Being that the Beach Boys 'SMiLE' album has been deemed as one of the most important 'unreleased' albums of all time and Prince's 'The Black Album' was listed as 2nd most important, do you think that now that Brian Wilson has actually released it (albeit in a newly recorded form), Prince has bought it? I have it and it is a really really phenomenal piece of work for even these times. I can't imagine what it would've done if it had been released a few months before The Beatles 'Sgt Pepper's' as it was intended. Prince has a very broad musical scope and I'm pretty sure that something like this would peak his interest not only musically but production-wise as well.

Parade is very Brian Wilson like, IMHO.

I think he was trying to bite other artists who drew inspiration from Pet Sounds/Smile,
but I don't think he was geeked out about some Beach Boys bootleg.
[Edited 10/23/04 1:39am]

tracychristopher said:

What list are you talking about?

I read that in the Rolling Stone magazine, as well as Billboard just around the time that Warners was finally releasing the Black Album on CD (so I guess around '94 or so). They were talking about the most important never released albums and 'SMiLE' was listed as #1 with Prince's Black Album being number two. The only difference was that Prince's Black Album had been sold on the bootleg market in completed form whereas SMiLE had only been booted in pieces since Brian Wilson never completed it. I'll check to see if I still have that Rolling Stone kicking around. It wasn't a very long blurb in the mag, but basically just hailed the fact that Warners' was releasing it after only 7 years in the can (which they stated was a lot better then compared to SMiLE which at that time had been sitting incomplete for 27 years).