My educated guess is that the dudes at WB selected the tracks and Prince had little or no involvement. I mean, look at the artwork. Can't you see the revenge in that shit?

mrdespues said:

Yes, but how did they go about selecting the tracks though? I mean, the vast amounts of material reportedly lying within the paisley park vault would suggest the track list wasnt compiled by somebody (an outsider) sifting through the archives. I mean, if you were given he keys to the vault and asked to select 10 tracks for a new prince compolation, where would you start? To fans, this task may not seem so hard (with bootleg knowledge etc..), It probably wouldn't seem like work for that matter! but for a WB representative, who may have little knowledge of Prince's great unreleased work and perhaps does not even like his work to sift through thousands of hours of everything that prince has recorded, that would be a different matter. I'm thinking maybe that certain songs had been possible inclusions on old album tracklists, scrapped albums etc...

PRNelson said:

Simple. Calling it "the vault" is just something to suck in the average fan. It's a rip-off. This material isn't from Prince's "vault" at all. Believe that. It's just shit which didn't get released from the "Do Anything" film soundtrack, and a few other tidbits.

This has always puzzled me and has never been satisfactorily explained. Warner's had rights to officially released songs while Prince was under contract, but I don't see how they could keep unreleased songs - that would suggest they own most of what is in the fabled vault since most of it was recorded while under contract.

So when the Vault album came out, how could they have got these songs? Prince must surely have given them to Warners to fulfill his contract. He had a certain number of albums to complete, and though they let him go off and record Emancipation, he was still under contract technically until the eve of 2000. It seems to me they let him off his contract early so long as he gave them enough tracks to make up an album to be released in the future to complete his contract. Then Warner's independently put the whole 'Vault' spin on it to get fan interested, at that point Prince had no obligation to help them but no control over it also.

So were the songs from the vault? Well, technically yes. Pre-recorded tracks that Prince had initially shelved. And he must arbitarily chosen the track-list in that he decided which songs he was gonna let Warner's have out of the vault.

That's what I think anyway.

Also I think it is an under-rated and over-looked album, quite consistent in style and with some cool tracks on, shame it's so short.
[This message was edited Fri Jul 2 9:41:31 2004 by metalorange]

I've always imagined Chaos And Disorder and The Vault - Old Friends 4 sale, as two halves of one double album. They are such polar opposites of each other with each one composed of elements totally absent from the other. They are another Black Album vs. Lovesexy combo to be heard together, but obviously of lesser quality than the aforementioned.

My educated guess is that the dudes at WB selected the tracks and Prince had little or no involvement. I mean, look at the artwork. Can't you see the revenge in that shit?

I've always imagined Chaos And Disorder and The Vault - Old Friends 4 sale, as two halves of one double album. They are such polar opposites of each other with each one composed of elements totally absent from the other. They are another Black Album vs. Lovesexy combo to be heard together, but obviously of lesser quality than the aforementioned.

I personally feel that C&D and The Vault would blow the aforementioned away! People seem to have this negative sentiment toward The Vault, but it's one of my favorites. Maybe people get caught up in the idea that it was filler, but it's a very strong and consistent album with maybe one exception in "My Little Pill".

mrdespues said:

...which were in the vault until he chose to release them to fufull the contract. It's not the top-drawer vault material but it is music from the Vault. "When the Lights Go Down" is essential Prince.

mrdespues said:

...which were in the vault until he chose to release them to fufull the contract. It's not the top-drawer vault material but it is music from the Vault. "When the Lights Go Down" is essential Prince.

This has always puzzled me and has never been satisfactorily explained. Warner's had rights to officially released songs while Prince was under contract, but I don't see how they could keep unreleased songs - that would suggest they own most of what is in the fabled vault since most of it was recorded while under contract.

So when the Vault album came out, how could they have got these songs?

You would be correct if P were a normal artist. Normally the record company pays for the studio time, so anything produced during that session would belong to them. However, PRince records in his own privately owned studio (and before that, in his house and other places), and funded the recording himself (at least after 88 or so). So, since Warners we never involved, they don't own the tapes. To release the album, P had to deliver tapes to WB, at that moment WB owned them. Tapes he never turned over are still his to keep.

He turned over tapes for the "Say Anything" soundtrack project, so WB had those in their possession to choose from (and those track make up a great deal of the "Vault" album). The rest of the songs on The Vault were either turned over at some time in the past, or especially for inclusion on the Valut album.