#princevault

[darlingnisi]

"4 those of U on valium, my name is Prince..."

30 years ago today, Prince introduced a whole new era, with this concert at First Avenue in Minneapolis.

Have you seen this show before? What are your highlights? What did you think of the Sign O' The Times live era?

Read about the show itself on PrinceVault here: http://princevault.com/index.php?title=21_March_1987

via Princevault

[amari-3-18]

Pre-Show listening. Looking forward to discussing The Hendrix catalog history on Amari Purple Talk. #Prince #podcast #jimihendrix #amaripurpletalk #princevault https://www.instagram.com/p/B14byMMFu3_/?igshid=1chlbnz6iicjv

[wildarrogance]

List of Prince interviews in text form. 

[trentvanegas]

The first TRULY previously unreleased #Prince song from the #PurpleRain era has been released and I am DEADDDDDDDD 💀 The #studioversion of #ElectricIntercourse has been unleashed from the #PrinceVault and is featured on #PurpleRainDeluxe (Expanded Edition) 💜🙌🏼💜 OMGGGGGG 😭 (at Toluca Lake, California)

[mrberre]

It's 21 years since Prince's The Hits / The B-Sides was released, and quite frankly I'd think you'd have trouble finding enough songs worthy to fill an additional disc from the records he has released since then.

By the way, shame on PrinceVault for not mentioning the wonderful liner notes Alan Leeds wrote. Or for only casually noting that this set had been planned for several years but got delayed over and over again by Prince dragging his feet, something that Warner Bros. Records finally solved by paying Prince several million dollars to "get out of the way".

But the real shame is that this set could and should have been the start of an extensive remaster program. Sure, the B-Sides disc supplied longtime fans finally with CD versions of tracks previously only available on vinyl, but it still left numerous tracks existing on vinyl only, a gap some enterprising fans and bootleggers happily exploited.

Prince's 1980s output is unfortunately badly represented on CD. Most mastering jobs are adequate, but even the best of them suffer from the simple fact that mastering technology simply wasn't evolved as far back then, and that the people using it were only getting to know it. Compare the earliest Sly & The Family Stone releases to more recent ones and you'll note the vast improvements that have happened.

I don't know if Warners were planning a remaster series back then. There's no indication of this, and if there were any plans, those went out of the window once Prince started throwing his tantrum about wanting to get out of the "$100 million contract" he'd signed on 31 August 1992.

Which is a damn shame. Because just imagine that we'd gotten those remasters, i.e. that we'd have consistent sounding albums with songs that could be mixed and matched at random without having to adjust your volume (Sign O' The Times being one of the worst examples of this). Just imagine that all those vinyl-only extended versions and other mixes were available in CD quality. Just imagine that we'd have seen the release of mythical "lost" albums like Camille or Dream Factory. Just imagine if we'd had gotten live recordings.

I wouldn't even have expected all those goodies in the first wave of remasters. If I recall correctly, the trend towards Deluxe Editions is one that started towards the end of the 1990s or the early 2000s, but considering the presence of the B-Sides disc I could imagine that the first wave (1990s remasters) would have included additional previously released tracks -- e.g. extended versions from 12" records -- on separate discs.

The second wave (2000s Deluxe Editions) would have included live recordings, i.e. complete concerts, and perhaps unreleased music from the same era: tracks initially considered for an album but later replaced, or perhaps the (unreleased) full-length versions of tracks. I'd also imagine video would be part of this wave, with concert videos and album-centered compilations of promotional videos, perhaps even including unreleased ones.

The third wave (2010s Box Sets / Archive Series) would have given us high definition encodes plus more material from Prince's vault like "lost" albums or unreleased projects. Box sets that provide an in-depth look at certain eras (e.g. Purple Rain, the road to Sign O' The Times,...). Proper releases for associated artists/side projects like The Time, Jill Jones, Sheila E,... A website that sells recordings of numerous concerts (like Metallica or Pearl Jam or Fugazi).

I hope the upcoming remaster/deluxe edition of Purple Rain will finally offer some of that to Prince fans, but I fear it will be a massive letdown. It is almost inevitable that it will be, considering that this package needs to make up for decades of missed opportunities. It wouldn't just need to offer us a glorious remaster, but also a wealth of bonus tracks, hopefully including unreleased music that we don't yet know about, and several much-bootlegged concert recordings. Considering Prince is involved in this I cannot see this happen. I also suspect Warners needs to limit the size of the box set and can't release a set with half a dozen or so discs.

Which is a damn shame. The only one to blame is Prince, who has throughout the years neglected to curate his legacy. This mismanagement has undoubtedly cost his millions, which he could have earned by monetizing recordings that have now languished for decades in his vault.

I cannot help feeling that his refusal to deal with his legendary past -- just read the dismissive way he reacts whenever the upcoming Purple Rain remaster is brought up --  is a deliberate policy. He knows that his current output is rubbish, which is why he doesn't perform the songs in concert and doesn't even bother to properly promote any album release. Now imagine how bad that output would sound when compared to an ongoing stream of music from his heyday.

But perhaps we wouldn't have gotten rubbish like 20Ten or Newpower Soul or Planet Earth if Prince had needed to compete with all those remasters. Perhaps he'd have been inspired.