Impossible.

There's already hundreds of songs floating around from before 1996 and he was a machine in the studio.

And he recorded every live show so, at bare minimum, there's that.

We already know for a fact that's not the case.

Nothing in the vault? 0% chance of that.

soladeo1 said:

What if Prince already released it all? The Vault is largely a myth?? I mean it's still hundreds of "extra" tunes but we already have them?? [Edited 5/6/16 17:12pm]

don't worry, it has been proven on many occasions there are loads of songs and complete albums we've never heard. for the larger portion of his career this man was on a new song a day regime when he wasn't touring so that should give you a good idea of the amount of songs that might be waiting to be discovered in the vault

mightycow said:

soladeo1 said:

What if Prince already released it all? The Vault is largely a myth?? I mean it's still hundreds of "extra" tunes but we already have them?? [Edited 5/6/16 17:12pm]

don't worry, it has been proven on many occasions there are loads of songs and complete albums we've never heard. for the larger portion of his career this man was on a new song a day regime when he wasn't touring so that should give you a good idea of the amount of songs that might be waiting to be discovered in the vault

But it makes one wonder why he released so much mediocre material the past 20 odd years. Is it really believable that he held back his best stuff? We know why he shelved gems like "All My Dreams" but holding back his best stuff? I don't buy it but I guess we'll see

homesquid said:

But it makes one wonder why he released so much mediocre material the past 20 odd years. Is it really believable that he held back his best stuff? We know why he shelved gems like "All My Dreams" but holding back his best stuff? I don't buy it but I guess we'll see

It's often been said that there were 100 songs recorded for Purple Rain (and by some estimates, the title track wasn't even in the ititial consideration during the first round). Also, during the 90s, he was intentionally holding stuff back because he didn't want WB to get ahold of it. He likely held back diving back into the vault because he was always focusing on the present; but he was definitely someone keenly aware of his legacy. Is there filler in there? Sure, probably. But I think even his most cynical fan will concede that even his "worst" albums contain two to four great songs. (Not to mention the fact that a great deal of the unreleased stuff that's managed to leak over the years truly is amazing).

What about that unreleased Kevin Smith documentary?

Nickadoo said:

But I think even his most cynical fan will concede that even his "worst" albums contain two to four great songs.

Surely that's a view that can be held only by his most hard-core fans? I'm basing this observation from years of reading threads on his albums on this Prince fan site.

I personally can't think of any "great" songs he released since the early 90's. There are a handful of good ones that I like a lot, and there are a few OK ones I enjoy, but the vast majority of his released stuff has been atrocious.

It's ludicrous to imagine that Prince put the worst songs on his albums and kept the best ones unreleased to protect his 'legacy'.

[Edited 5/6/16 20:05pm]

TheSkinMechanic said:

Nickadoo said:

But I think even his most cynical fan will concede that even his "worst" albums contain two to four great songs.

Surely that's a view that can be held only by his most hard-core fans? I'm basing this observation from years of reading threads on his albums on this Prince fan site.

I personally can't think of any "great" songs he released since the early 90's. There are a handful of good ones that I like a lot, and there are a few OK ones I enjoy, but the vast majority of his released stuff has been atrocious.

It's ludicrous to imagine that Prince put the worst songs on his albums and kept the best ones unreleased to protect his 'legacy'.

^ yet another silly comment from this guy/girl....... "TheskinMechanic"


Skin... you sounds like a newbee, you don't know shit about Prince's vault...

[Edited 5/6/16 20:56pm]

thedance said:

TheSkinMechanic said:

Surely that's a view that can be held only by his most hard-core fans? I'm basing this observation from years of reading threads on his albums on this Prince fan site.

I personally can't think of any "great" songs he released since the early 90's. There are a handful of good ones that I like a lot, and there are a few OK ones I enjoy, but the vast majority of his released stuff has been atrocious.

It's ludicrous to imagine that Prince put the worst songs on his albums and kept the best ones unreleased to protect his 'legacy'.

^ yet another silly comment from this guy/girl....... "TheskinMechanic"


Skin... you sounds like a newbee, you don't know shit about Prince's vault...

[Edited 5/6/16 20:56pm]

It's true, I don't know a thing about Prince's vault, but I'm not aware of ever claiming to possess such knowledge in the first place. I merely commented on how unlikely it would be for a composer not to release the better results of their songwriting in an attempt to - somehow - enhance their legacy.

I thought we already covered what was in the vault here.

According to Leeds we have not heard about 99% of Prince music.

Jimmy Jam says there are thousands of songs in the vault.

[Edited 5/6/16 23:29pm]

Nickadoo said:

homesquid said:

But it makes one wonder why he released so much mediocre material the past 20 odd years. Is it really believable that he held back his best stuff? We know why he shelved gems like "All My Dreams" but holding back his best stuff? I don't buy it but I guess we'll see

It's often been said that there were 100 songs recorded for Purple Rain (and by some estimates, the title track wasn't even in the ititial consideration during the first round). Also, during the 90s, he was intentionally holding stuff back because he didn't want WB to get ahold of it. He likely held back diving back into the vault because he was always focusing on the present; but he was definitely someone keenly aware of his legacy. Is there filler in there? Sure, probably. But I think even his most cynical fan will concede that even his "worst" albums contain two to four great songs. (Not to mention the fact that a great deal of the unreleased stuff that's managed to leak over the years truly is amazing).

Of all the extra Purple Rain songs I have heard. Most tend to be the same songs that ended up on the album just arranged differently with not as good lyrics.

I doubt it, I haven't heard any new Sheila E, Vanity 6, The Time songs that Prince said he had in his vault. However there is heaps of stuff out there before Prince passed, if u know where to

homesquid said:

kewlschool said:

NorthC said:

Songs are one thing, performances are another. I heard Black Muse performed live and it was fantastic. I came home and played the copy of Hit n Run Phase Two that we'd been given as a parting freebie, and in the studio version, for me, the magic wasn't there.

The Beatles left versions of their classic songs in the EMI vaults for decades that are as good or better than what made the final cut on the albums (eg "Good Morning" on Sgt Pepper), even though it's the same song.

I'd like to think that something similar is about to happen with P, but I'm not getting my hopes up too high. EMI documented everything very thoroughly to start with and there were surviving Beatles members to help out in that other situation.

P could have drawn from the Vault, in short; I'm not sure anyone else will be able to. I hope I'm wrong.

I think some of the "best music is still in the vault" was his way of trying to have leverage with new music.

Archives are something for hardcore fans who have everything.... "therein lies the rub". The back catalog not being available is a problem, and the casual fan just wants a hits collection.

Some of the projects Prince worked on were "noncommercial" so there wasn't going to be much money coming in, or didn't feel the time was right to promote and distribute it. Of course he wanted it out there, but not if he wasn't going to see any money coming in.

Songs intended for others to record that sit there as demos. He was against his covers being recorded (playing live was okay) but over time probably would have changed his mind. So if he has a song that would be great for someone to do, he would have offered it to them, but he wouldn't have wanted the fans to hear the demos. But he wanted those songs recorded, and someone would have to figure out on how to shop those songs around.

Unreleased remixes, alternate versions, uncut versions, it's possible he wanted to put some of it out there, plus the alleged re-recordings of the Warners era.

That's not even getting to live archives, and we don't know which ones were already mixed from multitracks because they were almost released. Usually an artist owes a live album and a greatest hits to a label, so we don't know if that was part of the Warners feud.

Even his worst albums contain at least two or three gems minimum, if not more.

If he had gone the route of most artists, he would have released less music but I am glad that he could enjoy his freedom to release whatever and whenever he wanted. Or nothing at all, like in the years before HitNRun.

And even the mediocre songs contain moments of greatness, at least in my opinion.

If the lyrics were cheesy, then you´d still have great music (like for instance Lion of Judah...great song, up there with his best rock ballads from the 80s but marred by the chorus). New Power Soul had Come On, The One, Wasted Kisses...that´s three songs that I find great, and I´d rather have one more album with three good songs and the rest mediocre songs than no album at all.

.

Or Mplsound...or Lotusflower...or even Planet Earth that had a gem like Somewhere Here On Earth, which is , in my opinion, a great ballad with great lyrics.

The vault contains tons of good songs, and most of all, tons of live video recordings and tons of soundboard concerts recordings.

TheSkinMechanic said:

Nickadoo said:

But I think even his most cynical fan will concede that even his "worst" albums contain two to four great songs.

Surely that's a view that can be held only by his most hard-core fans? I'm basing this observation from years of reading threads on his albums on this Prince fan site.

I personally can't think of any "great" songs he released since the early 90's. There are a handful of good ones that I like a lot, and there are a few OK ones I enjoy, but the vast majority of his released stuff has been atrocious.

It's ludicrous to imagine that Prince put the worst songs on his albums and kept the best ones unreleased to protect his 'legacy'.

[Edited 5/6/16 20:05pm]

NorthC said:

kewlschool said:

According to Leeds we have not heard about 99% of Prince music.

Jimmy Jam says there are thousands of songs in the vault.

[Edited 5/6/16 23:29pm]

You know what, I hope that's not true. Thousands? Let's say you put ten to twelve songs on an album, then you have two or three hundred Prince albums! Even the most devoted die hard fan would get tired of listening to that. My biggest worry about this vault is that it will contain more of the same. We already have Funky, Funky Design, We Live 2 Get Funky, what if there's hundredss more jams like that? What if there's hundreds of slow jams like Adore? Who would listen to all of them?

in the 80's and early 90's it was a song a day essentially.

Frank Zappa died over 20 years ago and Gail Zappa kept a tight rein on the vault. Now her kids are fighting over all sorts of things ever since their mom passed. His tapes go back to the 1950s up to the early 90s, and some of the media isn't in great shape. but a lot of it hasn't been touched or seen since it was put on tape.

Neil Young is in the middle of working on his "Archives" and he was able to plan it out to Vol 5, so if something did happen to him, it's pretty much a done deal of what he's putting out there.

Eddie Van Halen has his own vault of riffs, sound effects, unreleased concerts and songs, but it's up to his son what winds up coming out.

This isn't even getting into having all the fans and their personal bootlegs and soundboards they got a hold of, and trying to have someone collect and archive it. There's always going to be people hoarding a "holy grail" recording of some sort.

Don't worry, it isn't!

What we've heard already probably just scratches the surface!

I predict that we already have the majority of the content in trading circles. I'm sure there are a lot of soundboard performances of live shows and different versions of songs we already have. I'm not expecting albums worth of materials that we've never heard of before.

kewlschool said:

NorthC said:

kewlschool said: You know what, I hope that's not true. Thousands? Let's say you put ten to twelve songs on an album, then you have two or three hundred Prince albums! Even the most devoted die hard fan would get tired of listening to that. My biggest worry about this vault is that it will contain more of the same. We already have Funky, Funky Design, We Live 2 Get Funky, what if there's hundredss more jams like that? What if there's hundreds of slow jams like Adore? Who would listen to all of them?

in the 80's and early 90's it was a song a day essentially.

Five versions of the same song really is not anything new except for a few diehard fans.

Aren't there a good batch of songs we know the titles of but have never heard? Even the stuff that is known would be good enough for me, I just want the 1981-1987 stuff anyway. In a lot of cases there seemed to be really good tracks that were outshone by similar tracks, like Electric Intercourse being replaced by Beautiful Ones, and then him moving on to his next batch of songs maybe feeling the discarded ones were dated by that point. Something like Witness 4 the Prosecution though, seemed like he kept reworking it but never could get it to "click" right.

soladeo1 said:

What if Prince already released it all? The Vault is largely a myth?? I mean it's still hundreds of "extra" tunes but we already have them?? [Edited 5/6/16 17:12pm]

He recorded each and every concert, rehearsal, and jam session whenever an artist came into town. The vault has jams with D Angelo, Stevie, Sheryl Crow, Lenny, Public Enemy, etc...

I am sure we have heard a lot of the 80s material but remember the vault was closed off from employees around 1995.

wonderboy said: