Credits: the picture is from the Rolling Stone article "Prince retires - Maybe", june 1993:

[img:$uid]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v67/ecnirp2004/Prince/cede137b-10cb-42fa-8c22-4804f0466c69_zps6c01726d.jpg[/img:$uid]




500 tracks ready........ really



That sure is a lot of songs...

How come Prince hasn't released those great songs... I mean post-Warner hasn't been too great, I really would like to know - why hasn't he released the killer songs, yet.



Do U believe there are that many truly GREAT unreleased songs in the Prince vaults.

.

[Edited 6/2/13 18:34pm]

[Edited 6/2/13 18:37pm]

[Edited 6/2/13 18:41pm]

My point is..:

If Prince really have 500 unreleased tracks, how come his albums since 1993 (post-Warner that is), has been poor/ average, good or ok.. but not exactly excellent...?


Was this mention by Rolling Stone - about "500 tracks", just the "usual hype", just hype created to show Prince as a big "genius" ?



Why isn't he releasing the "hot stuff"..



.




[Edited 6/2/13 19:21pm]

How "current" do you think something recorded in 1984 would have sounded in 1994?

The premises and the implied conclusions of this thread are absurd.

[Edited 6/2/13 22:50pm]

The "killer" tracks were on the Crystal Ball set and we all know pretty much what the bootlegged "classics" are. I don't think anyone has been under the illusion that every unreleased song he has done is just as good as the stuff on Purple Rain. A lot of the material on his post-WB albums surely is better than many of the 1980s outtakes.

How do you know the stuff he's been releasing hasn't been amongst those earlier unreleased tracks?

"A Million Days", "Future Soul Song" and, of course, "Extraloveable" were taken from the vault.

Uber-upset no new audio updates at 3rdeyegirl.com in ever. One-offs like Boyfriend and That Girl Thang were tops. Am ambivalent about an album. Taking too damn long.

novabrkr said:

How "current" do you think something recorded in 1984 would have sounded in 1994?

The premises and the implied conclusions of this thread are absurd.

[Edited 6/2/13 22:50pm]

Heard "Empty Room"?

purplepolitician said:

Uber-upset no new audio updates at 3rdeyegirl.com in ever. One-offs like Boyfriend and That Girl Thang were tops. Am ambivalent about an album. Taking too damn long.

Which has nothing to do with this thread.

Listened to a pod cast with sound engineer Michael Koppelman yesterday. He said the best music he heard Prince record ended up in the vault.

leecaldon said:

How do you know the stuff he's been releasing hasn't been amongst those earlier unreleased tracks?

"A Million Days", "Future Soul Song" and, of course, "Extraloveable" were taken from the vault.

i agree especially "Future Soul Song" & "Extraloveable"

Even if u listen to the song "Gold" it sounds like it was remade from an instrumental track on the Studio Nights bootleg (which were from the 70's & 80's ). So of course he's getting ideas from those 500 songs .

My favourite stuff is from 93-96 so I wouldn't agree with the premise that he has to mine the vault to create something great. But even then some of the best versions/mixes of that period goes unreleased.

That aside Hans Buff says he takes stuff out of the vault and uses changes and adds to it. He takes Clare Fischers strings from one track cuts them up to make a whole new song.

Personaly I would love to listen to all 500 tracks but I cetainly wouldn't be under the illusion they are all great but I'm sure there are some tracks that would have been career highs sitting in that vault mearly because of a change of heart by Prince.

TwiliteKid said:

purplepolitician said:

Uber-upset no new audio updates at 3rdeyegirl.com in ever. One-offs like Boyfriend and That Girl Thang were tops. Am ambivalent about an album. Taking too damn long.

Which has nothing to do with this thread.

The whole bootlegs for days reference made it fit for me. Could'a found a better outlet. Thanks for reading and pardon my snafu.

Wasn't there a rumor that he also re-recorded all of his Warner stuff?

CharlieRise said:

Wasn't there a rumor that he also re-recorded all of his Warner stuff?

I believe that was a political statement not a reality. (He may have done some of them, but probably not all.)

500 unreleased tracks, including MANY remixes

TwiliteKid said:

Because Prince has fallen prey to the a delusion that many artists suffer from: the belief that his newest material is his best. How many times have you heard him say some variation of "I don't like to look behind me"?

I only focus on what I'm currently doing as an artist [Not the past works.] and totally relate to Prince's thinking style. The current is always the best work because it's what I am focusing on currently. I don't actually think that the current work is always my best work out of everything I have done, but it may be the most intricate or the most different from what I have done in the past. Basically, the current work represents growth for me in some manner.

CharlieRise said:

Wasn't there a rumor that he also re-recorded all of his Warner stuff?

i think a re recorded hits album was intendid for one of the 4 albums as part of the NPGMC in 2001 but got bumped for ONA Live, we know and have heard Starfish and Coffee and TMBGITW (Mustang). so who knows.

A Million Days was written and originally recorded in 1995.

he's been vaulting since 1990

500 tracks, maybe. 500 great tracks, definitely not.

I'd just be happy if he decides to just release it online to buy tons of unreleased songs either digitally or in a box set at some point. I mean it's pure profit for him and I'm sure from the countless unrleased songs he he has he can pick some amazing cuts.

The vault is Prince's social security plan and simple! When age finally catches up with him and he can not tour anymore the vault will open trust me! The music vault as well as that music video vault of 50 complete videos. He will also probably make history when he does it? Trust me his smart and through the years I believe he has purposely built up a curiosity for the vault! His whole career would be revitalized by doing this. He'll probably even drop a autobiography. He thinks light years ahead.

You know Prince's best tracks are tucked away w/ the following

Record Scratches

Samples of girls saying "Uh"
Kirky J Drum Loops

featuring Rappers you've never heard of & question if they do exist

Loud Snare clap drums

Cheesy narrations why Prince is royalty

Kenny G smooth jazz Sax collabs

More songs namedropping products in NPG store that never saw light of day

A classic ballad about why Jewish people stole from him

Here comes the truckload of funk:

I've heard many, MANY of the unlreleased bootlegs, and found much of it bland and demo-like in the sense that they didn't sound like finished ideas.


My hunch is he probably has thousands of songs in his vault now, and even the smaller precentage of them was good, that's still more than the entire catalogues of his peers put together.



What I find really odd is that he doesn't perform unreleased tracks these days live like he used to back in the day. It's as if he's given up trying to tease us with new material. I like the days that Prince would perform something we'd never heard of, but never release it--that shit was hilarius.

Now, we get hits and popular b-sides, and the really, really mind-numingly less-than-spectacular cover of some old musical group's song.

This is Prince's process:

1. Record a great song.

2. Put it in the vault while he continues tracking for his latest project.

3. Leave it there so it does not outshine the other tracks on his latest project.

4. In the future, reduce great song to utter rubbish, by reinterpreting it for his newest mindset/musical style/band.

5. Release utter rubbish because it no longer outshines the other tracks on his latest project....