While I have no doubt this kind of thread has been done (likely to death), I can't seem to find a current "version," so apologies in advance for forum clutter. Remove if need be.

There are people of a certain age on this thread that remember what it was like to buy something on vinyl or tape. As neither provided an easy way to skip a track (tape more so than vinyl), you often ended up listening to an album in sequence. Personally, I have come to feel this is a good thing, as it forced tracks on me that I would have otherwise blown past. It made me a better listener.

With the advent of CDs, suddenly an artist could put much more content out... and the listener could choose to skip it with the click of a button. Downloadable tracks fragments album sequence further as you can pick and choose which songs you want to acquire and the order in which to hear them. A button click will simply randomize it for God's sake! The art of sequencing an album is dead it seems.

Though I skip a track or two, it's safe to say I tend to keep the sequence of the first 10 P albums pretty much in order. Occasionally I will drop in an outtake or a b-side though... helps me appreciate the songs in a different light. I began to edit P albums around Graffiti Bridge and now it's pretty much a given that I edit and sequence his output to fit what I think it should be (hey, the technology allows me to be God, so why not?).

I'd love to see some of your favorite personal sequences... be it a "classic" album you rearranged and/or augmented with outtakes/b-sides, or a mash up of several similar era P albums to create one monster album. I’ll start this off easy... below is a configuration I have used for years (save for the recently aquired ErnestSewell edits). Nothing too fancy with the sequencing to be honest (really it is identical to the releases sans several tracks) but it gives me all the peaks and valleys I come to expect on a P album, with equal parts funk and cheese. And yes, I am nerdy enough to break these out by "A" and "B" side.

Side A
"Thunder
"Cream"
"Strollin"
"Willing and Able" (ErnestSewell No Mo' Tony Edit)
"Gett Off"
"Insatiable"

Side B
"Sexy MF" (ErnestSewell No Mo' Tony Edit)
"Love 2 The 9's" (ErnestSewell No Mo' Tony Edit)
"Damn U"
"The Morning Papers"
"7"
"3 Chains O' Gold"

Edit - Track List Correction (i.e. Less Tony)
[Edited 2/8/10 14:06pm]
[Edited 2/8/10 15:40pm]

There should be a Tony M. Free edit of "Love 2 The 9's" as well.

Great topic!

Here's a breakdown of my latest sequencing experiment (it turned out great by the way!)

- The Gold Album

Disc 1
Poem - I edited all the spoken segues from the Come album (minus Orgasm) together myself in Audacity (this was before I tracked down the Original Test Pressing )
Come (edit) - I used the album version, but cut out the "sucking" part and the repetitive instrumental section near the end
segue + Endorphinemachine - from TGE (minus Mayte's Spanish bit at the end)
Interactive - from Come Original Test Pressing
Days of Wild - from Crystal Ball (I'm still torn on editing this down or keeping it as is)
segue + Now - from TGE
Pheromone - from Come
Ripopgodazippa - from Crystal Ball
segue (Welcome 2 the Beautiful Experience) from TGE + TMBGITW (single version)
Space (acoustic remix)
Papa - from Come

Disc 2
Peach - from Hits/B-Sides
Shhh - from TGE
Strays of the World - from Crystal Ball
Dolphin - from TGE
Dark - from Come (I'm debating replacing this with "So Dark" from CB, which I prefer)
Pope - from Hits/B-Sides
Race - from Come
Loose! - from Come (I'm considering creating an "extended mix" by adding all or part of "Lemme See That Body Get Loose" from CB)
segue + 319 - from TGE
Letitgo (radio single edit)
segue (Welcome 2 the Gold Experience, edited from the end of " Hate U") from TGE + Gold (outtake version with no keyboards) + Mayte's Spanish bit from the end of "Endorphinmachine" playing over the fade-out

As you can see, I had to go mainly with official tracks since I don't have an extensive outtake collection. Nonetheless, I am very happy with the results, and I think the sequence flows perfectly!
[Edited 2/8/10 15:48pm]

ernestsewell said:

Indeed there is! Fixed. BTW, if I havn't mentioned it before, that Tony M edit in "Willing and Able" is damn impressive... THAT must have been a bitch to sort out. Turned out aces though...

Really dig your sequence bluefish. I can tell there was some thought to it. I am going to give this one a spin... I think my only change would be to use the cowbell-less Endorphinemachine from the Interactive game. Nice work!

BlackbeltJones said:

I just cut it as close as possible to keep everything else in, and knock his dumb ass out. ".....tonight" from "Willing & Able" wasn't necessary, per say, so I was okay with cutting it out.

I took a tad more out from "Sexy MF", with the "Sexy MFer shakin' that ass!" chant.

BlackbeltJones said:

Thanks, Blackbelt!

I have the TGE version of Endorphinemachine as well as the Glam Slam Ulysses-style outtake version (the one that segues from the bluesier version of Come). Is this outtake the same as the CD-ROM version? I don't own the game and have never heard tracks from it.

I think I'm gonna cut the whole "turn the lights off!"/"Free the slave!" part from Days of Wild. The song drags unnecessarily at that point, IMO.
[Edited 2/8/10 16:02pm]

That's nice to be able to have the equipment to do this with music.

"Chaos & Disorder" - full out rock album sequence


01. Chaos and Disorder
02. I Like It There
03. The Ride (*)
04. Dinner With Delores
05. The Same December
06. Calhoun Sq
07. Zanallee
08. Into The Light
09. I Will
10. Da Bang
11. Empty Room
12. Had U

(*) "the ride", this is the full 'studio' version taken from The Undertaker.
that might seem a little excessive, at over 10 minutes, as the 3rd track on
an album, but it works very well and it just sits nicely between I Like It
There and Delores as it segues out of and into those songs effortlessly.

anyway, this is the only way i listen to this album anymore, i love, love,
love this edit.

IstenSzek said:

This isn't a bad configuration. I think the way it exists now, it should have been paired down and added as a bonus EP with The Gold Experience.

I might make a play list with the above sequence.

bluefish said:

Yeah, it's the version from the CD-ROM. You can find it on YouTube actually! I think it "rocks" a bit more than the TGE version. + no cowbell, which is a good thing.

BTW, that sounds like it would be a good edit for Days of Wild... might give that a try myself.

Tame said:

In another life I was pretty involved in music production, and, as such, still have a lot of nice tools. HOWEVER, you can do some great things w/ freeware these days. Check out Audacity... http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ It is a great free audio editor, and it runs on almost anything.

IstenSzek said:

If this was the actual sequence to Chaos and Disorder, you can bet I would've listened to that album a helluva lot more than twice (which is the actual number of my listens to this point). This edit ROCKS!

ernestsewell said:

True. Tony M. makes this song fall just short of brilliance. This was like hanging fuzzy dice from your Bentley.

jdcxc said:

I meant he should have mentioned my Tony M. edit of that song. (He later edited the post to reflect that he does have my edit).

I do enjoy the edits I did of all the Tony M stuff, by taking him out of stuff. Every song, to me, is 100x stronger for it.

I explain them more here: http://prince.org/msg/7/327166

Good thread idea. I'd like to add that in the vinyl days, sequencing often had more to do with the actual frequencies of a given series of songs on a record than how well they flowed together, or the vision of the recording artist. Songs with a lot of treble built in almost always had to be on the outer ring of the record to faithfully reproduce the best sound. So that would dictate the song be either the leadoff track on side A, or relegated to side B(first track). As the stylus gets closer to the center of the record, higher frequencies and loudness start to become dull. Quieter ballads are often on the inside of an LP. This was an engineering issue throughout the history of vinyl mastering, and the better production houses adhered to that recipe.

Once the CD came along, the artist's vision as to sequencing could actually be closer realized, but due to it's capacity, also eventually lead to what some feel are bloated "filler" heavy releases.

This is why I like Prince's shorter post-80s albums, because he does start to chuck everything but the kitchen sink in with the bigger ones. With the 9 and 10 track albums a consise clear tracklisting is easier to get right.

squirrelgrease said:

Wow, I never knew the technical limitations of the format actually determined sequencing. Very very interesting read! All this time I figured it had everything to do with song flow. It creates another interesting hurdle for the artist to overcome. Knowing an album has to flow a certain way due to vinyl specs, I wonder how many vinyl era artists took that in to consideration when writing and/or choosing songs that make the cut?

Did this rule change at all as cassette tapes became dominate, or was it fairly well maintained throughout the 80s until CD became the dominate format?
[Edited 2/9/10 6:12am]

AROUND the WORLD in a DAY

I can listen 2 it as is but having it downloaded as MP3 I created this playlist and burned a cd. I wish there were outtakes from ATWIAD

1.)Around the World in a Day(unreleased with bass line)
2.)Paisley Park (extended beginning)
3.)Condition of the Heart
4.)Raspberry Beret (extended)
5.)America (extended)
6.)Hello (extended)
7.)Pop Life (extended)
8.)the Ladder
9.)Girl (Extended)
10.)Tambourine
11.)Temptation

^^I like where Hello and Girl are placed in your configuration. Seems to be a good "fit."

bluefish said:

But you only heard the original album twice in, like, 1996?

BlackbeltJones said:

I ground Hello with Pop Life & America(because the rock guitar) and social commentary

Girl starts out with desire & turns to lust which leads to Tambourine and of course Tempation. They play into each other well.

* I was listening to a 11:43 min version of Computer Blue and noticed the beat/linn is the same as Around the World in a Day just faster

squirrelgrease said:

Wow, that is EXACTLY what my professor in "History of Recorded Music" said.

What a great class. I took it my senior year because I figured it'd be a blow-off class, as did everyone else that took it. The grizzled old prof that taught said on the first day that anyone thinking his class was a blow-off class was in for a rude awakening.

LOL, he was kind of right. He tried, but there's really not a lot you can do to make learning about albums very hard.

Technical issues aside, I love the sequencing for "Purple Rain" and for Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run".

PURPLE RAIN

this album is a story including the Time A6 Sheila E and some outtakes
so much music was made for possible inclusion 4 this project that you gotta add as much as possible

I try to stay in the original album Sequence while adding songs that might tell a background story.

1.)Let's Go Crazy
a.)the Glamorous Life
* Traffic Jam (interlude)
b.)2 Sexy
c.)Manic Monday
d.)Noon Rendevzous
2.)Take Me With U
e.)My Drawers
f.)Strawcake Shortberry
g.)Possessed
h.)G-Spot
3.)the Beautiful Ones
3a.)God the Love Theme
i.)If the Kid Can't Make U Come
j.)Erotic City
k.)Sex Shooter
l.)17 Days
m.)Blue Limousine
n.)Next Time Wipe the Lipstick off your Collar
* Fathers Song (interlude)
4.)Computer Blue
5.)Darling Nikki
6.)When Doves Cry
6a.)God the Dance Electric
7.)Purple Rain
8.)I Would Die 4 U
9.)Baby I'm a Star
[Edited 2/9/10 7:27am]

I have tried other sequences from time to time.

Parade

Christopher Tracy's Parade
New Position
I Wonder U
Under the Cherry Moon
Girls and Boys
Life Can Be So Nice
A Love Bizarre
Venus de Milo
Manic Monday
It's Gonna Be Beautiful Night
Mountains (extended)
Do U Lie?
Alexa De Paris
Kiss (Extended)
Anotherloverholenyohead (Extended)
Sometimes it Snows in April


(I may remove Its Gonna Be a Beautiful Night but since it was recorded in Paris it seems to belong on Parade somewhere).

I have also always wondered if any of the other Parade tracks had extended versions somewhere in The Vault. I think the Parade songs had the best extended versions.

I have always had a soft spot for this period of music. The movie was ok, the album was great, the following spring of 1987 I was in Paris on a High School trip (actually Sign O' the Times was released when I was in Paris). It was a great dreamy time in my life, I was 17 ahh, anyway.

I wonder if Prince's last trip tp Paris inspired and new music for him.

^^ I have always been looking for a good place to put "Sexual Suicide" and "All My Dreams" in a Parade sequence myself, as they are great Parade era outtakes. I experiment, but have never come up with a "perfect" place for them to live. Now that I have a clean copy of "Love or Money", I may try to slot that in there as well.

And yes, "Mountians (Extended Version)" is THE version in the Jones household. A travisty they never released that in a clean, digital form.
[Edited 2/9/10 8:19am]

RedKite said:

that's a nice playlist, like Purple Rain, this era had a lot going on
I always though Jill Jones album should have been released during the Parade era


Christopher Tracy's Parade
New Position
Screams of Passion
I Wonder U
All My Dreams
Under the Cherry Moon
Girls and Boys
Love on A Blue Train
Life Can Be So Nice
An Honest Man
Heaven
Venus de Milo
Mia Bocca
Mountains (extended)
Love or Money
Do U Lie?
Yes
Old Friends 4 Sale
Alexa De Paris
Kiss (Extended)
Anotherloverholenyohead (Extended)
Sometimes it Snows in April

BlackbeltJones said:

"Old Friends 4 Sale" originally segued into "All My Dreams". That's the best place for it, behind OF4S. Also, it's a definite album ender, so I can't imagine it being anywhere else.

Yeah, the song is too "big" not to be the closing track (for me at any rate)... the tricky bit was finding a song to sit before it ("Sometimes it Snows" never seemed to quite work for my ears).

Even though it belongs in that time period, for whatever reason I never lump OF4S in with Parade; I might try this sequence on my commute in to work tomorrow, especially now that I tracked down a super clean copy of "All my Dreams." The only clean version of OF4S I have is the re-recorded version on "The Vault...", but it will have to do.

I recently did one with the "Come" cd. I've always felt that "Come" got a bad rap from being smack dab in the middle of the slave period. I feel it's one of his strongest mid 90s efforts,but at the same time I've always felt it was missing something. I would listen 2 it and feel like though it was short enough where most of the filler or "fat" was trimmed away,there still wasn't enough meat 2 leave me satisfied. After getting my hands on the recent bootleg release of "Come:the original test pressing" I felt I should compile my own version of "Come". IMO it's meatier,funkier,& flows well from track 2 track. I'm proud of myself! Here is my Alternate Version of "Come":

Interactive/Come #1 (Glam Slam U. version)/Endorphinemachine (segued from Come
#1)/Space/2morrow/Acknowledge Me/Phereomone/Loose/Papa/Pope (from the Dawn 4.1)/Race/Dark/Love Sign/Letitgo/Dolphin (from Come Original Test Pressing)/Come #2 (album version)

bluefish said:

i like this a lot. nice choices!