I'm currently working my way through the entire nine volume set. I know there are some of you who have listened to it more than once. What I want to know is: how many you are there? What are your thoughts?

work it is better

^Yep, better forget about The Work (even the enhanced edition) and go for Work It 2.0 Updated.

^ really? I got the Work It 2.0 set and was disappointed. It's nice to have everything compiled on one series, but I did not find it to be the best sounding collection of outtakes. I had better sounding material on many of my other disks. There are also way too many snippets and unncessary sound clips from npgmc for my taste.
I don't have the complete Work set by the way, so I cannot compare.

^Then you'd be even more disappointed with The Work.

^ Work It is indeed better.
What the compiler tried to do, was collecting all outtakes from the best sounding sources and put them in chronological order. The Work volumes are a real mess, certainly the last ones.
Of course there will always be certain songs that might sound better on other releases, but I believe his mission secceeded.

Are there major differences between the work and work it? I don't want to embark on the quest to find it unless I have to.

fever said:

it's maybe 80%+ of the same tracks, but work it is more up to date, so has more tracks and some in better quality

there were "fam" created additions to the work series that added more stuff, but mostly npgmc and official/semi officially released stuff and i recall various updated/redone versions of those

what's good about work it is it's in chrono order, and not too much has since came out that wasn't included, and not too much that's turned up in notably better sound quality. there's maybe 3 or 4 boots you need on top of work it to give 99% of the outtakes in general circulation in the best quality

oh, and it was free, unlike the work

^ perfect summary!

question about Work It 2.0.


seems there are 4 versions of Wonderful ass on it, but it's just #1 & #2 repeated, right? i haven't sat down and done a side-by-side comparison.

what about the iVault?

errant said:

v2 and v4 are the same length, but 1 is short and 3 is long and you can hear that 2 and 4 are different. it's 4 different versions

ARock said:

that's just a dvdr worth of mp3s compared to 16gb of flac. the ivault is just a handy way of having most of the outtakes on a memory stick or something and loading to an ipod or non flac based mp3 player. it's also got a few released things and the npgmc stuff i think

unique said:

different versions, or different sound quality?

errant said:

different versions. one has more vocals. the sound quality is notably different too, so you can tell it's not the same track repeated

unique said:

Can you tell me the names of those boots?

fever said:

"wow" has a few things that weren't on it, the exclusive outtakes samples aren't on it, and box of chocolate has better quality of tracks that are on it

those alone won't give you 100% of everything, but get you about 99% of the way there. the new eye records lotus box boot has some of the more recent stuff on it. you then enter the debate of released or not, as most of the stuff on that has been released in some shape or form, but online from official websites mostly. work it doesn't include officially released/downloadable stuff - ie. no npgmc/3121/lotusflower site stuff which is arguably considered as officially released if available on an official website

i would say collating the official website stuff is a different kettle of fish from outtakes/unreleased stuff. you then have the officially released/promo only stuff, and then you have the related artists stuff (that he had something to do with - wrote or played on or remixed). strictly speaking the website stuff is official but it's a bit "bitty" to list with the normal stuff on cd/record

Lawl, it really isn't easy being obsessed with prince. There is so much stuff and I haven't found a guide to must have boots.

I've only heard The Work, pretty essential for any Prince fan really, numerous gems throughout like Lisa and All My Dreams. The first few volumes are better in my opinion.


Might wanna try and find some other boots like Crucial, Box Of Chocalates, I'll Do Anything EP, releases by WOW records are worth checking out and they should all be good quality in FLAC.

fever said:

These are a good source of info.... http://thedigitalgarden.org/index.html and this (though not updated as of late) http://www.angelfire.com/jazz/ug2p/.
[Edited 5/26/10 7:17am]

elmer said:

no need for crucial if you have work it. i'll do anything isn't really a vast improvement over work it. it's nice to have that stuff collected together but it doesn't have everything. i made my own 2cd set that was much more definitive. i used a bit of artistic license on the first disc to add a few other similar sounding tracks from about that time, so it sounds like a cohesive jazzy album, and on the second disc i collated together all the dross for completist reasons. most of it is unlistenable crap. twee songs sung badly by actors. there was just slightly too much to stick everything on i think so i omitted one or two tracks. i suppose it would have fitted on a couple of 90 min discs easily, but i just listen to stuff from the pc mostly

box of chocolates is a good upgrade in sound quality, it's taken from a tape but sounds pretty damn close to an official realease, particularly considering the reasonably poor sound on the official SOTT era cds

wow is the 2 cd set that is basically a pirate of the tamar album on disc 2 and i think some tamar/bria mp3s from official websites, and some martika "outtakes" that have fuck all to do with prince, and may as well be on some officially released album but no-one would know as the only people to buy a martika album were die hard prince fans or deaf people. on the first disc it has a hodge podge of various bits and bobs from official mp3s, tv shows and radio shows, such as all along the watchtower from stern show, the versace experience 2007(or whatever) from the fashion tv thing, pfunk mp3, bits of the claire fischer i wonder u thing, i think computer blue extended, it was a mish mash of stuff really, but good to get some of the stuff on cd and a lot of people might not have had the tamar cd otherwise. it just really fills a few missing gaps, as does lotusbox, but it's a few interesting things amoungst a huge load of stuff no-one cares about

ah shit, I meant any releases from Eye Records i think it is, I've got 2 or 3 of them and their quality in parts. The Tamar album's good, not essential in any way though.