all the LP and CD expanded sets are already gone, they only have the 3CD version left. Questlove came in and bought a dozen copies of the vinyl set lol.

what source did ppl end up going with online for this?

*they = the rough trade store, not the record company

Questlove came in and bought a dozen copies of the vinyl set lol.
does questlove have some kind of side hustle as an ebay record flipper?

He's got a closet full of Phish Record Store Day releases

I bet this could very well be his favorite album, or one of his top 10. if I had to guess, I bet he bought sets as gifts for friends.

This set is great in so many ways but I also can't help scratching my head at some of the decisions to include somewhat weaker versions of things that have existed as boots for ages that are - in my mind at least - superior to the ones on this official release. "Crucial" for one. And where's "101" or "Yo Mister" or...? Weird decision making on the part of the folks putting these deluxe releases together. having said that, much of the stuff that never saw the light of day til now is Woooooow.

It's funny how I can get so attached to copies of copies of outtakes from some act, and then when I get the official version I prefer the shitty copy of a copy of a copy that I've lived with for so long.

yeah some of the inclusions are on the bizarre and inessential side. this is of course outweighed by how much is downright incredible. "walkin' in glory" for instance

Just batched together some gift cards and pulled the trigger on the box after listening to some of it on Spotify. Kind of love the slowness of If I Was Your Girlfriend on the live album. Guess I could have waited to see if Questlove would send me a copy, but I can't count on that.

what source did ppl end up going with online for this?

I went the ImportCDs route, as suggested upthread. Still en route but I have the tracking info so all good.

like, i get why they put "dorothy parker" w/ horns on there. i like that eric leeds was blown away that they found it. but the answer to what song in human history needs a horn arrangement the least is probably "dorothy parker"

Yep.

Why "Crucial" with those...lamer alternate lyrics?

also i get not including stuff prince had already released but i'm still like... it would be cool to have it all in one place and know it's not remixed (cf. "move star")

And things like "The Cocoa Boys" which are so much funkier in their sparse bootleg iteration ( no horns, no crowd noise) showing up in a much more fleshed out yet -- i mean, this is all subjective but to my ears a much more "mainstreamy" and palatable version. Freaky, minimal Prince is GOOD. That's the essence of much of his best shit. Why go the fully produced route?

eh i'm sorta into that

Dunno. Kills the vibe for me.

So glad they didn't fuck with "All My Dreams". Now THAT"S the maximalist Prince stuff I dig - but that's also closer to a "Parade" vibe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_aAug_PpUM

they uploaded the new years show w/ miles davis to youtube, which is great bc i was mad they didn't include it with my promo lol

They will prob do a mop up set of outtakes at some point.

I'd have preferred if they released stuff like movie star, we can funk 86, on this too, so its all here, as well as things like splash and empty room. I dont need a shep remix of strange relationship or inferior alternate takes either tbh. They should have filled it back back with unreleased songs! That said, this is an incredible undertaking. Hoping things like the original cocoa boys are on the parade SDE. Do find it odd hearing old bootlegs in pristine quality. All that 'cant believe I'm hearing this/cant believe it's not released' frisson is gone.

excuse me while I have a latepass freakout over the 1979 ICNTTPOYM

If they ever do a re release of dirty mind, surely it would belong there?

Not sure if I trust the guys on Steve hoffmann forums saying that the masters are mp3s for certain songs, Or that the speed on the live CD is slow. Unless by 'lossy' sources they mean cassette tapes. In which case, yeah, they prob did use cassettes.

It's easy to see if you open tracks in Audacity set to spectrum view - mp3s usually employ a lowpass filter at 16kHz as part of the encoding, so the spectrum cuts off abruptly aside from transients. "Visions" has nothing above 12kHz, "Can I Play With U", "Colors", "It Be's Like That", "Rebirth of the Flesh", "A Place in Heaven (Lisa vocal)" have a hard limit at 16kHz with transients, exactly like an mp3, lots of tracks have an odd line running through at 16kHz which is suggestive. The remastered album and the live discs have absolutely nothing like that, so it's not part of the mastering process for the set.

The main archive guy said in an interview when the set was announced that there's clearly some sort of big plan at work for these kinds of sets -- my money is on a radically expanded deluxe Purple Rain at some point -- but I'm content to see how it plays out. Seems like it'll be one from the Warner's years and one from the NPG era each year along with some other things like the Piano and demo sets.

Will also say that the one thing I kinda most feared in the immediate aftershock of Prince's passing -- that the absolutely unsettled nature of his estate could lead to the archive completely being scattered or worse -- seems not to have come to pass, and I'm pretty damn grateful for that. Matos has a little more about that in his GQ feature:

https://www.gq.com/story/prince-sign-o-the-times-review

All I'm asking for is a complete Time set.

Re: sources, why would the estate use mp3s when there are flac files out there? If they are using downloads that is.

Was the off-pitch live show ported over from a previous release, and did it have the same problem on the previous release?

I don't know anything about previous releases, but some musicians who know Prince's music VERY well tried playing along with some numbers and found that everything was a touch flat. (Reminds me of...KIND OF BLUE, where supposedly it was a well-known "secret" that the album was never mastered at the correct pitch until 1996, mainly because a lot of musicians liked to play along and noticed right away things weren't in tune.)

Try listening to "Purple Rain" from that show. I've heard that song countless times, and right away it sounds a touch flat. When Prince's voice comes in, it sounds off.

mp3s usually employ a lowpass filter at 16kHz as part of the encoding, so the spectrum cuts off abruptly aside from transients. "Visions" has nothing above 12kHz, "Can I Play With U", "Colors", "It Be's Like That", "Rebirth of the Flesh", "A Place in Heaven (Lisa vocal)" have a hard limit at 16kHz with transients, exactly like an mp3, lots of tracks have an odd line running through at 16kHz which is suggestive

Is this some kind of DNA certification for mp3s specifically, or the sort of thing that could also indicate those tapes were flaky and needed to be baked, as was the case with some of the material?

It's a pretty hard limit, and for most of them it's at that frequency which is part of the mp3 algorithm. "Visions" could well be a flaky tape but it would be a remarkable coincidence for the others. There's software out there which does sophisticated analysis and gives a probability of lossless vs lossy, but I don't have it.

I mean, if bits of the recording literally fell off the tape, its probably fair to call that "lossy" even if we can't blame the compression algorithm

iirc (from reading a few articles this month) this version of Rebirth Of The Flesh hasn't been circulating before, so mp3 sourcing would more likely be a fuckup by someone at AT&T in a shared dropbox, not resorting to bootlegs as first source?

Absolutely - or someone snuck a mix out and emailed it to a friend, etc. The Guardian article says the original “Wally” was mixed and dubbed onto a cassette before the multitrack was wiped - that tape never showed up so we have the remake. Lots of unlabelled tapes and takes. I hope they use an experienced archivist.

This is a good piece, though Brooks does seem like a bit of a revisionist, to an extent.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2020-09-25/prince-sign-o-the-times-ressiue-box-set

Brooks: Because of his deep historical knowledge and engagement with P-Funk and James Brown and classic R&B and funk, it meant he was legible to a hip-hop public that was listening to all the samples.

Is this really true?

going through the three discs now

if you'd told me when I downloaded 'The Work Vol. 1' that it wasn't even a third, or a fourth of the good stuff

shit is seriously saving my life right now

PRINCE 4 LIFE

(+ cheers to Matos)

(+ ATWIAD box set better be at least five discs)

Mike Howe's given several extensive interviews on this since it was announced, and he mentions in the latest one for RS that, as usual, they create a preliminary list of material worthy of release before whittling it down. He says the three CD's of vault items add up to about 2/3 of that original preliminary list. I wonder what the other 1/3 would have been, though it's possible some of it may have been too redundant or just plain too inferior to what was ultimately selected.

Excited about matos new book, which I did not know about until reading his byline at the end of that (very good) GQ piece

fuck, this entire thing

Brooks: Because of his deep historical knowledge and engagement with P-Funk and James Brown and classic R&B and funk, it meant he was legible to a hip-hop public that was listening to all the samples.

Is this really true?

― candyman, Saturday, September 26, 2020 12:51 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don't think so. Don't know where that idea comes from. Prince was pretty much a pop (and some r n b radio ) presence in the NYC Tri-State back then but hip hop heads didn't really check him. I think the first time I heard a Prince sample was on "It Takes Two" and few other records sampling him afterwards. This kind of revisionism irks me. Just as I don't get the current association of the Camille voice by some scholars with anything other than Prince f*#$%ng around with his voice in the studio and having fun with the results.

She seems very intent on conveniently picking and choosing certain aspects of prince for her own purposes. Which to me seems intellectually dishonest. Still, it might be the start of prince as all things to all people. I mean, sure, prince worked with wendy and lisa who were gay, but luther and whitney were gay too! I dont see the connection between SOTT and the slave era either tbh ('sign” as an anticipatory marker of that radicalism'), unless she means the label resentment.

The camille voice is interesting in gender studies terms though, I'd say. More in the idea of prince constructing an evil female persona though than it actually ever sounding female. His engineer in that last podcast says prince started doing it as after recording so much he got sick of hearing his normal voice.

Camille’s not evil! Just uninhibited.

in fact I seem to recall his moral dilemma about the Black Album was described by him in terms of Camille vs Spooky Electric.

Isnt camille a femme fatale type figure on shockadelica? Real shame the camille album was never released. It's such a funky album. And one of his most cohesive.

Camille in shockadelica is more like a succubus figure to me

In the Lovesexy tourbook, apparently prince writes: "Time upon a once, There was a boy named Camille"

Stealing this from prince org. A proposed fan track list of the last p/w&l tracks from 84/85/86. This would make a very cool final revolution album, a more collaborative release, more so than dream factory even, which by the last configuration, had too many solo tracks, so it was prob right he abandoned it as a concept (that and the whole band breakup thing).

side one

Dream Factory (no intro)

Wonderful Day

Witness for the Prosecution

side two

Visions

In a Large Room With No Light

Splash

Empty Room (1985 version)

side three

Our Destiny/Roadhouse Garden

Strange Relationship (dream factory version)

Wonderful Ass

side four

Teacher, Teacher

Colors

Power Fantastic

A Place In Heaven (lisa vocal)

All My Dreams

From the Lovesexy tour programme:

Tis nobody funkier—let the Black Album fly. Spooky Electric was talking, Camille started 2 cry. Tricked. A fool he had been. In the lowest utmostest. He had allowed the dark side of him 2 create something evil.

In a Large Room With No Light would have fitted perfectly either after or *instead of* Anotherloverholenyohead on Parade IMO. You'd let that fade out, there'd be a long pause then Sometimes It Snows In April. I mean i haven't even heard the cleaned up version yet; but it's always been my favourite of the unreleased cuts.

Y'all should join Duane Tudahl's facebook page it's great.

Silly, silly prince. How was the black album evil, but dirty mind not? Or gett off and sexy mf? In.the DMSR book, Alan Leeds says TBA could have been a good career marker, an album to spark debate, kind of like princes yeezus if you like, at a time when prince really needed it. I'd agree. Never mind the fact he stumped up to pay for the vinyl to he destroyed himself! Funny how one month hes feeling slighted by warners for denying him a triple album, then a few months after, hes telling them not to release his album, despite them approving it!

(Sexy mf is a nadir btw)

>TBA could have been a good career marker, an album to spark debate

that's exactly what it was! in early 1988 it was hardly difficult to find. we all had the cassette dubbed for each other by December, in Berkeley Leopold's had vinyl boots before Christmas, every record store I saw in Greenwich Village a month later had different varieties of pressings (mine had 'bob george' at the end, which, as the most fucked up track, totally worked)

so there wasn't even much debate, it was an album in Housequake mode but overall rushed, 'Dead On It' was embarrassing, 'Rock Hard' was all time & just when you began to think the hype about it being evil was overstated you get 'Bob George' (which, again... really kinda worked as the last track)

I take that back; the cassette I was dubbed had 'Bob George' at the end

the copy I bought in NYC: https://www.discogs.com/Prince-Black-Album/release/8488157

On the cassette I bought in NYC the track listing went like this:

1 Le Grind
2 Cindy C.
3 Dead On It
4 When 2 R In Love
5 Bob George
6 Superfunkycalifragisexy
7 2 Nigs United 4 West Compton
8 Rockhard In A Funky Place

And I feel like it might have had "Old Friends 4 Sale" tacked on at the end of Side 2...?

Hmmm Bob George at the end is good, agreed. I'd have it like: le grind, cindy c, super..., 2 nigs United... (his greatest jazz fusion track?), rock Hard..., Bob George. Ballads have no place here!

I'll try and copy the Alan Leeds quote later. He thinks dead on it would have inspired a lot of critics to think about prince vs hip hop.

I didn't know The Black Album until a relative had a copy of the official release and told me what it was. (I only knew Prince via the Hits compilations.) At the time, I remember people saying it was overhyped, but even under those deflated expectations, I liked it a lot. "Dead On It" still sucks, "When 2 R In Love" and "West Compton" were just okay (though I've grown to appreciate the latter), but I always thought the rest was pretty awesome. It's no grand statement, it's just a dirty, funky party record, and for the most part it does the job really well.

xxpost that cassette tracklisting was the same as on the vinyl boot I got back in 88 for $35 (big money then).

With the vaults opening as they have been, I wonder if we will get the Black Album again in some form.

Prob if they do (pleasepleaseplease) a Lovesexy box!

Pretty sure lovesexy will be rereleased but as an album that doesnt have any huge hits attached to it, it might be a while. Be cool to get the original versions of the songs though before prince went to town with his new studio though (you can hear the earlier versions on YouTube).

Interesting that as soon as he got PP up and running, his records became slicker and more polished (overproduced in some cases)

I love his Lovesexy demos. Many don’t seem overproduced and they date from ‘87-‘88 ish. Thinking of “Anna Stesia” in particular and “Positivity”.

here's that alan leeds quote -

"it would have had a bigger impact than either parade, sign, or lovesexy did. That doesn't mean it would have sold more, but to people who bought it, it would have meant more. its certainly a record people would either love or hate. and as such, it would have gotten an awful lot of conversation... i think the critics would have had a field day, arguing the pros and cons of the album and whether this was his move into the future, the next step in the evolution of prince the artist, or if it was just a sidetrack. pretend youre a critic in 1987 as this album comes out and youve never heard lovesexy or his subsequent work, are you going to sit there and say 'ok this is thew new prince, this is his next step, prince continues to lead pack in the the evolution of black music, he leads the way into the 90s with his take on hip hop'. or do we review this as a misguided sidestep from sombody who is not a hip hop artist but is trying to be? the critics would have had a ball... it would have been a kind of marker in a career, a turning point, for better or worse, at a time when he arguably needed one'

"Bob George" is the only essential TBA track, hence the only one I need, and I don't care for Lovesexy at all, the long mix of "I Wish U Heaven" excepted.

just reading that has forced me to grab it off the shelf to listen to 'Rockhard' and in my heart I need to believe you will also eventually consider that track essential

listen to the Thelonious horn line one more time and imagine how much fun that thing is to play, it goes everywhere

The distinctive horn arrangement/hook was written by Eric Leeds years earlier. It was part of his song called Pacemaker. This Pacemaker part was often played live as a horn interpolation in both I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man and It’s Gonna Be A Beautiful Night, in the latter cued by Prince shouting 'Kick some ass' and then accumulating in the hook from Duke Ellington’s Take The ‘A’ Train.

http://princevault.com/index.php?title=Rockhard_In_A_Funky_Place

Take The "A" Train / Pacemaker / I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man (Live In Utrecht) *****

Corrected! Dolphy not Monk

"Prince wanted this line for 'Rockhard in a Funky Place,' and I think I had it half done. He wanted something that was really out there. So I kind of completed the line for that."

Leeds says he was inspired by the '60s avant-garde jazz pioneer Eric Dolphy. "This cat was, like, really out there. He was an early influence on me. So I said, 'OK, I'm gonna try to be Eric Dolphy for a minute. It was very angular, almost a mathematical kind of thing. For every time the line went up, I wanted to turn it around and have it come down in a similar fashion, interval-wise."

sorry, just obsessed with that riff! worked it out on keyboard once. quality construction

https://diffuser.fm/prince-rockhard-in-a-funky-place/

the long mix of "I Wish U Heaven" excepted

part iii of this is top ten Prince for me

i think not liking "alphabet st." is incorrect

All the lovesexy singles are top notch

Finally got my sott SDE. Very weird to have it and then to hear these songs I've only known from iffy quality audio for years. Very strange and weirdly I feel guilty, even though I bet prince losyebrd to every jb or Hendrix note he could find out there. Both astonishing to have all this, so accessible now, and a bit sad, as I doubt it would ever have happened if prince was still around. Not everything, in fact a lot of this, isnt going to blow me away, but its just great to hear these dorothy parker horns, even if they are totally unnecessary lol

Such great horns, just not at all needed here!

lol yes agreed

what is revelatory is plenty tbh

cf. "when the dawn of the morning comes"

I just started listening to it. Skimmed the main album a bit to see if it sounded different, realised I wasn't actually bothered, then went straight to the vault discs

I'm listening to witness, thinking prince was such a studio rat, the ultimate studio rat maybe, then thinking fuck, he recorded all THIS, maybe out of fear it might not come to him in such volume again, or whatever, and he died in his own studio, which by that point, was also his house. He deserved better.

Lol never mind that. Thank god this 60s version of big tall wall never came out. Wendy and lisa were often good influences, but sometimes they deserve blame.

i am not really a "big tall wall" fan in general

thinking fuck, he recorded all THIS, maybe out of fear it might not come to him in such volume again, or whatever

not news to anyone obv, but I've been retagging this into the various albums he intended to release, for a listening exercise (downloading "missing" tracks for Camille and from the Crystal Ball compilation, etc) and:

basically between March -> July 1986 he wrote & recorded three versions of the Dream Factory album, ending up with a 1hr 24 double LP
and 30 minutes of songs dropped from early cuts of the album

in six weeks from mid-September 1986, but mostly in a few days, he conceived & recorded the 42min Camille album
(and wrote and recorded most of The Black Album)

across a few sessions, in five months of late '86, he writes and records another 44min of new stuff for the Crystal Ball triple LP (inc. one song for Sign O' The Times when Warners reject the triple)

from less than 13 months across December 1985 to Jan '87, there's two hours of unreleased songs* written and recorded (I'm quarantining the alt. Big Tall Wall and Dorothy Parker here for listening btw)

the box also includes a CDs-worth of worthwhile alternate takes and mixes (I'm adding the Mavis Staples Train and subscription club live Rebirth and Strange Relationship to push this to 81 mins)

...and the box generously remasters half an hour of unnecessary 7" edits for posterity's sake too.



*plus another hour or so of finished songs that the archivist & team whittled away as being lesser!

it's exhausting just thinking of listening to all this in album context, let alone writing and recording it

tl;dr

Or more like tl;dl amirite

Feel like I read the story of the three other unfinished albums a few times after he died and sort of grasped it for a while but now my head is exploding like a Paisley Piñata.

fucking hell

his output even crazier than i thought it was when it’s put into context like that

(looks like his only writing for other artists in 1986 was three songs for/with Brownmark's band Mazarati, plus the Bangles recording 1984-written Manic Monday)

and Miles Davis, no? "Can I Play with U?"

there was a lot of writing intended for other artists. "emotional pump" is, hilariously, a song for joni mitchell to sing. most of the songs he reportedly wrote for bonnie raitt are here xp

yeah, iirc four of the unreleased songs on the box were for Bonnie Raitt, and mostly rejected for being too horny

true that Can I Play With U was for/with Miles, I was just looking for any stuff additional to this release

and Miles Davis, no? "Can I Play with U?"

I thought Mitchell had made up "Emotional Pump." I wish she had sung, say, "Power Fantastic," arranged and written in her style.

Then after Miles died they requested Prince sweeten it up along with some other tracks for Doo-Bop but he turned them down.

i love "emotional pump" so so so much tbh, it's so slinky

yep

sharhp horn arrangement too

*sharp

four of the tracks were recorded for Bonnie Raitt in these versions, but had all been written for other acts:

I Need A Man and Jealous Girl were recorded in 1981 as The Hookers, and not overdubbed with Vanity vocals when that band turned into Vanity 6

Jealous Girl was re-recorded in 1985 for, and rejected by, The Bangles - this version was spruced and saxed up for Bonnie Raitt

There's Something I Like About Being Your Fool was also recorded in 1981, and mixed in the Controversy mix sessions but not used. He also offered it to Jill Jones in 1985

Promise To Be True was recorded in 1983 for Vanity 6's non--existent second album.

All those tracks feature first-person female protagonist too.

lol yes they all have alternate lives in the prince catalog xp

Just read that that was supposed to be on Tutu but Prince and Miles were not happy with it so Prince asked Warner Bros. to take it off.

It sounds a lot like what Miles did on Amandla. So clearly even if the track didn't work, the general aesthetic absolutely did.

Was the jill jones album recorded in 86?

Yep, but more of it in 1985: http://www.princevault.com/index.php?title=Album:_Jill_Jones
So I'll be the jerk: what would you cut from SoTT? For me, a few easy choices: "It", "Hot Thing" and "U Got the Look" (I know, but it grates).

Delete from SOTT or the crystal ball triple?

Sott I think is a brilliant set of songs but not a great album (the triple I think would have been even more unwieldy). It doesn't really hang that well (better to listen in vinyl sides, in short 3 song sequences) That's an issue with a lot of prince albums, as he used multiple aesthetics, didnt care much for cohesion, just song quality, but its more pronounced here. I like the camille album as a concept and just as a tight, super funky album so I'd delete all those songs from sott.

Good point, I have to make myself a playlist of that. All the tracks are out now, right?

Most of it's on the box - for my compiled version I nicked the full-length Feel U Up ("Long Stroke") from the Partyman single, the original Good Love from Bright Lights, Big City OST, Rockhard In A Funky Place from The Black Album, and used the full-length ("Extended," but actually the original) Shockadelica.

Thinking of princes funk out put in this period, I think 87 is a cut off point for his funkiest songs. Housequake, rebirth..., not only did these songs kinda mark and end his 80s funk style (chicken scratch rhythm guitar mainly), but he started channelling JB or more traditional funk lyrics on say, rebirth, or housequake, that p funk ish sort of self reflexive lyric writing I think, writing about being the baddest rather than anything else. Then he would get more openly JB derivative on sexy mf of course, then the work, and musicology (all lousy IMO). Theres also the use of horns. I mean, his horns during this period were generally great, but it does seem like he was inching towards a more traditional, or more expansive setup compared to say, head or lady cab driver. Then again, he was still using drum machines so obv he wasnt going retro, but it was obv more drawing from earlier influences.

Those little passages of funky guitar at the start of the raspberry beret and u got the look videos are two of his all time funkiest teasers

Going back to the box set, why is Dave Chappelle in this thing? Did they think Chappelle show fans would buy it?! The book is more notable for being so huge and heavy than what's really in it (not to downplay the essays, they're good, but I dont much like essays in my box sets, I just like liner notes like what Alan Leeds did in the hits compilations). A nice paperback would have been more practical.

Also I wonder how many units these re releases sell....

He wrote a few things for Miles D.
https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/1114-inside-miles-davis-prince-obsession-as-detailed-by-davis-family-and-collaborators/

Also - the horn charts alone on Lovesexy make that album a constantly fascinating listen. Incredible considering the short gestation time for the album. It's the peak for me of Prince's musical interplay with his horn players.