My pick:1999..especially since LRC seems semi distorted

not SOTT because I think it works well with that murky type of sound (such as Ballad Of D Parker feeling a Riot Goin On vibe).

Madhouse 16.

I think I would go with Lovesexy because it represents, for me, the height of Prince's musical brilliance. The title track in particular is a joke on the current CD version--Prince asks for "some bottom in here" and he never gets it. I'd love to hear a proper remaster of just that song.

If I have a brain aneurism tonight, I just want the record to show that this question was the cause!

Sign "O" The Times hands down.

If you think of this question in terms of current quality of the CD's, then Sign O The Times would have the most upside from a remaster. It's a graded scale.

gyoung said:

If we do get any remasters, it seems very likely that SOTT will get the full treatment. It comes up in practically every critic's list of the greatest albums of all time. Whether we would get a remastered Graffiti Bridge is more doubtful.

[Edited 3/26/11 17:35pm]

Prince the second album. Or start with "For You" and release each consecutive CD every year or six months.

[Edited 3/26/11 18:43pm]

Dirty Mind would be fantastic too. I want them all.

SOTT is the one that needs it.

SquirrelMeat said:

SOTT is the one that needs it.

mhm

its not loud enough ._.

1999. There’s just so much in there that’s muffled and murky and missing low end.

Sign O The Times is the only one that really needs it.

SOTT, obviously, and Parade

the rest of his 78-93 albums don't need remastering after all. Let's face it, we would buy them just because of the expanded booklet or something like that...

PurpleChi said:

Although I do wonder if SOTT would lose some of its grit and mystery if it were remastered. All of those mistakes made during recording (Dorothy Parker and If I Was Your Girlfriend) added to its character. But I do think it needs to be louder.

We're talking about remastering, not remixing or re-recording. If the CDs sounded as good as the vinyl, that would be fine. But they don't. Surely we can have a version of SOTT, or any of the albums, that sounds as good as the vinyl records that were pressed at the time.

I don't know exactly which Prince album was the first to be issued on CD, but I know I wasn't buying CDs until the very end of the 1980s, or maybe it was the 1990s. When SOTT was mastered for vinyl, I doubt anyone was thinking about how it would sound on CD.

Update: I did a little poking around and found that Prince was already releasing CDs by 1986. See my later posts. I'm questioning my original thoughts on this.

[Edited 4/9/11 8:33am]

electricberet said:

PurpleChi said:

Although I do wonder if SOTT would lose some of its grit and mystery if it were remastered. All of those mistakes made during recording (Dorothy Parker and If I Was Your Girlfriend) added to its character. But I do think it needs to be louder.

We're talking about remastering, not remixing or re-recording. If the CDs sounded as good as the vinyl, that would be fine. But they don't. Surely we can have a version of SOTT, or any of the albums, that sounds as good as the vinyl records that were pressed at the time.

I don't know exactly which Prince album was the first to be issued on CD, but I know I wasn't buying CDs until the very end of the 1980s, or maybe it was the 1990s. When SOTT was mastered for vinyl, I doubt anyone was thinking about how it would sound on CD.

Yep

I've always thought that Batman was the first album that the old-school fans bought primarily on CD...

That may be right. I definitely remember listening to Lovesexy on a cassette. The first Prince album I bought on CD was 1999, but I had been listening to it on cassette for several years when I finally got the CD.

Is there a list somewhere of exactly when particular Prince albums were released in different formats?

electricberet said:

SOTT, followed closely by Parade.

shonenjoe said:

In the end your answer to this question may come down to which of the analog albums you like the most. We may disagree about exactly when the sound of Prince's CDs caught up with vinyl, but it clearly didn't happen until the music-buying public switched from analog to digital media. My copy of the Lovesexy CD still carries the standard warning that "the music on this Compact Digital Disc was originally recorded on analog equipment." I don't see this warning on the Batman CD, which says it was recorded and mixed at Paisley Park Studios. That may be significant. I started a parallel thread relating to this topic:

http://prince.org/msg/7/355470

I wonder if the future of possible Prince remasters may be tied to the future of Warner Music Group, which is currently up for sale. Here are some recent stories on that:

http://www.bloomberg.com/...ssets.html

http://nymag.com/daily/in...piece.html

1999 - because the CD version I have has some scraches and it does't play well, vinyl is till OK

electricberet said:

PurpleChi said:

Although I do wonder if SOTT would lose some of its grit and mystery if it were remastered. All of those mistakes made during recording (Dorothy Parker and If I Was Your Girlfriend) added to its character. But I do think it needs to be louder.

We're talking about remastering, not remixing or re-recording. If the CDs sounded as good as the vinyl, that would be fine. But they don't. Surely we can have a version of SOTT, or any of the albums, that sounds as good as the vinyl records that were pressed at the time.

I don't know exactly which Prince album was the first to be issued on CD, but I know I wasn't buying CDs until the very end of the 1980s, or maybe it was the 1990s. When SOTT was mastered for vinyl, I doubt anyone was thinking about how it would sound on CD.

Download a vinyl rip.

PurpleChi said:

shonenjoe said:

SOTT, followed closely by Parade.

I agree. Parade doesn't get loud at all.

Remastering is an art, not just making something louder.

PurpleChi said:

gyoung said:

Sign "O" The Times hands down.

PurpleChi said:

shonenjoe said:

SOTT, followed closely by Parade.

I agree. Parade doesn't get loud at all.

You can make any CD final mix louder by yourself by using audio editors like soundforge and such, a proper separated tracks remaster is much more than compressing peaks and pumping up the overall volume.

Dirty Mind

electricberet said:

In the end your answer to this question may come down to which of the analog albums you like the most. We may disagree about exactly when the sound of Prince's CDs caught up with vinyl, but it clearly didn't happen until the music-buying public switched from analog to digital media. My copy of the Lovesexy CD still carries the standard warning that "the music on this Compact Digital Disc was originally recorded on analog equipment." I don't see this warning on the Batman CD, which says it was recorded and mixed at Paisley Park Studios. That may be significant. I started a parallel thread relating to this topic:

http://prince.org/msg/7/355470

I wonder if the future of possible Prince remasters may be tied to the future of Warner Music Group, which is currently up for sale. Here are some recent stories on that:

http://www.bloomberg.com/...ssets.html

http://nymag.com/daily/in...piece.html

Thanks for this informtion..

I am favoring the analogue 1999.