BorisFishpaw said:

All of this explains why when Prince appeared on Late Night With David Letterman to play Dolphin, Dave announced that "...this particular CD will never be released..."

Prince was promoting the album while he was still in a pissing-match with Warners.

Not the full clip, but has Dave's lead-in commentary:
http://profile.myspace.co...d=51100893

Oh, and why does it look like the Gold Experience CD that Letterman holds up look like it's printed on foil or is using metallic inks. Was there ever a released CD with this artwork? I've always wondered.

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[Edited 4/18/09 2:00am]

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[Edited 4/18/09 2:00am]

didn't that letterman appearance happen in late '94?

stanleylieber said:

December 13th, 1994. Is this the one where Prince falls down on purpose after the performance and Letterman goes over to "see if he's alright"?

squirrelgrease said:

yep. i have heard people talk smack about it but that was an AWESOME performance.

A lot of his old stuff is. Are you new?

I love the song Dolphin but it's completely out of place on The Gold Experience.

squirrelgrease said:

That was the original test artwork for the album. Unfortunately, by the time
the album got released they'd ditched the original foil print idea and just
printed it on regular paper. The original idea was to print the artwork on
foil coated paper and the CD tray was cast in gold sparkly plastic rather than
the normal clear or black. It was all VERY gold, and looked really striking.
It's a shame it was never used.

BorisFishpaw said:

Thanks for the info Boris! That would have been a nice look for the CD. You could tell from the short shot of it on Letterman that it indeed had the cover artwork, and not just a solid square of foil. So it was a "one-off"... unless someone else actually got their mitts on a foil/sparkly version.

damn said:

Agreed.

It's funny, I always see people talking about how rare this one is. I still see copies around pretty frequently, but a lot of people freak out over this one because of P Control. It's apparently still quite popular among the stripper-set. Black Album repressing are rarer but I still see those around frequently too.

All of this brings me back to something related to this era. What was the true intent of Prince's re-signing with Warners? It wasn't just for the albums, it had to be something else. I've always said, there is no way a major label would spend that much money on someone they know isn't going to bring the hits for certain every time. So what else were they getting? Couldn't have been access to Paisley Park because they already got that whenever they wanted. What else?

pastawrangler said:

When I finally decided to get this album (or more or less was convinced), I decided on my first weekend of album shopping that I'd keep an eye out for it just in case.
My copy happened to be waiting for me at FYE, used. I've heard it was so such a rarity that I took a chance and got it (I've gotten a few more used albums and they've all worked fine )
Now that I got used to the album and thanks to my favorite song, I'm so glad I got it when I did. Because I haven't seen it since

DreamyPopRoyalty said:

The market on The Gold Experience seems to fluctuate quite a bit. I always check the Prince bin in the used shops and TGE over the years has been priced under $5 to up around $30. It's seemed to level off lately at abut $9. Around here, it's not very difficult to find. Emancipation, which is also OOP, fluctuates too. That set is usually really cheap now.

squirrelgrease said:

IIRC, he "shoots" himself and then drops to the ground. A bodyguard then comes out and drags him to back.

Amazon and ebay have truly been my savior to quench my thirst for Prince...

Rogue588 said:

Of course, it's nowhere to be found online (that I could easily locate) and I ain't goin' through my VHS tapes ... but that sounds about right.

squirrelgrease said:

also mayte rubs his face and blood appears where 'slave' is usually written

squirrelgrease said:

Haven't found Emancipation in stores, but luckily a friend hooked me up.

I paid $17.99 for my used copy of TGE... and it was well-worth the money.
and after the initial shock wore off (Endorphinmachine's guitar sounded really harsh to me the first few times), I was convinced it was my favorite
then I got a few more albums and you know, things change. TGE was the 3rd album I picked up for my collection (after the two most recent ones, Musicology & 3121)