The set was merely delayed until March 28th (aka: the street date). Just so those who are wondering, as a owner of a small indie, here is how it works: Prince may not own his WB masters, but he owns by industry default 50 percent of the publishing rights plus points for royalities. He gets paid - well I assure you based upon volume. He just doesn't have the end say on how the music is distributed, but WB may have respected his desires for a solid tracklist. I, for one, am looking forward to the set. As for the liner notes -- buy The Vault, Possessed, Uptown, etc. There is where your liner notes are.

I got a good friend of mine that works at Best Buy. I just gave him a call. He's gonna search the storeroom for this badboy and see if he can kick me down one of them.

the only thing I want to know is a detailed review of the remastering...

napoleon370 said:

I don't understand why it would be delayed only two weeks. It was clearly already manufactured and distributed, surely it's not going to be changed at this point? If the delay was to prevent it competing with 3121, how much difference does one week make?

august if we are lucky...but no earlier...

CandaceS said:

Tangerine17 said:

OK, that would make more sense...so should I infer that the tour, as well as the rest of the 3121 promo push, will be over by then?

Edit: But, now I'm wondering why I can't find it on the Rhino Records site?

http://www.rhino.com/index.lasso
[Edited 3/15/06 16:51pm]

OK, the music is GREAT, as I said in my original post.

What I do not like in particular is no liner notes whatsoever about the REMIXES, a few of which are really incredible. This may not bother too many folks, but retrospectives OUGHT to come with something OTHER than just the music when someone is paying $20+ (list price I believe is $24.99). It's not like Warner Brothers shelled out hundreds of thousands up front to have Prince go re-record this shit in the studio with a band for weeks or months, $$ which would then need to be recouped before they got paid, as would be the case with a new/currrent band release, but they are charging folks the same price AS IF this were a new release. Because of the relative lack of expenses involved in production, back catalog is a cash cow, so there is really no excuse to NOT go the extra mile for fans. The $$ is there. And this IS Rhino Records after all, who built their reputation on outstanding reissue treatment that goes above and beyond industry standards. That's why they were bought out by WEA (Warner Bros) in the first place back in 1992 - for their expertise and marketplace elan in this area. Unique, thorough, hardcore-fan-pleasing presentation has been their calling card for nearly 20 years, so I expect more from Rhino than the barebones treatment given Prince material in this "ultimate" set. This is not an unreasonable expectation.

Peace

DS

But Why hasn't been leaked?

I don't get it

darkstranger521 said:

The fact that Rhino usually does such excellent work, makes me think that the lack of liner notes, minimal photos, no matering credits, etc was a PRINCE decision, and not theirs.

The sound is very good though, for those who care about such things. the best I've ever heard on this material

it has liner notes..not EXTENSIVE notes, but it tells what version each song is who recorded it, wrote it, arranged it etc..
[Edited 3/15/06 20:44pm]

MikeMatronik said:

We can hope that some empathetic audiophile on the org will find it in themselves to rip this to a nice lossless format so we may all hear these songs in all of their glory. I'm not asking that anyone sends me these files directly if they don't want to... just that the files find their way to "circulation" so that all of the unlucky Prince fans can get their remastered hits and remixes.

And if we could buy it... we wouldn't have to ask.