What if the remasters...suck?

Just imagine this scenario. After waiting years for them, after hashing and re-re-re-hashing every potential aspect of them...they come out. And...they stink. Either the bonus material is lousy (or nonexistent), or he messes with the originals, or the sound quality still isn't all that great, or actually causes the new versions to sound kinda weird and unappealing. It could happen!

Some remasters don't go well:

- Madonna's "Celebration" set: the sound quality is all over the place, and weirdly edited. Versions from the original CD's remain better. (I haven't gotten the three or four full-album remasters from her early catalog; maybe those are good.)

- George Michael's "Faith" remaster has now been released...a remaster I've hoped for, for years...and apparently it's awful. At this point, I'm not buying it based on reviews.

Fortunately, some do go well. The Michael Jackson albums are a joy, thankfully.

I just hope Prince remasters, if/when they come, are first-rate, top quality jobs.

[Edited 2/7/11 3:32am]

i dont think there will be alot of bonus material. I do think there will be unreleased tracks from the era, for example Lisa from Dirty Mind, Purple Music and Moonbeam Levels from 1999, Electric Intercourse from Purple rain and so on. As long as he releases high quality versions of his best unreleased stuff, i'll be happy

Then we kill ourselves?

I partially disagree

Remasters of Duran Duran, Van Halen, The Rolling Stones, Beatles, Madonna, Bowie, Springsteen, Dylan, Depeche Mode, Clapton, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Beach Boys, Elvis, Sinatra, The Police, 50s Blues Masters, Santana, Heavy Metal bands, Bob Marley are all excellent.

it's when the band tries to also remix and partially re-record the album that things go wrong (like some hard-rock bands did)

that said, some Prince Cd's DESPERATELY need to be remastered (Controversy, ATWIAD, Parade, SOTT, ) while other sound PERFECTLY fine (Dirty Mind, 1999, PR, Lovesexy and of course his entire post-Grafitti Bridge work...). Of course, with an expanded booklet, lyrics and production notes, I'd buy them all lol

Going by what was said in the Peach and Black pod cast, they are not being remastered. They are being filtered and balanced for sound at best.

Remastering is an art form not a computer program.

(forcing myself to reply)

There is a specific reason why every album up to, and including, Lovesexy need to be remastered.

This has been discussed here on the Org a few times.

The digital transfers to CD back in the day were terrible. Any Prince CD you hear up to that point does, in fact, "suck". This is based on the quality of the converters within the gear, and the lack of level and EQ compensation. To this day, I won't listen to any Prince CDs before 1991, because I have all of the vinyl albums, 12", etc, which will always sound just as great as they always have.

To have an album like '1999' or 'Sign O' The Times' sound so ridiculously bad on CD is a crime.

The 'Lovesexy' CD is a joke... NOT because of the continuous tracking, but because it sounds horrendously thin. The album was perfectly mixed, and you can hear that beatifully on vinyl.

I'm willing to take my chances.

Spinlight said:

Then we kill ourselves?

I bought a bullet just for the grand occasion. Of course, it may be too rusty to use by the time I need it.

I suppose if the remasters are terrible I'll have to go out and start buying the albums on vinyl again. I had most of them on vinyl at one point but all my records went into storage at my mom's house for decades and have probably melted or cracked by now. When CDs first came out they sounded so much better than scratchy old records on the cheap equipment I had then that I lost interest in vinyl completely. Little did I know that vinyl would make a comeback 25 years later. I agree that Prince's CDs sound bad now in comparison with remastered recordings by other artists when played on decent equipment.

It's been suggested that, while Prince may "own" the master recordings now, Warner may have retained the exclusive distribution rights. If so then I hope they impose some quality control over the remastering program. Prince's dwindling fan base may be willing to keep buying the same albums over and over, but the broader audience won't buy the remasters if they suck. I think that in Prince's case the broader audience actually consists of audiophile types who parse over different pressings and argue which is best (see the Steve Hoffman forum). I will be surprised if the general non-audiophile public is interested in buying many Prince remasters, except maybe Purple Rain.

I started out listening to Prince's music on a cassette player that only had one speaker. Needless to say I wasn't so concerned about sound quality then. The music was still fun. Pretty soon my hearing may have deteriorated to the point where I won't be able to notice the sound improvement with remasters, so Prince better hurry up if he wants to capture his aging fans.

squirrelgrease said:

Spinlight said:

Then we kill ourselves?

I bought a bullet just for the grand occasion. Of course, it may be too rusty to use by the time I need it.

You didn't get the memo on paisley letterhead? We were all supposed to change over from the bullet to the cynanide capsules with the on them to signify a release from all mechanical CONstructs.

I'll cry.

I actually expect them to be a load of shit if Prince himself is involved to any great degree.

He should just get the Beatles remaster guys to do it! Paul is a huge fan of his. Those Beatles remasters are incredible!