tobydavies said:

antonb said:

KCOOLMUZIQ said:

Hopefully transfered all those thousands of "Masterpieces" from tape to digital b4 they deteriorated.....

Maybe that is what the hold up is 4 the MEGA Purple Rain Deluxe! WbR is helping the transfering...

[img:$uid]http://i61.tinypic.com/2e4z34l.jpg[/img:$uid]

In our wildest dreams.

KCOOLMUZIQ said:

This BBC documentary is absolutely EPIC!!!!!!!!

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It isn't out yet.

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Also, why are you promoting something that is NOT AUTHORIZED BY PRINCE?

I watched this Diary of a super-fan video -- can I just ask, why are "fans" treating this vault as a rumor? It has been known to be a fact for decades, we have seen photos FROM INSIDE THE VAULT, musicians and technicians etc. have all talked about it for DECADES. Why do Prince "fans" have this annoying habit to make up shit when there are actual facts, and even treat those facts as rumors?

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Also, how much padding can one documentary have? This ten-minute version already feels overdone (the pointless interviews with fans, pictures of the maker hanging out outside a closed Paisley Park callign Prince's lawyer,...). Why stretch this already fairly thin subject to half an hour or even an hour when there really isn't that much to tell?

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Also: gotta love Sonny T's ridiculous "perhaps Prince is keeping this all locked up to show future generations something that's still relevant to them" (I'm paraphrasing): Prince's current output isn't relevant now, and it will never be. His 1980s outtakes will be interesting to future generations, but more and more solely as context for the work he did release at that time.

BartVanHemelen said:

I watched this Diary of a super-fan video -- can I just ask, why are "fans" treating this vault as a rumor? It has been known to be a fact for decades, we have seen photos FROM INSIDE THE VAULT, musicians and technicians etc. have all talked about it for DECADES. Why do Prince "fans" have this annoying habit to make up shit when there are actual facts, and even treat those facts as rumors?

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Also, how much padding can one documentary have? This ten-minute version already feels overdone (the pointless interviews with fans, pictures of the maker hanging out outside a closed Paisley Park callign Prince's lawyer,...). Why stretch this already fairly thin subject to half an hour or even an hour when there really isn't that much to tell?

.

Also: gotta love Sonny T's ridiculous "perhaps Prince is keeping this all locked up to show future generations something that's still relevant to them" (I'm paraphrasing): Prince's current output isn't relevant now, and it will never be. His 1980s outtakes will be interesting to future generations, but more and more solely as context for the work he did release at that time.

Only some people will say it's a rumor, so why use the label "fans" as if it was a general tendency among fans? Just say "some fans" do this, that's more accurate. The same goes for when you attempt to ridicule anyone that has an appreciation for Prince's current output by dismissively calling them "fams".

As for why these individuals are featured, it's fairly common to feature a range of fans, including some that have bought into some semi-urban legends or that treat a few things as such, lots of people are only in it for the music and pay little attention to other aspects. For instance, I only pay some attention to his personal life and what his associates have to say, there's no law that says a fan should take an almost scholarly interest in everything. This is true for the fans of any band or artist, I really doubt every Beatles fan knows about every single aspect of the Fab Four's lives, dealings, recording habits, etc. They'll know some of it maybe, but most people are fans because they like the music, hey're not all obsessed about the personalities involved like some screaming sixties school girls that dream of marrying Ringo or dating Paul (though there's absolutely nothing wrong with being that kind of fan).

You might also want to get some notion that you are not the target audience for a documentary such as this one. It wasn't made for people who have long followed Prince like you and I, it's for a more general audience that might only know a song or two. Prince "superfans" and the Vault are very legitimate topics and I think the people involved did a terrific job.

I can only imagine the kind of documentary you would make, I'm sure you'd attempt to put him on trial for things like voicing support for an athlete and other dubious factoids you somehow feel are still worth your time.

[Edited 3/21/15 3:18am]

[img:$uid]http://i59.tinypic.com/ngy4p0.jpg[/img:$uid]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/prog...s/b05j92m0

I am listening right now to the short 30 mins version....

Tonight will be the full 60 mins version, right?

We all know there are multiple gems in the Vault.

But I find it impossible to believe there are really dozens upon dozens of great songs in there, while he himself keeps realising mediocre to downright bad music. (Yes, I know there are still fans who have enjoyed his output in the last 20 years; you're entitled to your opinion and taste, but I value mine more...)

And in the end, it doesn't matter. For although he has come up with a lot of (sometimes ill-advised plans) to release it all, it has never happened. Certainly now with the internet, there is nothing holding him back. Except himself. So it will probably NEVER happen. End of story.

BartVanHemelen said:

I watched this Diary of a super-fan video -- can I just ask, why are "fans" treating this vault as a rumor? It has been known to be a fact for decades, we have seen photos FROM INSIDE THE VAULT, musicians and technicians etc. have all talked about it for DECADES. Why do Prince "fans" have this annoying habit to make up shit when there are actual facts, and even treat those facts as rumors?

I'll tell you why. Having made two major music docs myself (my 2Pac doc for BBC 1xtra and Prince one for XFM), things never get commissioned the way that you might like.

The commissioner won't be a fan. It'll be somebody who takes your idea and says "I think this would be more interesting if we took this angle...."

If this documentary was only made for fans, it wouldn't stand a chance of getting commissioned. Half the stuff I talked to Dr Fink and Brent and Clare Fischer about for XFM didn't get used, because it's not stuff that non-fans care about much.

To people who aren't fans, the angle of "There's a rumor that Prince has a super secret mysterious vault of unreleased music" is an interesting story. The fact of "Prince has a vault of unreleased music." isn't.

So when talking to people, regardless of whether they are fans or not, you have to ask leading questions that frame their answers in ways that fit the show thematically. Same with the musicians. Mobeen would have to ask Sonny, Cat, Eric etc questions like "Does Prince have a vault and what do you know about it?". Mobeen knows damn well Prince has the vault just like any of us here. But most of the people who listen to it won't know that for a fact.

It's entertainment. It's not a recital of facts. If it were, it wouldn't get commissioned.

I've pitched a few ideas to documentary production companies. First question is always "What's the angle?". Facts, by their nature, don't have an angle.

It's great that there are so many interviews, samples from album tracks? Pretty sure that was an alternate "Daddy Pop"?

Despite the name, I think there was a LOT of great info - certainly things I've never heard and from people who've been there - THOUSANDS of songs in the vault. It'd take years to go through them.

As for whats "good" - he thinks it all is - others have suggested 30% Ultimately it's down to the listener. 30% of one thousand is still 300. With the sheer volume he's going to win any numbers game. Of the other 70% there is likely some interesting stuff in there.

Then, the live stuff... Audio and an awful lot of video too I'd suspect.

Speaking of bootlegs - There must be a lot of unused interviews too. This must be an easy shout for BBC4 - currently showing "Tales from the Royal wardrobe" Who do we have to harrass on twitter?

double post

[Edited 3/21/15 14:29pm]

Even if there were thousands of tracks in Prince's vault, my guess (based on the unreeleased tracks I've heard) is that there might only be a 3 or 4 albums worth of material deserving a commercial release.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to hear the good stuff in the vault, but the idea that there's enough decent material to release an album a year for the next 100 years sounds like codswallop.

Pentacle said:

We all know there are multiple gems in the Vault.

But I find it impossible to believe there are really dozens upon dozens of great songs in there, while he himself keeps realising mediocre to downright bad music. (Yes, I know there are still fans who have enjoyed his output in the last 20 years; you're entitled to your opinion and taste, but I value mine more...)

And in the end, it doesn't matter. For although he has come up with a lot of (sometimes ill-advised plans) to release it all, it has never happened. Certainly now with the internet, there is nothing holding him back. Except himself. So it will probably NEVER happen. End of story.

Nah...there are dozens upon dozens of great songs...All u have to do is the math of all the recording time he put from 81 to 90....

As for Prince releasing "mediocre" material today as proof that all of these storied vault songs upon songs do not exists? It's obvious that Prince has issues dealing with his past. Dude will play the "hits" from his catalogue and some fan favorites but that's because he makes millions touring. Otherwise it seems like Prince would be more likely to re-record a lot of those unreleased gems, which is something a lot of fans would not be happy with (i.e. his somewhat pedestrian re-working of Extraloveable).

In other words, TODAYS Prince may look at the past Prince as not representing his somewhat conservative life in 2015. And then there's the matter of P's ego....lol. I can imagine dude thinking, "I don't want this old unreleased shit to shadow over my work today..." As much as I am praying to baby Jesus for his vault music to see the light of day we probably won't hear anything until someone in his estate decides to release it...

BartVanHemelen said:

I watched this Diary of a super-fan video -- can I just ask, why are "fans" treating this vault as a rumor? It has been known to be a fact for decades, we have seen photos FROM INSIDE THE VAULT, musicians and technicians etc. have all talked about it for DECADES. Why do Prince "fans" have this annoying habit to make up shit when there are actual facts, and even treat those facts as rumors?

.

Also, how much padding can one documentary have? This ten-minute version already feels overdone (the pointless interviews with fans, pictures of the maker hanging out outside a closed Paisley Park callign Prince's lawyer,...). Why stretch this already fairly thin subject to half an hour or even an hour when there really isn't that much to tell?

.

Also: gotta love Sonny T's ridiculous "perhaps Prince is keeping this all locked up to show future generations something that's still relevant to them" (I'm paraphrasing): Prince's current output isn't relevant now, and it will never be. His 1980s outtakes will be interesting to future generations, but more and more solely as context for the work he did release at that time.

Damn homie. U still miserable after all these years.....Impressive....lol

BartVanHemelen has his own opinion on many Prince topics. Some I agree with and some I don't. At least he has a solid opinion and a reason why he feels that way. I know his delivery can rub some people the wrong way, but hell, the way Kcoolmuzio communicates rubs me the wrong way (and he or she doesn't ever really have any substance to 99% of her posts).

As for the usually quiet people who come out of the woodwork to jump in and try to insult Bart after every post, you are all a bunch of cowards and bandwagon jumpers. You don't like his facts, present your own case. You don't like his opinion, say that. Speak up when you have some substance to add to the conversation. No one is impressed whith the "jump-in insults".

Bravo, great effort on the docu

Nice to hear from Susan Rogers talking about Wally, now we have a line and an idea at least

ThomasBjj said:

BartVanHemelen has his own opinion on many Prince topics. Some I agree with and some I don't. At least he has a solid opinion and a reason why he feels that way. I know his delivery can rub some people the wrong way, but hell, the way Kcoolmuzio communicates rubs me the wrong way (and he or she doesn't ever really have any substance to 99% of her posts).

As for the usually quiet people who come out of the woodwork to jump in and try to insult Bart after every post, you are all a bunch of cowards and bandwagon jumpers. You don't like his facts, present your own case. You don't like his opinion, say that. Speak up when you have some substance to add to the conversation. No one is impressed whith the "jump-in insults".

"The usual quiet people"? ....

Uh huh....Not to pull any snark, but u really don't know me......

Sure Bart has some real shit to say. And his knowledge on all things Prince is quite impressive. But as I said...another impressive attribute of Bart is he's still writing the same "I know Prince sucks, unlike u" posts....Dude just shitted on someone else's heart-and-soul work on subject matter (Prince's vault) that has not really been detailed or dissected to a large degree by the mainstream media. It's quite weak and smacks of someone trying to be the smartest person in the room....Yet again...

Other than that me and B-dog got no beef.

Oh yeah, let me add some substance to this convo...."Always forgive your enemies--nothing annoys them so much..."--Oscar Wilde

A nice doc. I always like hearing from these people, even if most of what they've said is recyled from what they've said before. It also brings more public attention to Prince and his music and the brilliance of Prince, which is never a bad thing.


I like speculating about what's in the vault. I like to think there's excellent sequenced albums locked away that we know nothing about. But people estimating 2000 songs? That sounds crazy. I'd love for it to be true. If - like people said - 30% of it is really really strong, that's 600 songs. I can't imagine 600 really great songs lying in the vault. Cut it in half and that's still 300. In half again, 150 great songs is potentially 10-15 great albums, which sounds more realistic but still far-fetched (he has 9 oustanding released albums in my opinion, and the rest range from good to awful). It's also interesting, when people are asked what the best unreleased songs are, they say songs which we have heard, like 'Moonbeam Levels' and 'All My Dreams'. How exciting - and more supportive of the unreleased-fuck-tonne-of-quality-songs claim - would it be, if they answered with songs we'd never even heard the names of.

I enjoyed this documentary, but what is that song cat is refering to in the interview?

~@#$ rappers? I've never heard of that song.. Maybe because I was not an enthusiatic P fan back in the 80's. You guys know the song? What's the title? Has it leaked?

[Edited 3/21/15 22:22pm]

ThomasBjj said:

BartVanHemelen has his own opinion on many Prince topics. Some I agree with and some I don't. At least he has a solid opinion and a reason why he feels that way. I know his delivery can rub some people the wrong way, but hell, the way Kcoolmuzio communicates rubs me the wrong way (and he or she doesn't ever really have any substance to 99% of her posts).

As for the usually quiet people who come out of the woodwork to jump in and try to insult Bart after every post, you are all a bunch of cowards and bandwagon jumpers. You don't like his facts, present your own case. You don't like his opinion, say that. Speak up when you have some substance to add to the conversation. No one is impressed whith the "jump-in insults".

[img:$uid]http://i61.tinypic.com/9gilh1.jpg[/img:$uid]

Aerogram said:

As for why these individuals are featured, it's fairly common to feature a range of fans, including some that have bought into some semi-urban legends or that treat a few things as such, lots of people are only in it for the music and pay little attention to other aspects. For instance, I only pay some attention to his personal life and what his associates have to say, there's no law that says a fan should take an almost scholarly interest in everything.

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So they're not interested in such things -- except they are, but not interested enough to actually spend a minute amount of time to figure out if something is true or not? So what you're saying is "they're a little bit pregnant, but not really".

You might also want to get some notion that you are not the target audience for a documentary such as this one. It wasn't made for people who have long followed Prince like you and I, it's for a more general audience that might only know a song or two. Prince "superfans" and the Vault are very legitimate topics and I think the people involved did a terrific job.

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So the subject is completely uninteresting to most peopel yet worthy of an hour long documentary so they can be informed.

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I can only imagine the kind of documentary you would make, I'm sure you'd attempt to put him on trial for things like voicing support for an athlete and other dubious factoids you somehow feel are still worth your time.

[Edited 3/21/15 3:18am]

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Ah, I see, you are once again busy making shit up about me.

Noodled24 said:

It's great that there are so many interviews, samples from album tracks? Pretty sure that was an alternate "Daddy Pop"?

Despite the name, I think there was a LOT of great info - certainly things I've never heard and from people who've been there - THOUSANDS of songs in the vault. It'd take years to go through them.

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I wonder about that. Because what songs is Susan Rogers talking about? Things that already have leaked, e.g. Moonbeam Levels. If "the vault was nearly full" when she left, how come Uptown's research hasn't really unearthed that many new songs?

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Look at http://www.princevault.co...ased_Songs : approx. 400 titles, yet many of them we have heard already. I really wish all those musicians and technicians had paid more attention and taken notes and had shared the information, because now we're still mostly relying on the research Uptown stopped doing over a decade ago, and I don't think we've seen any unexpected discoveries from that era since then.

thisisreece said:

It's also interesting, when people are asked what the best unreleased songs are, they say songs which we have heard, like 'Moonbeam Levels' and 'All My Dreams'. How exciting - and more supportive of the unreleased-fuck-tonne-of-quality-songs claim - would it be, if they answered with songs we'd never even heard the names of.

Good point, but you've got to remember these people likely don't really know what's been bootlegged and what hasn't. There's still lots that we don't know about and I think the leaks over the last year support that. Before the last year most people didn't know much about "Don't Let Him Fool Ya", "Jealous Girl", "If It'll Make You Happy" etc....

murph said:

Dude just shitted on someone else's heart-and-soul work on subject matter (Prince's vault) that has not really been detailed or dissected to a large degree by the mainstream media.

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Because the subject really isn't interesting. It's almost trivial. I bet Neil Young has a similar vault, for instance, considering the box set he's released a while ago. Ditto other artists. What is there to dissect?

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Of course, indirectly this is about all those unreleased treasures Prince has stored away: unreleased songs, unedited versions of released songs, alternate versions, "demos", music videos, entire movies and documentaries, live footage, live recordings (possibly of entire tours)...

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But my main problem is with the execution. Oh look, interviews with uninformed fans, because we need that "voice from the common man" approach. Oh look, the maker of the documentary prominently features while he's standing in the snow outside Paisley Park trying to phone Prince's lawyer, because we need that "on the spot reporting" vibe even though there's nothing to be seen.

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And that's not just this documentary, but soooooo much of the reporting these days. It always needs to be infatilised, reduced to bland tropes. I'll go listen to the hour long documentary now, I'm hoping there's more than some fawning "oooh isn't Prince great?" praise.

thisisreece said:

It's also interesting, when people are asked what the best unreleased songs are, they say songs which we have heard, like 'Moonbeam Levels' and 'All My Dreams'. How exciting - and more supportive of the unreleased-fuck-tonne-of-quality-songs claim - would it be, if they answered with songs we'd never even heard the names of.

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Exactly. I'm especially baffled by Brent Fischer's "oh we scored some stuff that was clearly a joke".

Things I learned from "Hunting for Prince's Vault":

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- According to Matt “Dr” Fink, Prince wrote "When You Were Mine" on a day off during the tour where Prince was Rick James' opening act on his Fire It Up Tour. The rest of the band was going to Disneyworld in Florida, when they went to ask Prince to come along he was sitting outside his hotel room on the balcony with his guitar, working on the song. Most likely this was somewhere between 9 March 1980 (gig at the Sunrise Musical Theatre in Sunrise, FL) and 14 March 1990 (Hampton Roads Coliseum, Hampton, VA).

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(Still listening, will update if necessary)

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Oh for fuck's sake: he plays Chaka Khan's COVER of "I feel For You" as an example of Prince writing for other artists! Yes, I know, Prince did write for Chaka, but NOT "I Feel For You". And then he does it again: claims Prince wrote "Nothing Compares 2 U" for Sinéad O'Connor! FACTUAL errors in a DOCUMENTARY! There are so many examples he could have used, and yet two of the three were FACTUALLY WRONG!

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Oh god, now some of these guys are saying Prince might have leaked some bootlegs... "It's possible." NO IT IS NOT. HE DID NOT.

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Oh joy, now there's some BS about Prince fighting with WB and how he wanted to get his music out faster. Remind me: how long did that stale 3rdEyeGirl record take to be released? Wasn't that cover he released last weekend dating back to January 2013? Oh look, now Prince is in charge and it took him MORE THAN TWO YEARS to release one song. Yet somehow those facts never appear in this "documentary".

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[Edited 3/22/15 5:10am]