You know what I mean? We always hear about the vault with all this music recorded and locked away...but honestly, there are thousands of tracks available if you look around?! Are these the same tracks? The Work for example has hundreds alone... It doesn't matter where you get them, while they are available, demand will always provide the supply.

Or are there thousands more tracks that NO ONE has ever heard that are truly locked up...?

Theories anyone?

F U N K

there are not even 100 never released songs circulating among fans ...
all the other tracks on The Work Volume 1 - 5 have seen the daylight in an other version.

The circulating outtakes are a tiny fraction of what Prince has recorded over the years. Very few unreleased tracks have shown up since 1997 or so which is the point where Prince seems to have solved his 'leakage' problem.

you never know, unreleased tracks may show up from time to time.Depends on who you know & being at the right place at the right time.Trust me, I know this for a fact recently..

Ok, well i guess if you include live recordings such as rehearsals etc, there are loads, what about the Purple Rush series, there is 22 CDs of music from the 83/85 era, live, rehearsals, studio, there is so much material already available. I mean, we are not discussing boots here. My point is how much unreleased stuff is really still locked in the vault that none of us have heard via the 'leakage'. I mean, there can't be that much more from pre 97, really, can there? Maybe variations etc, but actual shelved tracks, can't be that many. Can there?

I don't think Prince or anyone associated with him has said he has "thousands" of unreleased tracks sitting in the vault...the number I constantly heard was always something between 500 and 1,000...Also, I'm sure whatever number that is used only means the number of tracks that haven't been officially released directly by Prince himself...

But think of it this way...Prince has been making and recording music for 25 years now...if he recorded just one new song every 2 weeks over that span, that would end up being 600 songs that realistically never saw the light of day. We already know the guy is extraordinarily prolific, so imagining him coming up with a new song every couple of weeks is not only reasonable, it might be conservative. He's recorded and released 30 albums in 25 years...so obviously he never, ever stops writing and recording...

I don't have too hard a time believing that, yeah, he has between 500 and 1,000 officially unreleased tracks sitting in his vault...actually, anyone who's been recording as long as he has, as successfully as he has, could easily have at least a few hundred tracks in their own "vaults".

Byron said:

That's an interesting way to look at it - if he, on average, made a new studio song once a week, in a year he would have 52 new songs - in 25 years of his career he would have a maximum of 1300. BUT of course some of those songs are officially realeased on albums. I don't know what the official figure is, but say a 12 track album every year, that is 300 tracks over 25 years - so that's 1000 potential unreleased studio songs! I can't believe Prince could record much more than 1 song a week - and than there's weeks where he does nothing or tours or a song takes longer - so it all averages out. I reckon 500 to 700 is a more realistic maximum figure but it could be a lot less.

HE SAID ON OPRAH THAT HE TRIES TO RECORD AT LEAST ONE SONG A DAY. I DON'T KNOW IF HE STICKS TO IT OR NOT--JUST A LITTLE INFO TO SHARE.

?-WHERE CAN YOU FIND ALBUMS SUCH AS THE WORK OR OTHER NON "FOR U THRU MUSICOLOGY" DISC'S? DO YOU HAVE TO GO TO EUROPE OR CAN YOU GET THEM IN THE STATES? (NOT BOOTLEGS)

prime said:

I think he used to record one a day..or even more. I think that has slowed down a bit.

And as to unreleased songs...there are circulating and uncirculating songs. Now I don't know how one could possibly know what is uncirculating...but they do. If you do a little research, you will discover that many many songs have been recorded. Many sessions that are known about ...like the Flesh sessions produced some known "uncirculating" songs...and only one that I know of has surfaced. Or another song called 3 Nigs watching a kung fu movie.

Oh and ...You should NOT ask where to get boots or anything like that around here. Please read the FAQ!

funkylust said:

It's not debateable, it's a fact that there are hundreds of unreleased songs, in addition to all the concert and rehersal footage/audio and the unreleased videos etc, etc.

We all know Prince is very into the now, what he's doing now, what he's doing next - he's always been like that (OK, it's getting a bit on the 'the lady doth protest too much' side now, since he's even stating in some interviews that he doesn't want to talk about the past).

Since the mid-90s Prince whatever methods of tightening security seems to be working since there have been so few new (recently recorded) unreleased tracks that have leaked (at least widely - I can't comment on individual traders).

If you need proof, well Uptown's books are based on physical studio logs and interviews with past musicians and employees - people who were there, in the studio, at the time of recording.

Now Prince does practically all his recording at Paisley Park, and the tightening of security, it's no wonder that since, say, post-Emancipation, hardly anything has leaked at all.

Circulating widely amongst the fans and collectors are, what, several hundred unreleased songs and alternate versions.

Add to this the unknown number of tracks in the hands of private collectors and traders (i.e. not on bootleg).

Grab any of the books by Uptown http://www.uptown.se/ - Days Of Wild, Turn It Up, or recently released, The Vault for a complete list of all known studio recordings - there are hundreds and hundreds.

It's a fact, not fiction.

superspaceboy said:

superspaceboy said:

THAT IS WHY I PUT
(NOT BOOTLEGS)
[This message was edited Thu Jul 1 11:17:58 2004 by prime]

Prime, the series of releases called 'The Work' are bootlegs.


//
[This message was edited Thu Jul 1 11:18:19 2004 by NouveauDance]

NouveauDance said:

I WASN'T SURE - GOOD LOOKIN' OUT
[This message was edited Thu Jul 1 11:19:53 2004 by prime]

They come recommended if you don't have the stuff elsewhere though

I used to collect a lot of bootlegs, but I pretty much stopped collecting Prince except for album releases around 1999.

In those days (early 90s) bootlegs were great for fans who didn't have the connections that a very few handful of collectors do - but in these days of the internet, I would never pay good money for a bootleg when you can just download them from p2p.

NouveauDance said:

IT NOT FICTION

IT A NATURAL FACT

ALL RIGHT!

ThataintFunky said:

Um.....I know that ain't right, because I've got at least a few hundred that have never been released, period. Where did you get this number of "not even 100" from?

discussing boots is fine... just not asking where to get is against the TOA

theblueangel said:

One of the org's gurus (Boris???) listed a few weeks ago all Prince's songs circulating among fans that have never been released in some way officially. About 100 songs ...
All the others have been released by an associate-artist, or by Prince himself (a different recording that is)

Byron said:

Ellen interview (2004)

Ellen: Now you must have ... like, if you stopped writing today, you probably have ... how many songs do you have just laying around waiting to come out?

Prince: Well, uh, thousands.

Ellen: Really?

Prince: Yeah, uh, I never count.

However, it's difficult to tell whether he really meant lots as opposed to 'thousands' rather than 'hundreds'.


.

prime said:

I think he said he WRITES a song a day. Not the same as recording a song a day (in full releasable studio quality). I'm pretty sure Oprah asked him (paraphrasing) "How many more songs do you think you have in you?" to which he replied "Hopefully one a day until I die."

I don't have it in front of me but that's what I recall.

krebsne said:

Then again, when asked on Ellen about his daily musical habits, he only went as far as to admit to thinking about music every day! Even I can do that.

Per Nielsen, by innerviewing P's musicians & sound ingeneers, has been able 2 track down every song EVER recorded by Prince (at least 'til the mid 90's, i ain't sure The Vault book has been able 2 keep doin' this since P is more protective 'bout this since 1996, does someone here have the book ?). His list includes hundreds of unheard songs, mysterious titles about songs we might never hear.
[This message was edited Fri Jul 2 8:26:57 2004 by shaomi]

Even if there are 200 unreleased studio tracks in circulation, there must be at least 3-4 times that amount we've never heard. Before the Crystal Ball set came out, who had ever heard about "Poom Poom," "Calhoun Square," "What's My Name," "Cloreen Baconskin," etc. Well, maybe some super-diehards, but in general I don't recall those songs being well-known before their release. I'm sure he's got songs going all the way back to the beginning of his career we have no clue about.

But really, do you guys think we'll ever hear these songs? I'm sure he'll release some over the coming years, maybe just through the music club, and I'm sure lots of it will show up for DECADES after his death (especially if Mani has the rights to release them). But do you think any of us will live long enough for ALL that material to be released? If he still had 600 more unreleased songs in the vault and they released a brand-new ten song album every year after his death, that would take SIXTY years to release it all. Maybe we won't "live 2 see the Dawn" after all...

renfield said:

I was thinking about this recently. In this scenario, we also have to take into account whether or not songs that betray his current "anti-obscenity" (or however you want to put it) stance would make it out if he died. If Mani stuck with that belief, that would undoubtedly mean that some songs would never be released.

At the same time, I'm willing to bet under any circumstances that Prince WILL outdo 2pac when it comes to releasing tons upon tons of material after his death.