So I was bored and sort of thinking about Dream Factory/Camille/Crystal Ball and how either one of these 3 releases could have qualified as his greatest album, had they come out in their various shelved configurations.

So I put together a mega-playlist. Started out trying to format it into a 4-LP styled set, but I wanted it to flow differently than the 20-22 minute side of a vinyl record would allow, so I just said "fuck it" and made it a super-long playlist that made sense for modern listening. It actually turned out to work out to 2 CD's (at least for the moment), but that's neither here nor there.

Of course when I do these things, there are always some bizarrely convoluted rules that I have to follow to make it seem like a "realistic" release. Also, track order is based on how things sound next to each other, but I usually make sure that the lyrics tell some kind of story. Or journey, if you will, from beginning to end.

Included everything that was recorded mostly on his own from late '85 up through the end of '86 and would have been ready in time for release on what eventually became "Sign O' The Times".

This means I left off a lot of very Revolution-centric tracks and didn't include most of what ended up on "The Black Album" since he probably did over-dubbing up until the end of '87 on some of it.

Anyway, let me know what you think about how this works. Everyone has their own tastses for this sort of thing, but this is the one that makes sense to me.

What kind of project like this are you currently working on?

CD 1:

01 Dream Factory (released version with "Nevaeh Ni Ecalp A" intro from the Dream Factory album added - removed the girls' dialogue though)

02 Rebirth Of The Flesh

03 Housequake

04 The Ball

05 Joy In Repetition

06 U Got The Look (Long Look, with intro portion cut out to start like the album version - 12" intro always makes it sound a little too remixy to me.)

07 It

08 Rockhard In A Funky Place (weird sound effects removed from the end)

09 Hot Thing (screech from the 12" Remix tacked onto the front of the album version)

10 Feel U Up (Long Stroke)

11 Witness 4 The Prosecution (#1, Prince-only)

12 Movie Star

13 A Place In Heaven (Prince vocal - intro and outro from Movie Star overlayed)

14 Slow Love

15 I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man (segued into...)

16 If I Was Your Girlfriend

17 Last Heart

CD2:

18 Shockadelica (12")

19 Strange Relationship

20 Train

21 The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker

22 Forever In My Life

23 Good Love

24 Crucial (released version)

25 An Honest Man (released version - just as a palate cleanser for...)

26 Crystal Ball (released version)

27 Sign O' The Times

28 The Cross

29 Play In The Sunshine

30 Starfish And Coffee

31 Make Your Mama Happy

32 It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night

33 Adore

Le Grind, Cindy C., Dead On It, Bob George, Superfunkycalifragisexy, 2 Nigs United 4 West Compton, La, La, La, He, He, Hee (12"), Baby Go Go.....

I think I have spots for all of them picked out, but it might be overkill.

[Edited 9/2/12 19:55pm]

errant said:

So I was bored and sort of thinking about Dream Factory/Camille/Crystal Ball and how either one of these 3 releases could have qualified as his greatest album, had they come out in their various shelved configurations.

So I put together a mega-playlist. Started out trying to format it into a 4-LP styled set, but I wanted it to flow differently than the 20-22 minute side of a vinyl record would allow, so I just said "fuck it" and made it a super-long playlist that made sense for modern listening. It actually turned out to work out to 2 CD's (at least for the moment), but that's neither here nor there.

Of course when I do these things, there are always some bizarrely convoluted rules that I have to follow to make it seem like a "realistic" release. Also, track order is based on how things sound next to each other, but I usually make sure that the lyrics tell some kind of story. Or journey, if you will, from beginning to end.

Included everything that was recorded mostly on his own from late '85 up through the end of '86 and would have been ready in time for release on what eventually became "Sign O' The Times".

This means I left off a lot of very Revolution-centric tracks and didn't include most of what ended up on "The Black Album" since he probably did over-dubbing up until the end of '87 on some of it.

Anyway, let me know what you think about how this works. Everyone has their own tastses for this sort of thing, but this is the one that makes sense to me.

What kind of project like this are you currently working on?

CD 1:

01 Dream Factory (released version with "Nevaeh Ni Ecalp A" intro from the Dream Factory album added - removed the girls' dialogue though)

02 Rebirth Of The Flesh

03 Housequake

04 The Ball

05 Joy In Repetition

06 U Got The Look (Long Look, with intro portion cut out to start like the album version - 12" intro always makes it sound a little too remixy to me.)

07 It

08 Rockhard In A Funky Place (weird sound effects removed from the end)

09 Hot Thing (screech from the 12" Remix tacked onto the front of the album version)

10 Feel U Up (Long Stroke)

11 Witness 4 The Prosecution (#1, Prince-only)

12 Movie Star

13 A Place In Heaven (Prince vocal - intro and outro from Movie Star overlayed)

14 Slow Love

15 I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man (segued into...)

16 If I Was Your Girlfriend

17 Last Heart

CD2:

18 Shockadelica (12")

19 Strange Relationship

20 Train

21 The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker

22 Forever In My Life

23 Good Love

24 Crucial (released version)

25 An Honest Man (released version - just as a palate cleanser for...)

26 Crystal Ball (released version)

27 Sign O' The Times

28 The Cross

29 Play In The Sunshine

30 Starfish And Coffee

31 Make Your Mama Happy

32 It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night

33 Adore

Le Grind, Cindy C., Dead On It, Bob George, Superfunkycalifragisexy, 2 Nigs United 4 West Compton, La, La, La, He, He, Hee (12"), Baby Go Go.....

I think I have spots for all of them picked out, but it might be overkill.

[Edited 9/2/12 19:55pm]

I will have to try this for myself. Definitely looks interesting!

As far as what Prince project/compilation/etc. I am working on, I just finished 2 and shared them here: http://prince.org/msg/7/3...?&pg=2

Quick reference:

80's Prince Dance Mix:

01. Let's Go Crazy

02. She's Always In My Hair

03. U Got The Look

04. Kiss (Extended Version)

05. Controversy

06. Delirious

07. Sexuality

08. When Doves Cry

09. Dirty Mind

10. 200 Balloons

11. Let's Work

12. Head

13. Baby I'm A Star

14. Do Me, Baby

15. Erotic City

16. Forever In My Life

I know it's called a dance mix but you gotta slow it down a couple times.

Gangsta Prince Mix:

01. Days Of Wild

02. 18 & Over

03. Lovesign (Shock G. Remix)

04. I Wanna Melt With U

05. NPG Operator

06. The Max

07. Pheromone

08. Tell Me How U Wanna B Done (feat. Carmen Electra)

09. Dig U Better Dead

10. NPG Operator

11. Acknowledge Me

12. Face Down

13. Letitgo

14. My Name Is Prince

15. Loose!

16. Dead On It

17. Pope

18. Gett Off

I went through and ripped all of the 2009 Japanese SHM-CDs (which I bought a couple of months ago) to my computer. I still have the original CD versions in iTunes, but I have labeled them as Disc 2 with the 2009 issues as Disc 1 (except for SOTT, where I now have 4 discs). I've edited the tracks to say "For You (2009 Japanese Reissue)" on Disc 1 and "For You (Original CD Version)" on Disc 2. For now I've unchecked the boxes next to the original issues so that I can listen to the 2009 versions on the road. The exception is Lovesexy where I left everything checked because the 2009 reissue is one single track and I have a tracked version of the earlier pressing, and I want to listen to both. I have also ripped the extended CD single versions of "Erotic City," "I Would Die 4 U," "I Wish U Heaven" and "Scarlet Pussy" and added them as bonus tracks to Purple Rain and Lovesexy respectively. I also downloaded better versions of the cover art.

In other words, I'm a nerd.

errant said:

Of course when I do these things, there are always some bizarrely convoluted rules that I have to follow to make it seem like a "realistic" release. Also, track order is based on how things sound next to each other, but I usually make sure that the lyrics tell some kind of story. Or journey, if you will, from beginning to end.

That's exactly what I do. Convoluted rules you put on yourself, etc. But that line I think is what DJing is all about, and even though I used to do it, I don't have a lot of respect for a lot of them, except for the ones who still scratch vinyl (I don't do that).

Cheers!

electricberet said:

I went through and ripped all of the 2009 Japanese SHM-CDs (which I bought a couple of months ago) to my computer. I still have the original CD versions in iTunes, but I have labeled them as Disc 2 with the 2009 issues as Disc 1 (except for SOTT, where I now have 4 discs). I've edited the tracks to say "For You (2009 Japanese Reissue)" on Disc 1 and "For You (Original CD Version)" on Disc 2. For now I've unchecked the boxes next to the original issues so that I can listen to the 2009 versions on the road. The exception is Lovesexy where I left everything checked because the 2009 reissue is one single track and I have a tracked version of the earlier pressing, and I want to listen to both. I have also ripped the extended CD single versions of "Erotic City," "I Would Die 4 U," "I Wish U Heaven" and "Scarlet Pussy" and added them as bonus tracks to Purple Rain and Lovesexy respectively. I also downloaded better versions of the cover art.

In other words, I'm a nerd.

I've just spent the last several weeks upgrading the Prince folder in my iTunes with higher quality rips.

I turned them up and re-indexed the track splits too. I also use the album sorting field to make them list in chronological order.

supernerd

errant said:

electricberet said:

I went through and ripped all of the 2009 Japanese SHM-CDs (which I bought a couple of months ago) to my computer. I still have the original CD versions in iTunes, but I have labeled them as Disc 2 with the 2009 issues as Disc 1 (except for SOTT, where I now have 4 discs). I've edited the tracks to say "For You (2009 Japanese Reissue)" on Disc 1 and "For You (Original CD Version)" on Disc 2. For now I've unchecked the boxes next to the original issues so that I can listen to the 2009 versions on the road. The exception is Lovesexy where I left everything checked because the 2009 reissue is one single track and I have a tracked version of the earlier pressing, and I want to listen to both. I have also ripped the extended CD single versions of "Erotic City," "I Would Die 4 U," "I Wish U Heaven" and "Scarlet Pussy" and added them as bonus tracks to Purple Rain and Lovesexy respectively. I also downloaded better versions of the cover art.

In other words, I'm a nerd.

I've just spent the last several weeks upgrading the Prince folder in my iTunes with higher quality rips.

I turned them up and re-indexed the track splits too. I also use the album sorting field to make them list in chronological order.

supernerd

Nerds of the world unite!

I have actually gone through and corrected the composer information and date for every song in my iTunes folder, and I have more than 18,000 songs. It's not that hard for Prince stuff, but have you ever seen the list of composers on ASCAP or BMI for a current hip-hop song? What's crazy is that I will never look at most of it and after I'm gone nobody will care. I just can't stand to have incorrect information in there from Gracenote. They must have trained monkeys inputting song data for that site. Which is why I will never be able to use iTunes Match and am holding out for a 128GB iPhone (and even that won't hold all my collection).

electricberet said:

errant said:

I've just spent the last several weeks upgrading the Prince folder in my iTunes with higher quality rips.

I turned them up and re-indexed the track splits too. I also use the album sorting field to make them list in chronological order.

supernerd

Nerds of the world unite!

I have actually gone through and corrected the composer information and date for every song in my iTunes folder, and I have more than 18,000 songs. It's not that hard for Prince stuff, but have you ever seen the list of composers on ASCAP or BMI for a current hip-hop song? What's crazy is that I will never look at most of it and after I'm gone nobody will care. I just can't stand to have incorrect information in there from Gracenote. They must have trained monkeys inputting song data for that site. Which is why I will never be able to use iTunes Match and am holding out for a 128GB iPhone (and even that won't hold all my collection).

I fixed that. I deleted all the composer information in my iTunes library so it wouldn't be something I'd lose too much sleep over Was hoping it would save a few MB of inbedded info in each track, but I'm not sure it worked.

I'm also hoping for a 128 GB iPhone. I still keep the 160 GB classic, but hardly ever use it, just in case of emergencies. iTunes Match seems so alluring... but from the few minor hiccups I've read about what it does to a library, artwork, and replacing dirty versions with the clean ones has me all

[Edited 9/2/12 20:52pm]

errant said:

electricberet said:

Nerds of the world unite!

I have actually gone through and corrected the composer information and date for every song in my iTunes folder, and I have more than 18,000 songs. It's not that hard for Prince stuff, but have you ever seen the list of composers on ASCAP or BMI for a current hip-hop song? What's crazy is that I will never look at most of it and after I'm gone nobody will care. I just can't stand to have incorrect information in there from Gracenote. They must have trained monkeys inputting song data for that site. Which is why I will never be able to use iTunes Match and am holding out for a 128GB iPhone (and even that won't hold all my collection).

I fixed that. I deleted all the composer information in my iTunes library so it wouldn't be something I'd lose too much sleep over Was hoping it would save a few MB of inbedded info in each track, but I'm not sure it worked.

I'm also hoping for a 128 GB iPhone. I still keep the 160 GB classic, but hardly ever use it, just in case of emergencies. iTunes Match seems so alluring... but from the few minor hiccups I've read about has me

[Edited 9/2/12 20:50pm]

I tried that first, but then I thought, "well, I'll just add Lennon/McCartney back to their songs, and Prince to his, and Bob Dylan, and..." then a whole summer was lost.