Sorry for such a specific question thread, but I was reviewing scififilmnerd's excellent "Updated list of chronological Prince recordings" thread (http://prince.org/msg/7/320445) and something surprised me. I knew "Rave" was a late 80s track but I had always thought that the version appearing on the "Rave..." album in 1999 was re-recorded. To my surprise, I stumbled upon....

Paisley Park, June 1988
Rave Unto The Joy Fantastic #1 (5:19) - tentative placing

Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic, pre 19 April 1999 - 10 tracks
Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic #2 (4:19)* (edit of #1)

Am I reading that right? Was the "Rave" on the '99 album really an unmolested 11 year old song @ the time the album was compiled? I find it surprising that P didn't feel the need to totally re-work or re-record or "update" the song. I mean, we all know he seems to love to molest his 80s vault material (hey, I'm just glad "Old Friends 4 Sale" escaped w/o a "dope" hip hop beat).

Thx for the clarification.
[Edited 2/10/10 15:04pm]

Yeah, it's the original version. Recorded during the Lovesexy tour.

Ironically enough, the rare time Prince pro-actively used his unreleased back catalogue for cynical marketing purposes, and he chooses a very uninspired track from AFTER what is almost universally regarded as his best period.

The mind boggles.

NouveauDance said:

Spot on... I could not have said that better myself. Many thanks on the clarification.

Edit - I have not heard the "Remix" of Rave in some time, so a listen may clear this up, but... does anyone know if the remix hails from the 80s as well, or was it a true 90s update?
[Edited 2/10/10 15:25pm]

This song is the reason I'm almost afraid to have him release the vault stuff - sometimes legends should remain as such.

The remix is new (from the time of release).

^^^ Many thanks for the quick response NouveauDance.

It still doesn't change my feelings about the song, but now I at least know it's possible for a vault track to get released sans George Lucas-esq tinkering.

billymeade said:

To be sure, a lot of them should stay in the vault. But the man has some stupidly amazing material from this time. I would love to hear some of these tracks w/o loads of hiss or generational loss (and no, I have never been in the camp that thinks lo-fidelity makes the song have mystique).

"Rave," though, could have spent it's years in the back of the vault, quivering under a pile of Tony M freestyle tapes, and I think we all would have got on just fine.

NouveauDance said:

I know this is right, and yet, I just really, really don't want to believe it. I can't for the life of me understand how a song that was so incredibly good on Small Club came from...that. I mean, I wouldn't like it, but I could understand if he redid the original song for inclusion on the Rave CD. But to think that this version was the original is just mind-boggling to me.

BlackbeltJones said:

"Old Friends 4 Sale" #2 escaped, not the first version who name checked people in his life. The one on The Vault is the generic and bland version.

The only update to "Rave Un2" was on the remix album Rave In2 The Joy Fantastic, which was a tad faster, and had some added production.

I think Prince was into (In2?!) the phrase more than the song, like he built a song after coming up with the title. And he was into this phrase or the idea of what it represented to him, and made it a title track. Like say how 'Dream Factory' isn't a ground-breaking song in itself, but is a great title track and reperesnetation for that album.

Rave has that trippy-hippy feeling to it like Elephants & Flowers and other 1988 tracks that are musically very simple, or sparse, and are hold overs from the Lovesexy vibe - Escape being another example.

Why he chose to resurrect this track specifically, I don't know, it was widely circulating before the album came out, but not much before IIRC, it was one of the earlier 'internet leak' tracks, as opposed to one that appeared on pressed bootlegs first.

ernestsewell said:

Oh yeah, I remember reading something about that (Per's book or maybe Possessed). Was it only a lyric change between the two versions, or was there different instrumentation and production as well?

NouveauDance said:

I can see that. Reminds me of the track "Lovesexy" in that sense... not a standout track, but encompassing the album's vibe. It was buried on side 2 as well, which I thought odd @ the time (first time Prince didn't end or start an album w/ the title track if my memory serves me).

Hell, this turned in to a more interesting discussion than I thought possible w/ the thread topic.
[Edited 2/10/10 17:20pm]

BlackbeltJones said:

To my knowledge, the track itself is relatively the same. The lyrics are drastically different though. I just hate that the more personal version wasn't released. The generic version just seems vapid and cheap to me, and that's probably because we HAVE heard the personal version, and know the emotion in it.

Efan said:

Absolutely agree. Rave and Days Of Wild are two examples of songs that were killer live, but atrocious studio cuts. In my opinion, the exact opposite is true for the Prince/Rosie live release of Nothing Compares 2 U and the original studio recording.