Does anyone know if Warners has any plans to issue remasters of the classic Prince catalogue? These albums are in DESPERATE need, particularly "Sign O' The Times," which has virtually no volume whatsoever.

WB needs Prince's permission to re-master any of his back catalog. This is why both greatest hits sets
sound just like the originals-he didn't allow them to.

With P and WB still at odds--about his masters, putting out another greatest hits cd, etc-- i don't see this happening anytime in the near future.

But i do agree, i would like to see remasters of 1999, PR, ATWIAD, Parade, SOTT, with some B-sides/live/or outtake songs added. i hope songs like electric intercourse and g-spot see the light of day.

Was there some rumour awhile back about Universal getting together with Prince to buy his masters back?

mrchristian said:

Even more than his permission, WB needs his original recordings. All they have now are the final master tapes that were compiled at Bernie Grundman's. They can't do a thing unless Prince gives them his original session tapes as they are what need to be "remastered."

Unfortunately, the likelihood of Prince giving WB access to these recordings lies somewhere between "not a chance" and "when pigs fly."

Peace, David

The early CDs ("Dirty Mind" and "Controversy") are in DESPERATE need of being re-mastered.I wish Prince would stop feuding with Warners and just work with them to get the re-mastering done already.Every other longtime artist has gotten their catalog re-mastered,with bonus tracks and all those goodies.

In addition,The Time and Sheila E. should have Greatest Hits CDs!

Does anyone know the legal side of this? I mean...when does 'ownership' of his masters revert from WB back 2 Prince - if they do at all?

Will there be a time when Prince could remaster his own albums and sell them online himself??

Very curious...i thought i heard it was like 25 years or something - 'For You' would be the first album going back to Prince in 2003 ???

Ownership of each master reverts back to Prince (or his estate should he be deceased) after a period of 35 years. This means we won't even see the re-release of "For You" for another 10 years unless something changes.

C'mon, Prince! Please find some way to resolve this with WB. I don't want to to be 69 years old and still anticipating the remaster of SOTT!!!

Peace, David

livewire said:

Exactly! The frustrating thing is,if Prince could just end his feud with Warners right now,we could have re-mastered CDs in stores by Christmas.

Thanks for the responses.

This is really frustrating. Maybe we should start a letter-writing campaign to Prince to let him know that his fans would really like to hear these classic albums on CD at today's sound standards. I think Prince is reluctant because he's frustrated thinking that people want to hear his old music reissued rather than his new stuff. So a letter-writing campaign would have to be sensitive to this issue; in other words, we'd have to reassure Princey-poo that we still want new music from him, but we also want to hear the old stuff with the same great sound as the new.

Just an idea.

DavidEye said:

Have you considered that it could also be Warners who is not interested in making a reasonable deal with Prince?

For example that they would be willing to negotiate, but only by taking the stance that Prince can NOT get the rights to his recordings back 35 years after transfer, because Warner (supposedly) never got them transferred, but instead sees itself (instead of prince) as the "author" of these recordings and thus never will be obliged by law to transfer the rights back to Prince at all?
The doctrine is called "work made for hire".


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[This message was edited Mon Jul 15 12:13:55 PDT 2002 by Abrazo]

How much $ do u think it would cost 2 buy back his masters from WB?