I only took notice of CD's in late 1985, and I know for sure that there were at least two Prince CD's available:

1999 (which in the first pressing was missing DMSR)
and "Around the World in a Day" (of which the first pressing was released in a gatefold cardboard box/sleeve instead of a Jewel case).

Does anyone know the exact *initial* release dates of each Prince CD in the early to mid 80's? (I don't think Purple Rain saw a CD release alongside the cassette and LP, though I could be wrong).

Do the very first pressings of any Prince CD sound different (sound quality wise) than subsequent releases of the same title? Because I know that many early CD releases were pressed without the "RIAA curve" (google it) being corrected and removed, since nearly ALL CD's in the beginning were simply digitized from the LP masters (which, obviously incorperated the RIAA Curve..)

mydrawers said:

Doing some research, I came up with this link:

http://www.aprilsnow.be/c...prince.htm

This seems to have ALL the information about every official PRINCE release, be it LP, CD, or whatever... to answer my own question, 1999 (apparantly) was released on CD all the way back in 1982!!!!

Unfortunately, the first (1982) pressing of 1999 has the same catalog number as subsequent releases, so I don't know how you would distinguish a "first pressing" from the rest.... if it's even possible at all.

mydrawers said:

I will have a listen tonight. I have the original 1999 (minus DMSR) at home. Will have a listen over the weekend to see if there is any noticeable difference. Didnt realise it was that old!!

I take that back, 1999 wasn't available in 1982 on cd..... I was assuming the year to the far left of the list reflected the pressing, but it only reflects the copyright date

I understood the first available Prince release on CD was 'If I Was Your Girlfriend', with previously-released material such as ATWIAD released subsequently on CD.