What if Prince officially released his own bootlegs and the quality of the boot was the exact same quality as a regular bootleg, or even the same bootleg, such as the August 3, 1983 benefit show that's been floating around for years, no editing or anything like that, would you be excited about it's release, no matter how grainy the film or sound may be or would you be pissed that the quality of the video/audio was low or downright bad?

Discuss

I would be happy to get anything from Prince, especially at this point in time. I would hope that it would be clear enough that I could make out band members and hear the songs being played. I'm all about getting new Prince material at any time.

I think Prince doesn´t realize that most of his listeners, like myself, would gladly buy all the stuff they already have just for the sake of having it as an original release. And yes,I would rather have a poor quality but ORIGINAL version of certain songs than an updated or edited or censored version.
The best thing would be, of course, if he released crystal clear versions of the stuff he has in his vault. Or maybe not crystal clear but still decent and listenable.

The bootleg stuff can't be any more inferior in sound quality than the officially released transfers of his classic 80's albums to cd - that is unforgivably tinny sounding shit to the max. Shame on both him and Warners for not giving his best music a quality remastered release.

Thank god for the foefur remasters...

I don't know really...I'd love to hear unfamiliar songs no matter what they sounded like...although if the song is great, it might as well be crisp and cleaned up.

There would be no reason for it to be inferior quality to that of such songs found Crysal Ball for example (although I find the mastering of that set to be too loud).

NouveauDance said:

See, that´s my main argument when people claim that the stuff in the vault is rotting away, the tape gum is dissolving etc. etc.
I mean , if that were true , then how come he still uses samples from very old songs and releases a compilation of old songs like the Crystal Ball album ?
People exaggerate a lot...but then again ,it was his own ( ex-)recording engineer HM Buff ( 95-96 era ) who said the tapes were rotting away and most songs will be gone for good if Prince doesn´t save them and store them on digital media.
How could he say that ? Didn´t he know about Prince´s occasional use of old samples ?


By the way, call me crazy but I have gotten so used to the bass-heavy , fat sound of some third generation bootleg songs that I fear that the "official", crystal clear release might not sound as phat as the bootleg.
The Dance Electric and We Can Funk 1986 come to mind.
When I first heard that 1996 bootleg of Right Back Here In My Arms off of DJ Brother Jules´ radioshow I was a bit underwhelmed with the thinner sound of the officially released song on Emancipation.

KoolEaze said:

You know that's part of what I like with the boots. I like how some songs are heavy on the bass. There are certain songs I have twice and I can hear the difference with the music and I can choose which version I want to play. For some reason, it makes the listening experience fun for me. I hope that makes sense.

depends on how it was released, i guess.

if he posted a bunch of grainy sounding/looking stuff on a for-pay download site and kept the prices low, i would be happy with whatever i got.

if he sold this stuff on CD/DVD and tried to pass them off as cleaned-up official product and charged full retail for them, i might be a little salty.

i think part of "beating the boots" is offering a superior quality product that makes any bootlegger's effort obsolete. it would be in his best interest to either clean up the quality or offer the low quality stuff for a price lower than the bootleggers could ever dream of offering (especially since most bootlegged stuff circulates for free these days anyway).

Does anyone care if they get Bootlegs from Prince at all? No one seems to be answering so I take it that it's a No. Interesting.

cam i will answer u like this:

if i take a look at days of wild off of crystal ball 4 xample, now i have the unedited version on a bootleg, and then there's prince's version..yes there r differences in sound due 2 prince going in2 the studio making his overdubs and edits then there is the RAWNESS of the original live version.


all of this u have 2 take in consideration on whether u want it the way it was or the way prince would either butcher it or enhance it. either way ur dealing in a 50/50 zone.


so with that, i wouldn't pass on taking the bootleg from prince but i would b mad skeptical about it

oh and plus u wouldn't hear him yelling at the soundman or band members on his version lol

purplecam said:

There's no reason for the official source, the horses mouth, to release these recordings in anything but perfect quality, so why would anyone be interested in buying them in substandard quality?

The only reason people did buy them in poor quality (did being the operative word, now most people download them for free) is because there was no other option. Had this stuff been released officially, most of us would've gladly opened our wallets and re-morgaged our property to fund the purchase.

Prince tried to "beat the bootleggers" with Crystal Ball, he intentionally cut and mixed tracks badly to make it sound like a bootleg and it was terrible. - Ironically at this time a lot of bootlegs coming out were of a quality, in terms of packaging and sound, that was higher than ever.



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[Edited 8/27/08 13:31pm]

N.O!

purplecam said:

well, i would prefer if they came from the source, and if i had to give money to someone i would rather it be the artist than a bootlegger, but in the current climate where fans are ripping, downloading and emailing boots for trade, i feel like the matter of money is becoming more and more of a non-issue.

if prince did another crystal ball, of course i'd buy it. if the quality were worse than the first volume, i might think twice about buying a third edition, especially if the contents were tracks i already own on boots anyway.

if he could clean up the tracks, make them sound significantly better? hey, i'm there.

I would be a little mad because I have almost all of them and I went thru alot of trouble and expense over the yeas to get them

Wish he would put out the damned 'Crystal Ball Vol.2', and I'll be the first in line outside the wrecka stow! And I'd like the songs being raw mixes, just like the previous one.

But I can easily dream on.

Well, for starters, there'd be interesting music to talk about again. Nice change of pace, to be sure.

It seems like the NPGMC tried doing this.

Anyone remember the video download of "Jam Of The Year" with a single camera lense from the top of the venue?

Every1 bitched, but what IF he was trying then 2 test the waters and it didn't float because people complained about the quality.....

Not saying it is the case..but it does seem like they tried.

Anyone remember ordering the Beautiful Experience as well from NPGonlineltd.com?

Ok then.

jseven said:

i appreciated the lion's share of those offerings, but prince still has to consider sophisticated recordings for his sophisticated fans. that's what he told tavis smiley we were, anyway.

I've got that Jam of the year thing too, but what about the Musicology at Staples center, that thing was Professionally done, nobody can tell me he didn't know that, what happened to that?

I can honestly say that I don't know if he will or if he wont. Cuz at this stage in his life he's kinda chillin' not doning much. Always overseas. So I think it's kinda hard to tell what Prince is gonna do in the future.
[Edited 8/27/08 17:10pm]

Any 'official' release whether previously bootlegged, unreleased, unheard what ever... I would prefer it to be 'polished'. Why would want to pay for a badly recorder or mastered version of a boot... when the same can be found (or I've already gotten it) for free..? It wouldn't encourage any reason to buy that a polished version likely would.

Same with his concert videos. Who really wants to pay for an officially released shacky hand cam version...? But who would rather pay for a polished professionally looking DVD even if they have the shaky cam already..? I know I would.

BigDaddyHQ said:

I agree, you can d/l grainy, shaky, unprofessional stuff for free.

purplecam said:

i'd be happy to receive whatever Prince releases

jseven said:

You mean that VHS format thing that was recorded from Asian TV ( Japanese or Korean?) ? That was a bit ridiculous because the quality was worse than the bootleg DVDs of that same thing and it made him look as if he didn´t even have a decent original recording himself, relying on some TV recorded VHS footage.

But other than that, I have no problems with bad quality material and would gladly buy anything he releases from the vault, grainy quality or not.

I think it depends on how old the material is. I don´t expect some old school rehearsal or concert from the 80s to be in pristine quality and would accept low quality just for the sake of being able to listen to or watch that material but if the concert or song or rehearsal is from the mid 90s or even newer than it better be in good quality because otherwise it would look foolish, just like that pseudo "3rd generation" bootleg live recording cassette he once sold online.Now that was stupid.
He doesn´t really get how his audience feels about this issue, which becomes obvious when you look at what, how and when he´s released stuff in the past years. Snippets and teasers of a Parade era concert, the occasional rehearsal version of some underground classic, some rare 80s tracks here and there but nothing that would really convince someone who´s been into his music for decades and has bought or seen good quality bootlegs.