Hi all,

In the aftermath of the loss of our idol, music legend Prince, we are undoubtedly going to be seeing tracks from the vault be released, as well as hopefully one day, remastered versions of his vast catalogue of 39 albums he released through out his career. It has certainly got me thinking about how one would go about celebrating the life and music of such a great artist. I decided within my own opinion that perhaps the first cab off the rank so to speak, should be an updated edition of a greatest hits compilation. Whilst dedicated Prince fans are sure to be getting lots of pleasure in future years through the release of vault material, I thought the ideal way to celebrate Prince first up would be a career spanning compilation album that would appeal to not only the hardened Prince fans but also the more casual fans and music lovers who also have high respect for Prince. In my honest opinion, the "The Very Best Of Prince" which I believe was released in around 2001 by Warner Music provides the best starting point, however it only goes up to Diamonds & Pearls material. It was a single disc release. My proposal would be a 2 disc set. The track listing below has Disc 1, the currently available product released by Warner. Disc 2 is my idea of what tracks should appear on this second disc. Feel free to discuss, as I am sure everybody has their own ideas on what would be included. But my aim here is to create a product that will appeal to hardcore Prince fans aswell as the more casual fans.

I have intentionally for the purpose of this product stuck to tracks that were released as singles and were available for purchase in general record stores and/or online platforms such as iTunes and Tidal. For the most part, I have also avoided including tracks credited to various collaborative projects Prince was involved in such as releases credited to The New Power Generation, 3rd Eye Girl and some of the other side projects he was involved in. Feel free to discuss what you would include. It must be said, it is extremely difficult to limit a Prince best of to just 2 discs, there are certainly more tracks I would have potentially included if I was able to expand to a 3 disc set.

Disc 1

1. I Wanna Be Your Lover

2. 1999

3. Little Red Corvette

4. When Doves Cry

5. Let's Go Crazy

6. Purple Rain

7. I Would Die 4 U

8. Raspberry Beret

9. Kiss

10. Sign O'The Times

11. U Got The Look

12. Alphabet St

13. Thieves In The Temple

14. Gett Off

15. Cream

16 Diamonds And Pearls

17 Money Don't Matter 2 Night

Disc 2 (Proposed)

1. My Name Is Prince

2. Sexy MF

3. 7

4. Peach

5. Pink Cashmere

6. Letitgo

7. The Most Beautiful Girl In The World

8. Eye Hate U

9. Gold

10. The Holy River

11. The One

12. The Greatest Romance Ever Sold

13. Musicology

14. Call My Name

15. Te Amo Corazon

16. Fury

17. The Breakdown

18. This Could B Us

19. Stare

20. Big City

In addition to above track listing, the potential to find 1 or 2 high quality, completed Vault recordings as "new tracks" to encourage sales. One of these tracks could potentially be released as a single.

I think a box-set like Joni Mitchell's would be a great place to start. You could even have a disc of just the most popular leaked outtakes.

My try (Disc 2)


1. My Name Is Prince

2. Sexy MF

3. 7

4. Letitgo
5. Space
6. The Most Beautiful Girl In The World

7. Love Sign

8. Eye Hate U

9. Gold

10. The Holy River

11. The One

12. The Greatest Romance Ever Sold

13. The Work (Part 1)
14. Musicology

15. Te Amo Corazon

16. Black Sweat

17. The Breakdown
18. Breakfast Can Wait
19. Clouds
20. HardRockLover

ps) no need for Peach & Pink Cashmere - since they are on The Hits

Good idea, but I was thinking a 4-disc "mini-boxset", but cheaply priced, is ideal.

.

My thinking is that it would something like this:

Disc 1: 1978 to 1984

Disc 2: 1985 to 1990

Disc 3: 1991 to 1999

Disc 4: 2000 to 2015

.

I think this would be just about right as a sampler for both casual and committed fans. It would be nice to dedicate half the project to post-80s' songs. But the 70s/80s material really needs two discs.

Honestly, the live album should come first. I finally made myself listen to it and it is absolutely extraordinary! It needs to be released!

purplemajesty23 said:

Honestly, the live album should come first. I finally made myself listen to it and it is absolutely extraordinary! It needs to be released!

this.

plus, who needs another best of or greatest hits package? it only offers something to people
who didn't care enough to listen to or buy his music in the last 20 years. it might be nice for
the record company to make an extra buck, yes, but for fans as such it ads nothing.

a good first release would be that live album since he spoke about releasing it and even put
'black sweat' up on tidal.

after that perhaps they could check if something new was near completion and if that is not
clearly enough a project or advanced enough to release without tampering, they would do a
lot better to just release the albums he finished and locked away in the vault, no matter how
old they are, be they from 1982 or 1998.

from what prince said in the rolling stone interview, there's probably at least 4 to 6 complete
albums by him in the vault, ready to go. spaced out over a few years those releases would
be able to go without anyone changing, adding or producing anything, so they would stand
as completed projects, 'composed, arranged, produced and performed by prince'.

these releases would then give his estate time to process the rest of the vault and catalogue
stuff, get in former associates/band members/engineers etc to help compile reasonable new
packages, or make lists of stuff that could be added to a remasters series, like a discs worth
of outtakes for each album, a live show from the period, released and unreleased videos for
songs on the albums etc.

when you think of it like that, prince himself actually already helped with curating the vault
since he made a bunch of complete albums and locked them away, so that there would be a
starting point and a way for people to go in and do things the right way instead of just going
in and rush releasing stuff out of context etc.

I don't know about a track list, but I do wish they would get a better name than 'The Very Best Of'... everybody knows a lot of the best stuff was never on the radio.

it might also be very hard to ever get such an album released, since there are just

too many record companies involved with his later stuff.

i suppose prince owns the mastertapes to all his post 1995 stuff but how are these

things tied up regarding publishing? it could be a bit of a nightmare.

IstenSzek said:

purplemajesty23 said:

Honestly, the live album should come first. I finally made myself listen to it and it is absolutely extraordinary! It needs to be released!

this.

plus, who needs another best of or greatest hits package? it only offers something to people
who didn't care enough to listen to or buy his music in the last 20 years. it might be nice for
the record company to make an extra buck, yes, but for fans as such it ads nothing.

a good first release would be that live album since he spoke about releasing it and even put
'black sweat' up on tidal.

after that perhaps they could check if something new was near completion and if that is not
clearly enough a project or advanced enough to release without tampering, they would do a
lot better to just release the albums he finished and locked away in the vault, no matter how
old they are, be they from 1982 or 1998.

from what prince said in the rolling stone interview, there's probably at least 4 to 6 complete
albums by him in the vault, ready to go. spaced out over a few years those releases would
be able to go without anyone changing, adding or producing anything, so they would stand
as completed projects, 'composed, arranged, produced and performed by prince'.

these releases would then give his estate time to process the rest of the vault and catalogue
stuff, get in former associates/band members/engineers etc to help compile reasonable new
packages, or make lists of stuff that could be added to a remasters series, like a discs worth
of outtakes for each album, a live show from the period, released and unreleased videos for
songs on the albums etc.

when you think of it like that, prince himself actually already helped with curating the vault
since he made a bunch of complete albums and locked them away, so that there would be a
starting point and a way for people to go in and do things the right way instead of just going
in and rush releasing stuff out of context etc.

Exactly!!

IstenSzek said:

jaypotton said:

IstenSzek said:

it might also be very hard to ever get such an album released, since there are just

too many record companies involved with his later stuff.

i suppose prince owns the mastertapes to all his post 1995 stuff but how are these

things tied up regarding publishing? it could be a bit of a nightmare.

To the best of my knowledge ALL Prince's albums after leaving Warners in 96 were released as one off P&D deals. Prince always retained all rights, kept the masters and retained the freedoms to reuse the music any way he saw fit in future. All the records labels were contracted to do was produce, promote and distribute (for a share of the royalties). What I don't know is whether the one off deals were in perpetuity (ie Arista are the only label who can ever release RUTJF) or were for a specified period? Prince also took ownership of his music publishing in recent years as well instead of licensing it to another publisher. So I suspect if Prince's estate wanted to do a new greatest hits package with later non Warner releases that would not be problematic.

great info

as regards the highlighted, one would think that after his very first 'free' album (emancipation) was
on a label that went belly up right in the middle of the album promotion, he probably took care that
in future none of his music was restricted to a certain label in perpetuity since these kind of things
did happen a lot. it happened again with Rave, for instance. etc etc.

it'll be interesting to see what kind of stories and details about these one of deals and other things
regarding his contracts will surface in the coming months/years. it's interesting stuff at the least.

I don't want anything that has already been officially released. We just need vault material from here on out.

Live album of his last show is the first thing that gets released. For us, it's part of the healing process, for everyone else in the world, they will just want to hear what his last show ever sounded like. Its a triple win, fans win, casual's win, whoever releases it wins because that sucker will sell.

Studio music second: perhaps making it a 50 song anthology from earlist to latest additions

There could also be an associated artist release, we know all the songs Prince did for other artists, that he has his own versions with his vocals on there. Studio version of Manic Monday, Nothing Compares 2 U, Jill Jones album, Mavis Staples, Tamar album, Bria album, all the time stuff, with him on lead, it's all in there.

Who knows, it's just an overwhelming amount of music in there. Going to be interesting to see how the dust settles here.

[Edited 4/30/16 8:48am]

I'm feeling so much emotion listening to that last Atlanta show...but in a good way. He wanted it out and it was already mixed. We've got to let them know that we did want that. I reallly feel it needs to be released. I'm not even saying that because I want it (which I of course do), but I feel it will bring a lot of good to his legacy.

The whole majority is in mourning of course and recognize Prince as he should've been long before but with this live album, people will actually be able to see a side of him that is rarely shown...rarely known to people.

Listening to this just feels so peaceful but there is so much soul and energy to it as well. It would be a Prince album in its own right in my opinion.

Listening to that concert makes me feel like I am actually there...anyone else feel the same way?

jaypotton said:

I would also rather have a live album as was hinted at by Prince himself. All alone at his piano, nice and intimate.

As mentioned by a few others I think this would be a great way of remembering his legacy. It was hinted that this might have been his next release.

Furthermore, before anything old from the Vault starts to appear, a possible release of what could have been HitNRun III with Free Urself and If Eye Could Get Ur Attention.

Doozer said:

DFUNK said:

Doozer said:

Another compilation of hits is not needed. We have three already: . The Hits/B Sides (also broken up into The Hits 1 and The Hits 2) The Very Best of Prince Ultimate . The first posthumous release should be unheard material or his final show in Atlanta. Or a collection of the most have highly bootlegged studio tracks to put an end to low quality bootleg sales. But my guess is any type of release is months or years away.

And all 3 of them are limited to material prior to 1993. That is my point. There is no compilation that includes his later material. As stated in my post, this would be aimed at general public who may not have the other 3 yet, as well has loyal Prince fans.

.

Yes, I understand that. So why spend more than half of another greatest hits collection on material available already in three other packages? If another "hits" collection is needed (tough to call many of them "hits" outside of TMBGITW — maybe "best of"?), do a disk 1 from the name change forward, and a disk 2 of unheard material that's highly curated.

Please not another hits collection. Talk about covered ground.

eyewishuheaven said:

I don't know about a track list, but I do wish they would get a better name than 'The Very Best Of'... everybody knows a lot of the best stuff was never on the radio.

We don't need another Greatist Hits album, but I have a feeling we'll get one anyway.

I can't really come up with a tracklist, but it should include more songs from Dirty Mind, Controversy, 1999, and Sign O The Times, Love Symbol album,

and add songs from The Gold Experience, Musicology, and 3121.

Definitely his final show.

- It has the 'hits' on it for the casual audience

- It appeals to hardcore fans

- It's unique, fresh, different to anything he's ever released, and adds to his legacy (softening the wider public to buy future releases)

- It's already set to go and was approved by Prince

I think "The Hits/The B-Sides" is a much better compilation than The Very Best of Prince. But I realize not everyone would want 3 discs worth of music.

Still, Prince just has too many classic tunes for one greatest hits disc. I think the D&P album is over-represented on The Very Best (as many songs from it as PR). I like "Money Don't Matter 2 Night," but it just wasn't a big enough success to justify the exclusion of bigger, arguably much better hits like "Pop Life," "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man," and "7."

I'm not sure if WB has access to the master of the single version of "TMBGITW" since it was released on an outside label. I always wondered if he deliberately withheld it, and that's why a different version on the song went on TGE.

More songs would have fit if they'd used the single edit of "Purple Rain." But I may be the only person who thinks that song does on too long. However, including only the single edit of "When Doves Cry" is kind of a crime.

[Edited 5/10/16 15:47pm]

[Edited 5/10/16 15:50pm]

[Edited 5/10/16 15:56pm]