Prince RIP

Man all of this just rubs me the wrong way. I can't say why exactly but it just does.

He fought hard to get out of his Universal contract and had to change his artist name from his given name because of that, so I don't think he'd appreciate the fact that Universal now owns all his independence-era albums, including the one whose name and cover celebrate him becoming free of them.

That was Warner Bros., who--if I'm reading that story correctly--will be eventually losing their Prince albums to this deal.

Oh, sorry about that, I misremembered.

I cancelled my TIDAL account last week and this is my reward.

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/7678230/prince-estate-will-business-charles-koppelman-londell-mcmillan

It's important to understand that over the last couple of years, Prince's business life was a bit of a shambles. I use the analogy, a little bit, of Michael Jackson. Michael had no personal life but his business life was in great order: He had the right record deal, he had the right music-publishing partner and ownership. Prince had a terrific personal life but over the last couple of years, had none of those other great relationships that would enhance the value [of his assets]. That worked for him, because if Prince needed money he could wake up on Monday and do a concert on Friday and raise whatever money he needed.

And he was very independent. I'll tell you one quick little story. The first time I met Prince was in 1991, maybe '92. Someone called my office, a cold call, and said they were calling on behalf of Prince, and we set up a meeting. [At the meeting] Prince said that he was incredibly impressed with SBK and [diversity of the] artists I was signing and how I was marketing them: Technotronic, Wilson Phillips, Tracy Chapman, Vanilla Ice, Jon Secada. He asked if I would be interested in him producing artists for SBK, and I said, "Are you kidding? Of course -- when can I hear some music?" He said, "You can't. I'll deliver it and you'll put it out." I said, "Well, it's my record company, I can't put something out and market it if I don't believe in it. I'm gonna have to hear it." He stood up, said "Thank you very much," and walked out the door.

Ooof - bullet missed there w/ SBK. And I mean Prince missed the bullet. Can you imagine him on the same roster as that cheese?

Minus Tracy Chapman and Technotronic.

The guy couldn't very well assume Prince would turn in tracks worthy of Vanilla Ice or Jon Secada without hearing them first.

there is exactly one prince song on spotify - "stare" -- it's pretty good!

http://consequenceofsound.net/2015/07/prince-premieres-new-single-stare-listen/

Wonderful interview with Susan Rogers in Tape Op I haven't seen mentioned here - you may need a (free) registration to see it all:
http://tapeop.com/interviews/117/susan-rogers/

What kind of preparation did he do to do his vocals?

He just sang them. It's not like he did any vocal comps. The way he worked, he would program the drum machine. A lot of the drumming you hear, like the double kicks, the tom fills, and everything, he's playing those with his fingers. There'd be a one or two bar loop on the Linn LM-1. So there's this loop; he played all the fills on "Take Me with U," the toms, and the double kick on "Darling Nikki" first. He had the entire arrangement in his head as tape was rolling, and he played the whole song in his head. Then the basic keyboard parts would go on. Then bass, if there was bass, or bass synths. We'd stop, I would route the vocal for him, put a piece of white tape on the patch cord to show him where it was, arm the tape machine, put the track on input, and then leave the room so he could do the vocals all by himself. He didn't want anybody there. He'd do the lead vocal himself, do the backing vocals, and then I'd come back in and we'd lay down the rest of the instruments. While he was playing, I could be dialing in sounds, so the mix was pretty much ready to go. We worked with the girls, Wendy and Lisa, Jill Jones, or Susannah (Melvoin) – if we're going to do background vocals. Maybe we'd add Eric Leeds, with horns. I'd press "record" on the 2-track, we'd print a mix, go to bed, and then four hours later we'd start all over again. That's how he worked, every day. Making music was Prince's way of being in the world. If he was awake, we were making music. If we weren't on tour, he was recording in the studio constantly. Every day, even on the movie set. We were at home in Minneapolis, during the Purple Rain filming, just so he could come home and record. During (the filming of) Under the Cherry Moon, I had the Advision Studios mobile truck from London in the south of France. When they were taking their lunch break he could come into the truck, work for two hours, record a bunch of tracks; then he could go back to the set and I would be mixing and editing. He had to be making music. I'll tell you what a typical day was like on tour. Prince would soundcheck from 2 p.m. until 6 p.m., just for fun! Just to play new songs, and to rehearse with the band. He wasn't checking the sound; he just wanted to play Prince would hit the stage again at 8:30, play to 11 or 11:30, come off the stage, get in the van, go to the hotel, shower, change clothes, and then do one of two things: either go play an after party and take the stage at a little club at 1 a.m. I had a second truck loaded up with a second set of gear, so we'd come off stage and either go to a club, set up another stage, and play this after party until 5 or 6 in the morning. Or I would have booked a studio in advance, and we'd go to the studio and record all night. We'd get the tapes, get on the plane, and sleep on the plane; or get on the bus and go to the next city, and do it again. If he was awake, he wanted an instrument in his hand. That's how he lived. He was on fire.

yeah that Susan Rogers interview is fantastic all the way through (and long).

A big Spotify playlist gone up but the search window link to take you direct to his music is missing, fucks sake guys, priorities...!

Everything they had before is now back as far as I can tell.

Seems to be now, Lovesexy is one big file though, wonder how that happened?

Wasn't it sequenced as one long track on the original CD release?

Yeah it's always been on Spotify as one track I think.

yeah man how dare u skip 2 alphabet st

Lovesexy works best when listened to in full. I can completely understand why Prince did that.

It's still irritating tho. I remember reading somewhere there is a later Japanese CD or something that separates the songs, but a while ago I bought a fairly recent Japanese reissue of it, and it's still just one big track on the CD.

ironically, it was sequenced conventionally, as individual tracks, in the format he presumably would have preferred you to have, vinyl.

"The album is designed to be heard in the context of a continuous sequence: LP pressings split the album in two side-long tracks, without visual bands to indicate individual songs. Similarly, early CD copies of Lovesexy have the entire album in sequence as a single track, though some later editions have it as nine separate tracks."

yeah no shit isn't like almost every fucking album?

without visual bands to indicate individual songs

my vinyl is in storage on the other side of the country but i have a distinct memory of it being rather easy to see the beginnings and ends of the tracks on lovesexy, same as on, yeah, no shit, almost every fucking album. is my memory faulty? do i need fact checking?

some later editions have it as nine separate tracks

According to Discogs, the only Lovesexy CD that was ever split into individual tracks was a promo version that was sent to radio. Somebody's selling one for $260.

yeah my copy of Lovesexy is banded

while you may be able to see those, actual banding has coarser grooves in the silent parts irrc, making them have that distinctive shiny/mirror look.

My uk cd of lovesexy isn't one single track. I bought it about 10 years ago.

Same here (I don't have it anymore though).

my vinyl is in storage on the other side of the country but i have a distinct memory of it being rather easy to see the beginnings and ends of the tracks on lovesexy, same as on, yeah, no shit, almost every fucking album. is my memory faulty? do i need fact checking?

My Lovesexy is banded.

Here's the 9 track version that was widespread in the UK

https://www.discogs.com/Prince-Lovesexy/release/905464

i used a lossless file of the one track version and applied a cuesheet someone put together to split it into tracks...

I'm surprised artists don't do stuff like this more often. My copy of Spiritualized's "Laser Guided Melodies" is divided into four long tracks. Can't think of any others.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

*breathes*

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

listening to lovesexy now, i think i never listened to this much back in the day because of the annoying track thing

arrested development loved the shit out of this album

feels very "early 90s" even though it was '88, still ahead of his time

anna stesia is great

I'm surprised artists don't do stuff like this more often. My copy of Spiritualized's "Laser Guided Melodies" is divided into four long tracks. Can't think of any others.

― Josh in Chicago, maandag 13 februari 2017 15:13 (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

GY!BE's debut album 'F♯ A♯ ∞' vinyl version has Side A ('Nervous, Sad, Poor') and Side B ('Bleak, Uncertain, Beautiful'). The cd-version has three movements called 'Dead Flag Blues', 'East Hastings' and 'Providence', each of which contain multiple parts, but aren't cued as such.

dEUS's My Sister = My Clock counts 14 (?) songs but is a one track cd.

lovesexy is a pretty fun album
but def not as good as the black album

Nah, I def think Prince made the right idea to pull it and that he replaced it with the superior record.

i like lovesexy a lot more

it is def better/more cohesive

and more sonically dense and weirder... The Black Album is mostly party jams apart from one or two tracks.

the only thing the Black Album has that Lovesexy doesn't is Bob George, which tbf would have been out of place on Lovesexy. maybe it coulda been an Alphabet Street b-side or something.

Yeah, that's the standout track on the LP by miles.

ain't that a bitch

I'm surprised artists don't do stuff like this more often. My copy of Spiritualized's "Laser Guided Melodies" is divided into four long tracks. Can't think of any others.

― Josh in Chicago

remember cd subindexes? it's part of the redbook standard but i never had a cd player that supported it, and only one cd that did (the v/a comp "miniatures"). mostly it seemed to be used for "hidden tracks" by putting music under index 0 on a track.

anyway, stupid cd tricks. i don't miss them.

tmbg's Apollo 18 random minitracks come to mind

to wit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmZcGc1KhlI

Beastie Boys' Hello Nasty had some music in the "negative space" between tracks. I believe it was the only CD I owned that did this, kinda neat.

Rockhard in a Funky Place really loud in a club is better than most things on this Earth

Pregaps (the negative space in front of tracks) are not the same as subindexes. Back in the late 80s a friend had a CD player that showed subindexes, and I can remember just one CD that had them: Pump by Aerosmith. A few of the longer intros had a different subindex than the main song.

They were often used in classical CDs