bonatoc said:

KCOOLMUZIQ said:

Remasters are over-rated anyway. If decides not 2 put them out, Eye support him...

Not in Prince's case.

We all know that all of his pre-D&P (pre Loudness Wars) CDs sound awful.

And awful doesn't begin to describe it, they are a massacre.
All reverb tails are lost, all transients* get butchered, the whole spectrum is dull.

They are an insult to the wonderful and numerous production details Prince put into his work.
Finesse is really one of the main qualities Prince records are known for (at least for those who care about music enough to listen to them on quality headphones/hi-fi systems).

I think all orgers who were teenagers in the days where the Sony Walkman® reigned supreme, have a clear idea, or at least a sonic memory of what I'm talking about.

If you're puzzled, go look for the FLAC'd vynils, they're somewhere out there.
Make an A/B test on SOTT.
If that doesn't persuade you, you're officially deaf.

* "As any good engineer will testify, a recording’s transient detail – in other words, the first few milliseconds of sound energy contained in an instrument’s attack phase – forms a defining part of the overall sound quality of a track. This comes as little surprise when you realise just how much auditory information the ear extracts from a transient, with a sound’s complete identity often being formed in a time period as short as three or four milliseconds. "

... I don't disagree that the 80s CDs could use a remaster, but it's not like vinyl versions are out of print!

hw3004 said:

... I don't disagree that the 80s CDs could use a remaster, but it's not like vinyl versions are out of print!

Ooh, I'd be extra cautious aboot that.

They'd have to come from Rhino, and by Rhino I mean from their best mastering engineers.

As I'm typing, I'm listening to "The Future", the "Homemade Deluxe Edition", and it's blowing my head off through a Solid State Sony® Amp (look at the bottom of this webpage to see real pr0n) that weighs 13kg / 28lb. (you can't fake a huge transformer, whatever the audio chip, it has to be "pure and fluid electricity, Mandrake!") that runs his shit trough some runned-in Yamaha® NS-10M Studio pumped to eleven — Oh Lawd, Me Touch Myself.

It's like the very first time you heard "I Wanna Be Your Lover".
Kilimandjaro heights.
You know what I mean.

Call me a zealot, but Nothing Compares 2 a WEA German pressing from the eighties with some decent Pro-Ject® — I'm going to get laser-snipped soon if I don't stop the hysterical brand-dropping, but I think I'll plead a lust for transcendental hobbies.

Even the aforementioned FLACs wouldn't stand a chance against a proper full-analog hi-fi system (you're an Orger, I'm sure you have good ears for hardware too).

Makes me wonder (and please make me drool, I beg ya), are they amongst us that have 80's german pressings in mint condition (It feels kinda odd to talk about commercial releases as if they were some kind of Holy Grail...)?

Cuz I feed my wonderful audio junk with the lame headphones output of an iMac.
If I get all excited just with that, I can't imagine what it would to experience the sonic time-travel to when the average living room had an apparel that dealt with cassettes, another just for the Radio (by air waves, can you believe it?), another one was the turntable, and another was responsible for the amplification of it all.

A time when even the cheapest japanese brand kicked everything else.
Aah, the japanese people.
Sushis, geishas, chips...

Did we thank them enough for the Pionneer Studios,
where Skipper gave us, on a holy day, the impeccable "Money Don't Matter 2night"?







There was something else about Japan I wanted to mention, but I can't quite remember... Oh well.

[Edited 8/7/15 10:01am]

I envy the ones that would attend a live rendition of Stare, in a state of grace à la "SNL Fury".

This one is part of his songs intended for live.

It baffles me that Skipper, or no one at Warner, had the idea of continuing the brilliant concept of mixing Live (and overdubbed if you feel like it, Skipper's the best overdubber there is on the planet) and studio pieces.

I mean what is "Purple Rain"? They had it in front of their eyes!

When I think that ol' Bruce and ol' Columbia gave us 5, I said FIVE vynils full of live stuff.

And here we have the best performer of the eighties, and zilch. Nada.

Feel free to replace the following "my noodle" and "your head" quotes with "my vault" and "your vault", respectively :

[Edited 8/7/15 10:05am]

To whomever runs the rights of Skipper's estate, in case the above analogy didn't kick in,
the rest is just MASTERING and SELLING, you dumbasses!!!

Still digging Stare. The intro is still badass. These two new tracks say to me that Prince is still alive and well. He still has vitality and energy. After the tired corny ass AOA i thought he was completly done. But alive and well he is.

[Edited 8/7/15 12:37pm]

V10LETBLUES said:

Still digging Stare. The intro is still badass. These two new tracks say to me that Prince is still alive and well. He still has vitality and energy. After the tired corny ass AOA i thought he was completly done. But alive and well he is.

.
Well, with "Stare", the vitality and energy lasts for the first 2 and a half minutes. After that it runs out of steam IMO. I relistened to AOA today and I still think it's a great album - probably on par with Lotusflow3r as his best album of these post- years (at least when one edits out the awful "Funk N Roll (Remix)" and stitches together "Affirmation" with "Way Back Home" )

.

[Edited 8/8/15 1:47am]

toejam said:

V10LETBLUES said:

Still digging Stare. The intro is still badass. These two new tracks say to me that Prince is still alive and well. He still has vitality and energy. After the tired corny ass AOA i thought he was completly done. But alive and well he is.

.
Well, with "Stare", the vitality and energy lasts for the first 2 and a half minutes. After that it runs out of steam IMO. I relistened to AOA today and I still think it's a great album - probably on par with Lotusflow3r as his best album of these post- years (at least when one edits out the awful "Funk N Roll (Remix)" and stitches together "Affirmation" with "Way Back Home" )

.

[Edited 8/8/15 1:47am]

The pancake song with the chipmonks and lasers. Clouds which sounds like it escaped from 1992. The tittle track that sounds like a 9 yr put together from royalty-free 90's dance tracks and put on sound cloud. Every sound is a high pitch tinny instrument like the kind they play near stores to chase away kids becasue they are only ones who can hear them. The clumsy production. Really? You like this? And you are a musician?

The first two singles from each, If you went to a concert, would you rather he played the pancake song and clouds? Or Hardrocklover and Stare? Which tracks would do you imagine a regular non .org person would move to?

I do like the two songs he did not write. The one he played on SNL

And as for the single album Lotusflo3wer, i think it is a great diservice to even mention it in a sentence with AOA. The songs themselves people can argue about, the quality, but Colonized Mind and Dreamer are among his best, and i can understand why those two have been played so frequently at concerts. But the sound, mix, instrumentation and everything else about Lotus screams high-end. At the very least anyone can tell it was put together by professionals through and through. AOA sounds like it was put together by(with all due respect to deaf children and grandmothers) deaf children and their grandmothers.

Can I remind anybody who's bandying phrases like 'the masses today just can't get this' and 'radio just plays shit nowadays' and other GRATUITOUS SIGNS THAT YOU'VE SWALLOWED A BUCKET OF AGING AND CLICHES THAT MEAN NUTHIN....can I just remind you that 'the masses' of those glory days born in the usa didn't much like your skinny muthafucka with the high voice and the radio was playing Celine Fucking Dion and Milli Vanilli not Prince when I turned it off.


Please make an appointment to have your nostalgia removed as it's smelling pretty bad.

[Edited 8/9/15 16:54pm]

XSX said:

Can I remind anybody who's bandying phrases like 'the masses today just can't get this' and 'radio just plays shit nowadays' and other GRATUITOUS SIGNS THAT YOU'VE SWALLOWED A BUCKET OF AGING AND CLICHES THAT MEAN NUTHIN....can I just remind you that 'the masses' of those glory days born in the usa didn't much like your skinny muthafucka with the high voice and the radio was playing Celine Fucking Dion and Milli Vanilli not Prince when I turned it off.


Please make an appointment to have your nostalgia removed as it's smelling pretty bad.

[Edited 8/9/15 16:54pm]

Thank you. You forgot how people don't like REAL MUSIC anymore and how it sounds better than everything out there being played now.

V10LETBLUES said:

And as for the single album Lotusflo3wer, i think it is a great diservice to even mention it in a sentence with AOA. The songs themselves people can argue about, the quality, but Colonized Mind and Dreamer are among his best, and i can understand why those two have been played so frequently at concerts. But the sound, mix, instrumentation and everything else about Lotus screams high-end. At the very least anyone can tell it was put together by professionals through and through. AOA sounds like it was put together by(with all due respect to deaf children and grandmothers) deaf children and their grandmothers.

AOA is one of my favourite P albums and i know many P and even not Prince fans who love the album...

It is an abum you can listen to from start to finish and enjoy hte athmosphere and sounds...

So maybe i am deaf and blind, but i still love the album^^

[img:$uid]http://i59.tinypic.com/ngy4p0.jpg[/img:$uid]

linus4000 said:

V10LETBLUES said:

And as for the single album Lotusflo3wer, i think it is a great diservice to even mention it in a sentence with AOA. The songs themselves people can argue about, the quality, but Colonized Mind and Dreamer are among his best, and i can understand why those two have been played so frequently at concerts. But the sound, mix, instrumentation and everything else about Lotus screams high-end. At the very least anyone can tell it was put together by professionals through and through. AOA sounds like it was put together by(with all due respect to deaf children and grandmothers) deaf children and their grandmothers.

AOA is one of my favourite P albums and i know many P and even not Prince fans who love the album...

It is an abum you can listen to from start to finish and enjoy hte athmosphere and sounds...

So maybe i am deaf and blind, but i still love the album^^

linus4000 said:

AOA's pop glory will be restored as Chaos and Disorder's rock brilliance has been.

I think you miss the mix of irony ("Art Official Cage", "Gold Standard", "Funknroll" mean "I can do better than Pharrell or Daft Punk while scratching my armpit") and sincerity ("The Breakdown", "Way Back Home", "Time").

The production is perfect, it had to stick to the aural fashion and glossy production gimmicks of the times. The time travel concept is subtler than you think, the whole album is Skipper confessing he's feeling old.

You'll see.

bonatoc said:

The production is perfect,

WHAT?

The mix is horrible. We've discussed the bad mixing of The Breakdown here:

http://prince.org/msg/7/406916?&pg=6 (post#160)

It's FAR from perfect.

bonatoc said:

ludwig said:

bonatoc said:

The production is perfect,

WHAT?

The mix is horrible. We've discussed the bad mixing of The Breakdown here:

http://prince.org/msg/7/406916?&pg=6 (post#160)

It's FAR from perfect.

Production is not mixing. I would agree that it's over-compressed, but that's where it fits. I believe that the saturation at the end is intentional, and questionable for sure : it's far from what you would get from an analog equipment, it's pretty harsh.

I had to find specific settings to make AOA pleasant to the ear. First of all, you have to cut the low-end, and avoid any loudness/ maximizer / enhancer, as the whole thing is already on full brightness.

I don't know, since TGE, Skipper has either gone somewhat deaf, or is persuaded that we all listen to his records on some crappy compact lo-budget sound systems. No wonder the radios don't play him. Once it goes through the heavy compression stations apply, his sound is as flat as a pancake.

V10LETBLUES said:

The thing is, a lot of us never flip flopped on Chaos, never flip flopped on Come, never flip flopped and realized The Gold Experience was cheesy. A lot of us can hear unbiased and un-influenced by anyone.

Oh, I try to judge Prince on his own terms. He's been in autarcy mode for a while now.
I try to appreciate his albums as they are. Sure, I miss the complex arrangements and the finesse, the craftsmanship of the eighties, not to mention interesting chord progressions and arrangements. Basically I miss Wendy, Lisa and Susan Rogers, who had the balls to tell him when he sucked (Adonis and Blablabla is a prime example).

I don't expect "Music" to be "Like A Prayer", nor "Dangerous" to be "Off The Wall", etc.
You have to accept the lack of inspiration, and what is interesting is what an artist does when he's cornered with nothing left to say. It makes him human, and I'm sure it disappoints "a lot of us", who would rather have him dead in its prime, à la Morrisson / Hendrix / Joplin / Cobain / Buckley / etc.

Plus, Skipper has a universe of its own, totally secluded from the rest of the music production. I think it's fascinating and pathetic at the same time. But I respect the concept of not wanting to repeat himself, even if he does (a lot). I respect his work ethic, even if we all agree he could use a vacation (a big one) from the studio.

He's still a fascinating artist, capable of great musical ideas. Live, no one comes near. He just has to let go of his past, which is the big contradiction with Skipper. He says he only moves forward, but he's still trying to repeat the blockbuster album formula of the eighties : the rock tune, the funk tune, the ballad... TGE is a real caricature in that aspect.

At least Chaos and Disorder exsudes this "I don't give a shit anymore" : it's fresh, it's fun, it's full of stupid adolescent riffs, and, as with each one if his albums, hides a gem (Into The Light / I Will). And it's cohesive : it doesn't try to be everything at once.

And so is AOA.

I take it that you haven't heard the vinyl version of Crucial but a digital copy on official and bootleg form for which sounds shit. Condition of the Heart and Adore are very 2 powerful songs. Those are better than Crucial.

Militant said:

I prefer "Crucial" to "Condition of the Heart". Actually, I prefer "Crucial" to "Adore" too.

Buying remasters is like buying your soul back again... keep the original tapes you have and play them over again only if you have a tape deck. The music was originally intended to be back in the day.

IstenSzek said:

EddieC said:

On the remaster point--I'd go further than saying that the vinyls sounded better--I'd be overjoyed with something that sounded as good as my old cassettes of Sign O the Times and Parade. That would be so much better than what's on my CDs.

Parade is my favorit prince album and i always thought it sounded ok on cd, especially when you

compare it to the quality of Sign o The Times.

i've listened to all his albums many many times, but Parade, since i got it in 1988 when i became

a prince fan, i think i listened to it about 4,000 times all the way through. i didn't think there was

anything about Parade i did not know. i thought i knew every tiny tiny sound in each song.

until I found a FLAC vinyl rip last year. a huge file. decided to download and give it a go. put on a

new pair of semi-decent headphones, pressed play and: MIND COMPLETELY BLOWN TO F#CKING
PIECES. it sounded like parade, in 3D with noises and backgrounds floating into my ears that i had

never ever heard before, let alone knowingly picked up on.

it was such a brilliant night, listening to that, the excitement was so palpable, i got goosebumps,
laughing fits, stank face, you name it.

if that is what DECENT, WELL EXECUTED remasters could bring to the table, i'd buy them even if
they'd cost 50 dollars each.

Kobe said:

Buying remasters is like buying your soul back again... keep the original tapes you have and play them over again only if you have a tape deck. The music was originally intended to be back in the day.

For the most part I don't have the tapes anymore. I will say that the first time I listened to Romance 1600 on a digital copy was an interesting experience. My first copy of the album was a cassette, and I found it in a store several hundred miles from my home--I listened once or twice before it got damaged (I believe a Coke was spilled on it--I don't remember the exact details, but the artwork and everything was stained and damaged from the liquid as well). The result was that the thing dragged during a few seconds in the middle of A Love Bizarre and then on the flip side during Romance 1600. It took quite a number of listens to the songs undamaged before I got used to the non-dragging versions. They just didn't sound right to me.

Kobe said:

I take it that you haven't heard the vinyl version of Crucial but a digital copy on official and bootleg form for which sounds shit. Condition of the Heart and Adore are very 2 powerful songs. Those are better than Crucial.

Militant said:

I prefer "Crucial" to "Condition of the Heart". Actually, I prefer "Crucial" to "Adore" too.

I gave it several tries. I Can understand the love for "Crucial",
but not the unconditional love some display for it.

Ain't no way "Crucial" is above "Adore". Or "Condition".
It's in the composition, "Adore" is level above, it flirts with all the greatest black music Pantheon.
"Crucial" is Prince flirting with Prince in front of a mirror.
In "Adore", he's singing to her (whomever she might be), and you can tell.

TrevorAyer said:

bonatoc said:

V10LETBLUES said:

The thing is, a lot of us never flip flopped on Chaos, never flip flopped on Come, never flip flopped and realized The Gold Experience was cheesy. A lot of us can hear unbiased and un-influenced by anyone.

Oh, I try to judge Prince on his own terms. He's been in autarcy mode for a while now.
I try to appreciate his albums as they are. Sure, I miss the complex arrangements and the finesse, the craftsmanship of the eighties, not to mention interesting chord progressions and arrangements. Basically I miss Wendy, Lisa and Susan Rogers, who had the balls to tell him when he sucked (Adonis and Blablabla is a prime example).

You don't like Adons and Bathsheba? That surprises me. I think A&B represents all the elements you say you miss - complex arrangements and the finesse, the craftsmanship of the eighties, interesting chord progressions and arrangements.

SPOOKYGAS said:

paulludvig said:

bonatoc said:

Oh, I try to judge Prince on his own terms. He's been in autarcy mode for a while now.
I try to appreciate his albums as they are. Sure, I miss the complex arrangements and the finesse, the craftsmanship of the eighties, not to mention interesting chord progressions and arrangements. Basically I miss Wendy, Lisa and Susan Rogers, who had the balls to tell him when he sucked (Adonis and Blablabla is a prime example).

You don't like Adons and Bathsheba? That surprises me. I think A&B represents all the elements you say you miss - complex arrangements and the finesse, the craftsmanship of the eighties, interesting chord progressions and arrangements.

It's very, very well crafted, but... It's like he's trying to be delicate to death, just the intro... All of a sudden it's Fantasia, "it's a small world after all", I mean all these harp falls, it's Bambi, but it's the Disney one, and, well...

I can stand the bird chirps and the gigantic teardrops on "The Most Beautiful Girl In The World" (the single mix) for some reason, it's hard to explain the tiny frontier between unrefined organic sugar ("A Place In Heaven"), and that aspartam oversweet taste I get from the roller-coaster melody of the verses of "Adonis and Bathseba" : "down-and-up-down-and-up-down-and-up-etc.", that's all I hear. It's a corny ballet, I keep figuring Prince dancing on his toes, in a tutu, spreading rose petals.


Heck, I have a soft spot for "Cherry Cherry", so what do I know.
(I love the "American Graffiti" sixties fake retro-nostalgia : suddenly, it's still a school, but now there's a gun, and fuck, it's bleak reality. Prince uses the Grand Ballad form to achieve a social comment, and it's a caricature from start to end, it has great humour.)


To me, complex and delicate arrangements are to be found on "Do U Lie?".
The accordeon clicks, the brushed drums, and the lyrics! It's perfect "Sex Wars", they convey a bluesy yet "Paris under the rain" mood. Funny, jazzy, great interplay with silence. The lyrics are a mature version of "Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad". "Do U Lie?" is an homage to France (and Europe by extent) pretty similar to the Pixar's Ratatouille one.

Yeah, Adonis, Crucial, OK, they're great songs, but there's still this tiny frontier for me. Mostly because of the lyrics. I mean come on, he's just saying how his chick is beautiful and how happy that makes him. It's Prince pouring down tears of joy over himself and his girlfriend.

They're kinda insular, these outtakes, if that makes any sense. They can only exist in Prince Galaxy, where they can be considered rightful gems, no doubt. But I prefer Skipper when he crosses the line (pun intended) between his vision of the world, and reality. I tolerate, I mean appreciate, the lyrics of "Moonbeam Levels", because the song is a gemini to "1999". It's the same subject, nuclear war, but there's a deep longing instead of big gang-banging. So oddly, "Adonis" lyrics are corny to me, but "Moonbeam Levels" are not, and yet they could both originate from some sixteen years old girl's diary. The romantic naiveness of Skipper.


I guess it's the same with "Crucial" and "Condition Of The Heart". My vote goes to the drama, the love gone wrong song, because Prince puts more intensity into them ("Purple Rain", "The Beautiful Ones", anyone?), he just can't help it. The backing vocals (himself of course) on "Crucial", they're like shiny happy.
I find myself considering "Shiny Happy People" a stupid song.
I can't fucking stand it, I hate it to the core, and all of a sudden all the people that just got up to dance to it.
No Sir, in my book, a silly happy song is "All My Dreams", or "Baby I'm a Star", not "Shiny Happy People".


So I'm like 1986 Susan Rogers I guess : Prince happens to be happy stupid in looove, goes behind the mike, and yodels about Greek Gods and Goddesses? When you know how bad Skipper can get at metaphors, it's obvious he's referring to himself. And that does it for me.

"Adore" is in a way the defeat of "Temptation" the dragon, and shows the sometimes useless grandiloquence of "The Ladder".
"Adore" is the final gospel, the peace made with God.
The song starts like a prayer : "Until the end of time, I'll be there 4 U", I mean it's almost scary sacred, the blind man, afraid to make love...
But then there's humour, as in "Do U Lie?", with the motorcycle and the egyptian cotton, like suddenly Prince/Morris gets a line in the song.

In "Adore", he's as happy as in "Crucial".
But the gospel gives an untold background suffering to the story, something has been vanquished. And, most of all, you can't beat the last minute, where it goes from describing a spiritual achievement to become an achievement of its own. You can't beat the reference to Miles, you can't beat the background vocals, the "Be with me Darling to the end of all time" descent, and the choir that follows. It traumatized Beck, D'Angelo, even Jeff Buckley on "Lover You Should've Come Over", and countless others.

The end of "Adore" is almost cartoonish, like some end credits to the whole Album.
SOTT starts with an almost dead electronic pulse, an alarmingly electrocardiogram of the world, and ends with all organic instruments, voices in trance, strings that bend, mouths that blow.
Life is hard, ghettoes to the right and all that shit, but in the end, Love prevails.
Skipper saves the day again.

I don't get that from "Power Fantastic", or "Adonis". But I think I see your point. This very bright spirit they display is the continuity of "Adore". Like the album ain't over, and now Skipper goes on describing us how heaven feels like.

Yeah, well, he's already won by that point, and I find myself beginning to yawn to the soundtrack of his epiphanies.

[Edited 8/17/15 15:20pm]

BobGeorge909 said:

SPOOKYGAS said:

near 1,000,000 plays on Spotify in such a little time! Fuck all you haters! STARE at the STAR....

[Edited 8/5/15 8:44am]

Soooo...1,000,000 plays. Multiply that by .0072, which is a typicalor averaged Spotify royalty. That's $7,200? That's pretty shitty. Especially when P has people to pay. No wonder P don't wanna pay a manager or agent if they're gonna get cuts of paltry returns like this. Pre afro, that would barely cover his tubs of relaxer.

Well... I bought When Doves Cry when it came out. I've racked up thousands of plays--how much did P get per play from my purchase using that model?

Seriously--how does it compare, really? People don't buy, but stream--and the artist gets a payment per stream. Is it really that bad a royalty, or are people confusing things by comparing the royalty per stream to the royalty per purchase, which really isn't a fair comparison, because a purchase (and the resultant royalty payment) covers tens, or hundreds of plays by the purchaser--who, if they're streaming instead, would lead to tens or hundreds of stream royalty payments, not one.

And even if it is bad, how much do you really expect them to pay? Okay, Spotify premium is $10 a month (if I understand correctly). That allows unlimited streaming. Theoretically, you could have 24 hours of music, 30 or so days a month, payed for completely. Most people aren't listening that much, but you could. You could have it playing while you sleep. But let's cut it a bit... Say 4 hours a day. A 30-day month, so 120 hours of music, paid for by your $10 dollars. So, how many songs an hour? Let's say 15, okay? 1800 songs over the course of the month. Let's multiply that by 0.0072. $12.96. More than a premium customer pays. And a whole lot more than a free-tier person pays. Yes, I know that Spotify has a bit more money coming in than just subscribers, but this doesn't seem like a fantastic business model for them. [If I've made some basic math errors here, be kind in pointing them out, please]

And, even if the streaming royalty rates aren't great--they're better than nothing at all. And if people aren't buying, streaming is the market.

EddieC said: