50 great things about Prince's 'Sign O' The Times'

35. "Did I say an hour? My face is red. I stand corrected."

36. Sheena Easton being quite good.

37. "GROOVE! UH!"

38. Prince playing out his James Brown fantasies on 'It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night'

39. "...well, maybe not the ride"

38. Acoustic guitar sting during the fade of Forever in My Life

40. Prince's cousin developing a smack habit mere months after smoking weed for the first time. Well, that escalated quickly!

lol

41. Prince watching the news and reading papers.

31 wins this walking away

42. "ONE TWO ONE WOOO!" at the very end of I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man

43. GREEN EGGS AND HAM!

44. The piercing shrieks in 'Hot Thing', which make Prince sound like he's auditioning to be the lead vocalist for a grindcore band.

45. The riff at the end of "U Got The Look"

46. The Pontiac Grand Prix front end on the cover.

47. The emotional knottiness-unto-creepiness of "If I Was Your Girlfriend" and "Strange Relationship."

48. That weird pterodactyl shriek that Sheena Easton (?) does at one point in "UGTL"

49. "Step right this way, ladies"

50. The beyond genius "Dorothy Parker" drum programming

48. That weird pterodactyl shriek that Sheena Easton (?) does at one point in "UGTL"

― Acid Hose (Capitaine Jay Vee), Wednesday, May 11, 2016 1

thought it was Prince himself

51. Prince's shades on the cover

Xpost It's been a minute since I watched it but I think in the video / SOTT film she looks at the camera and does it. It's also never sounded like his voice to me.

Shit 49 s/b "Look at the bargains offered here, ladies" . Mods please correct!

*over here

Sheesh. My memory's failing.

They're not shades, they're glasses! As evidenced by the SOTT movie.

52. The fact that "U Got the Look" is the only hit/single/song ever made to include the word heck-a-slammin'.

53. for you naked i would dance a ballet

54. sometimes i trip on happy we could be....PLEEEEEE-HEEE-HEEE-HEEEEEEEASE!!!!

*how happy... and the way his vocals distort at the end of that phrase

That was already at #15.

(xpost)

55. I just hate 2 see an erection go 2 waste!

56. The 'Hot Thing' bass note being slightly out of tune.

57. The self-aware melancholy in I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man.

Xxpost Wrong album

58. How "Hot Thing" goes from synth menace to a sax breakdown.

59. Play? No! PLAY! NOOOOO!

They're not shades, they're glasses! As evidenced by the SOTT movie.

Ok, in fairness, I haven't seen the movie in 20+ years.

But yes, you are correct. Another reason I thought they were cool, IIRC.

60. How the record is noted for being one of Prince's finest, yet the form it eventually took was not Prince's original vision for it!

61. u got the look's baseball metaphor is the best since paradise by the dashboard light

62. The way everyone slags off 'Slow Love', even though it's absolutely magnificent.

63. the nothing compares 2 u call back in adore

64. The encouraging way he says "Go on, Cynth" at 1:58 of Starfish and Coffee

65. Sheena Easton's "Oh please" in U Got the Look, which will be eternally cool

66. How this album basically introduced Camille. I remember how WEIRD it was to first hear that vocal effect on a Prince song the day I brought the album home (bought it the weekend of release). But this was Prince and he always aaaalways had something new up his sleeve then.

67. the best use of factory presets on a record ever?

68. The literally phoned-in rap in "It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night".

69. The Fairlight orchestral stab sound is one of the most memorable parts of the titular song, and yet the stab is heard only two times, towards the end of tune. It takes only about two seconds of the 5 minute song, but Prince sure knew how to use those two seconds most effectively.

70. The ending to 'Play In The Sunshine', which is not so much psychedelic as an utterly bizarre mess that somehow works!

This is one of the few consensus "best albums" that actually is his best album. It really encapsulates everything I love about Prince.

Including those glasses.

71. "Mind if I turn on..." *drum fill* "...the radio?"

The more or less official Prince podcast has started up again -- collaboration between the Current and the Estate, and they've been doing little minidoc seasons for each new big reissue, and the _SOTT_ era begins today. Advertorial to some sort of degree, but still enjoyable:

https://toppodcast.com/podcast_feeds/prince-official-podcast/

I was about to preorder the deluxe box set this on Amazon, but wtf is up with its price? On the German Amazon it's 153 euros (with taxes) and on the US Amazon it's 160 dollars! The 1999 box set had 5 CDs and 1 DVD and it cost 72 euros on Amazon, and I felt that one was already a bit pricey, but this one has 8 CDs and 1 DVD and it costs twice as much? The price is pretty much the same as if you would buy 9 individual albums separately, which is ridiculous for a box set.

Turns out the box only has 3 CDs worth of previously unreleased studio recordings + a live show divided onto 2 CDs. So the amount of actual unreleased songs is the same as on the 1999 box, yet this one costs twice as much. Definitely feels like a scam.

It has three CDs of other material too. Previously released, sure, but it's still there. I'd prefer if they didnt release remastered albums tbh. 1999 already sounded good. Sott was never meant to sound great as prince didnt care much for that. So I dont imagine it sounding that great regardless. And I'm not sure it should either. Hopefully though the next releases aren't so expensive.

The demos of forever and ICnTTPOYM are interesting but dont see myself playing them that often. He made all the right decisions in what actually made it to stores. That 70s miles Davis-ish ending to ICMTTPOYM is one of the best moments on the album. But for scholars and fans who like comparing versions, it is pretty amazing how many different versions of certain songs there are in the vault. Glad he never released dorothy parker with horns!

I don't think it's a scam, but part of me thinks they are testing the waters to see how much they can charge for this stuff moving forward. Sadly this seemed to fly off the shelves too, so I have to imagine this will be the more likely price point for future sets than the 1999 box price.

I don't have the big box in the budget, so I settled for the three disc version and I'm really annoyed that the third disc for that package is just the singles and extended versions. I've already got the singles from The Hits/The B-Sides and none of the extended mixes have done a lot for me. I would have much rather had one of the vault discs as the bonus here or, better yet, a curated selection from the vault discs and live stuff.

its the shitty book that bumps up the price so much.

I bought the 3-disc version, but the third disc was messed up, and when I took it back to exchange they had no additional copies to replace it with. So I applied the credit toward the Neneh Cherry Raw Like Sushi reissue. Also 3 discs, also late 80's, and a little more fun.

shitty book

Spot on. The track and liner notes SUCK. Just reading the Prince Vault entries for free online will get you far more insight into the music, which is pretty fucking sad. This doesn't even rise to the level of David Fricke's hack liner notes, it's well below that.

Three discs of raw like sushi?!

The book is just a coffee table space filler exercise. No photos of real merit and no essays of real interest (though admittedly the andrea Swanson one looked decent and I've not read the Susan rogers one yet. Think I was just put off by some of the others). Just straightforward liner notes would have been nice.

I stopped listening to it a while ago actually. Oddly it made me fo back to the bootlegs lol

I strongly recommend a live bootleg called wonder boy over this utrecht show, which is ok but feels a bit perfunctory.

Simon Reynolds with an interesting take on the new edition.

http://blissout.blogspot.com/2020/10/cornucopious.html?m=1

His actual review -
https://4columns.org/reynolds-simon/prince

the only reason I can think of that the estate didn't put on the full "Crystal Ball" recording, "Movie Star" and some other cuts of this vintage on this box is because he threw it out will nilly on the 98 record by the same name? I would think that it would be fundamental to include every recording that was germane to Camille, Dream Factory and Crystal Ball projects…

I can't remember the details, but yes, they couldn't include those tracks because of some legal business with the rights to those songs. It sucks.

I bet we'll eventually see full releases of those albums.