Earlier this evening I saw on the digital music store 7digital.com that they have added to their pre-order listings some of Prince's 12 inch singles from the Warner years in digital format. This means that some of the B-sides that have never been released on CD or are only available on rare CD singles will be available for digital download on July 30th. I've already pre-ordered the following B-sides that I've never owned before because I don't have a turntable:

Love or Money (Extended 12" single version)
Erotic City (Original 12" version)
God (12" instrumental version)
Hello (12" extended remix version)
La, La, La, He, He, Hee (12" single version)

Here is the list of Prince singles available on that particular site:

http://www.7digital.com/a...pnlSingles

purplehippieonthe1 said:

For what it's worth, I see that they have Lovesexy listed as a single ( http://www.7digital.com/a...e/lovesexy ) probably because it's only one track so that's what they think it is, so here's a chance to get a discount on a great album! (only .79 pounds, whatever the hell that comes out to in real money!)

p.s. - just a joke re: the "real money"

alexandernevermind said:

Nice find! I didn't even notice that even though I had noticed before that Lovesexy was listed as a single. I paid the equivalent to 8 pounds for my used non-tracked Lovesexy CD, so yeah, 79p is cheap!

I did not know that the music beinging played in the begining of the U got the look video aka Sign 'o the times concert was Kiss extended version ... interesting

prime said:

WHOOPS!!! If I'm not mistaken when I ripped the Ultimate CD to my computer there was a mix-up in the song titles between U Got The Look and Kiss.... so maybe that has something to do with this. Anywho, whoever ripped this for the site either doesn't know Prince's music or he/she didn't preview the track.

purplehippieonthe1 said:

hmmmm because they only play a quick sample of it ... so it must have been U Got the Look extended version ...

:hmmm2: how do we know that they're not just ripped from vinyl?

purplehippieonthe1 said:

I've already got the full-length Erotic City on a German CD Single - but OH MY GOD!!!

I really can't wait for these!!!

I hope they release all the other extended B-Sides soon.

Raze said:

I've bought stuff from 7digital before. They've always been flawless quality.

Justin1972UK said:

yes, but, ummm... how is they're the only ones that have them? how'd they get them, other than from the vinyl that everyone has?


just wondering.

U Got The Look isn't listed on there.

Raze said:

Warner Music UK must have licensed the releases. The track configurations mirror the original UK releases, not the US ones.

If you click the track titles, it'll play a few seconds of each song in low quality. Even the low quality streaming samples sound better than any vinyl rip I've ever heard.

I just checked the HMV website & They're actually re-releasing the 12 vinyl editions of them too. Also Chelsea Rogers is available to pre-order too. They're all released on the same date 6th Sept.

So, they're only selling WMA downloads? Not CDs?

slaphead said:

Do you have a link?

It's really annoying that all of Madonna's UK 12" singles seem to be permanently in print on CD and Prince's aren't.

purplehippieonthe1 said:

They're also available on iTunes for all you fellow ipod users.

stu241273 said:

I couldn't see them in iTunes. Are you in the UK version of iTunes?

Se7en said:

Yeah, definately. All I did was search for Prince, and there they were. Expected release date 30th July, Warner Music UK Ltd.

If I knew how to find a link to the page I would post it.

stu241273 said:

http://phobos.apple.com/W...9&s=143444

Sorted.

la la la he he hee is "album only" so you can only buy it if you pay 1,98 dollar for the "complete" Sign o the times single. this is so lame...

Justin1972UK said:

No, they're not "flawless" if they use WMA (+ DRM, no doubt). Flawless = lossless (flac/ape/shn/...).

Files that use lossy compression + DRM aren't flawless, they're a rip-off.

BartVanHemelen said:

Bart's right - lossy compression will never be flawless.

They could, however, reach "transparency" - which means that they could be high enough quality where no one would be able to tell the difference.

BartVanHemelen said:

I'm sorry, but in my dictionary, "flawless" doesn't equate to "lossless". I never suggested that was the case. I'm well-aware of the difference between lossless and non-lossless codecs.

If you know so much about digital audio compression, you will know that not all lossy codecs are the same. Even some MP3 codecs using the same bitrate will produce wildly differing results. In this respect - yes, 7digital's WMA-encoded files are flawless when compared to an MP3 file encoded with the archaic Xing codec at 128kbs.

As for DRM, it's a moot point. Whenever I purchase audio files with DRM, the first thing I do before even listening to them is burn them to a CDR for archival purposes and then rip the audio back to FLAC using EAC.

Justin1972UK said:

Until they are available in pristine CD-quality, I will settle for whatever I can get!

Really, I have them all as MP3 now; I'm just slowly replacing the "questionable" ones with legitimate (paid) downloads.

Let's hope there's a B-side retrospective someday, or they're included on remastered albums.

BartVanHemelen said:

Good point.

Justin1972UK said:

The first thing I do when I buy a new CD is to rip it into Lossless (Apple Lossless) and then I put the CD away.

From there, I maintain a 192kbps AAC VBR library for iPod use and a Lossless library for compilation CDs and archival purposes.

I am also a perfectionist when it comes to my libary's album art. I use 600x600 album art (or 600x? for rectangular covers). I'm not too concerned with storage (yet).

I haven't gone so far as to remove the DRM from anything I've bought from iTunes, because I don't want to go through one more step of "lossy" compression. Granted, converting from lossy to lossless doesn't lose anything, but it would make huge files without any gain in quality. I'd just be doing it to remove the DRM, which isn't an issue within iTunes.

But they don't have Alexa De Paris!!!

Without that I just can't be impressed.