This is a post aimed at everyone who was posting here in 2010, specifically later on in the year. You may remember this.

So back that year, rumors started circulating about 20Ten Deluxe. But like always, trying to get any kind of official clarification from Prince on his plans, just wasn't going to happen. This was years before he was on Twitter and all that kind of stuff.

I had already become friends with Anthony Malzone, who had done the design work for Lotusflow3r album and website, etc etc etc and was still doing quite a lot of work with Prince. I asked him directly about 20Ten Deluxe. He said yes, it existed, and Prince was in negotiations With Warners about releasing it, and intended to do exactly that. Hot Summer was given to Warners and there was even a WB promo CD that contained that exact song. He told me he was very proud of the deluxe edition and had worked very hard on it. Also, Funkenberry had posted that WB would be releasing 20Ten Deluxe, and when Rich Friends was played on that radio station, it was said to be from that album too.

I posted it here that the album existed. Maybe I shouldn't have. The org was a different place at that time. Anyway - two or three different members (most or all of whom got banned later down the line, funnily enough) threw major, major personal attacks at me, in multiple threads.

I was making it up, they told me.
I was full of shit.
I was "pretending to have insider info"
I was straight up lying.
This album didn't exist.

Blah, blah, blah.

At the end of the day - I knew I was telling the truth, lots of orgers appreciated the info, and the people dogging me out were the usual shit talkers we had around here. I wasn't going to tell them that Anthony was the one that told me about it because I obviously didn't want it getting back to Prince that someone in his employ was saying anything to anyone at unreleased projects. People in the Paisley camp had gotten fired for FAR less than that.

Anyway, I ended up catching heat when the album didn't come out. Of course, those aforementioned banned orgers took great delight in making fun of me for a while after it. It was kinda annoying.

The point to this story is that I just saw this, from my friend Mobeen's new book:

It's nice to finally get some closure on that issue. I'd actually completely forgotten about it until I saw this, and I was like "oh yeah, there was a few assholes clowning me when I told them about this"

For some reason, in my memory, I thought it was totally beileved about the deluxe edition, I was looking out fo it, and the extended Laydown semed to confirm.

I don't even remember any doubt. Especially in light of him having done the save thing with "Rave-"

thank you - very interresting. i often thought that prince had some bigger plans with that release. i remember reading something monthes before the release here on the org with nearly the final tracklist and the plan about pushing a single big time - nearly a year earlier was the track named - it was Laydown

prince was such a anti- buisnessman ,-)

i am sure he destroyed so many hit records

sorry about my bad english and i hope you understand what i am trying to say

Yeah, I felt for you back then. You went thru some hell. I remember the Lotusflower web fiasco. I subscribed and got the vibe that the site would be better. It certainly had the potential, just not the backing. Like dude said, Prince moved on.

I also got excited during that time cos there was a lot of talk from the web cats about cataloguing the Vault and so on. That added to the excitement that maybe Prince had become focused and open the Vault to us.

Sorry to ramble, nice info, thanks Militant.

by the way -did someone know why 20ten was not in the ebony mag? wasnt that the first plan ? it was with the rolling stone mag in germany but never got a release in the USA, why??? what happens back than?

trickster said:

by the way -did someone know why 20ten was not in the ebony mag? wasnt that the first plan ? it was with the rolling stone mag in germany but never got a release in the USA, why??? what happens back than?

Good question! I'm sorry to say I don't know - but hopefully someone here knows. I love that album and wish it would have been distributed normally. Thank goodness it is on Tidal - but man I'd do just about anything for 20Ten deluxe to have actually been created.

ufoclub said:

For some reason, in my memory, I thought it was totally beileved about the deluxe edition, I was looking out fo it, and the extended Laydown semed to confirm.

I don't even remember any doubt. Especially in light of him having done the save thing with "Rave-"

Yeah that.

I do remember some naysayers but I thought they were in the minority. I never had any doubt in the reports and presumed it was just another project that never came to fruition. It seemed like the lack of interest from the labels soured the deal for him.

We got a leak of the track that interested me most: Laydown Extended. Hopefully one day we'll get the full release.

djThunderfunk said:

ufoclub said:

For some reason, in my memory, I thought it was totally beileved about the deluxe edition, I was looking out fo it, and the extended Laydown semed to confirm.

I don't even remember any doubt. Especially in light of him having done the save thing with "Rave-"

Yeah that.

I do remember some naysayers but I thought they were in the minority. I never had any doubt in the reports and presumed it was just another project that never came to fruition. It seemed like the lack of interest from the labels soured the deal for him.

We got a leak of the track that interested me most: Laydown Extended. Hopefully one day we'll get the full release.

Personally I'm a big fan of the first half of the album. Would have loved extended versions of some of those.

26ten said:

trickster said:

by the way -did someone know why 20ten was not in the ebony mag? wasnt that the first plan ? it was with the rolling stone mag in germany but never got a release in the USA, why??? what happens back than?

Good question! I'm sorry to say I don't know - but hopefully someone here knows. I love that album and wish it would have been distributed normally. Thank goodness it is on Tidal - but man I'd do just about anything for 20Ten deluxe to have actually been created.

maybe you just have to ask https://www.officialpaisleypark.com

26ten said:

trickster said:

by the way -did someone know why 20ten was not in the ebony mag? wasnt that the first plan ? it was with the rolling stone mag in germany but never got a release in the USA, why??? what happens back than?

Good question! I'm sorry to say I don't know - but hopefully someone here knows. I love that album and wish it would have been distributed normally. Thank goodness it is on Tidal - but man I'd do just about anything for 20Ten deluxe to have actually been created.

IIRC, the Ebony deal fell through (never knew the details of why) and his interest moved. I agree that it would be interesting to have those missing details. I doubt officialpaisleypark.com will provide the answers though.

I always thought there was some form of official recognition that a Duluxe was on the way. Didn't Prince pull some tracks off the giveaway version near its release date for the very purpose of a later, 'full version' of the album?

I thought it was Prince himself that said the extended 'Laydown' would be coming on the full version, but I can't be sure where I heard that.

I though the other 'missing' tracks were Rich Friends, Cause & Effect, Hot Summer and Turn Me Loose, but I could well be wrong. Didn't keep a log of the info.

EmmaMcG said:

I got that album free with the paper here in Ireland. I wasn't a big Prince fan at the time, I wasn't too familiar with his music outside of what my boyfriend at the time made me listen to. I didn't like the album and I still don't. There were some good songs on it (Sticky Like Glue, Act of God and Laydown) but overall it was a bit meh. I liked Rich Friends though so I would be very interested to know what other songs were intended for the Deluxe edition. Does anyone know what other songs would have been included had it come to fruition?

I agree, there's only a few good songs on it but it's a very weak album and something is clearly missing on it. I remember how huge disappointment it was to get this album after the brilliant Lotusflow3r. I don't know if a deluxe edition could have saved 20ten but it would have made the album a little bit more interesting at least. My favorites from 20ten are Sticky Like Glue, Walk In Sand and Sea of everything

MIRvmn said:

EmmaMcG said:

I got that album free with the paper here in Ireland. I wasn't a big Prince fan at the time, I wasn't too familiar with his music outside of what my boyfriend at the time made me listen to. I didn't like the album and I still don't. There were some good songs on it (Sticky Like Glue, Act of God and Laydown) but overall it was a bit meh. I liked Rich Friends though so I would be very interested to know what other songs were intended for the Deluxe edition. Does anyone know what other songs would have been included had it come to fruition?

I agree, there's only a few good songs on it but it's a very weak album and something is clearly missing on it. I remember how huge disappointment it was to get this album after the brilliant Lotusflow3r. I don't know if a deluxe edition could have saved 20ten but it would have made the album a little bit more interesting at least. My favorites from 20ten are Sticky Like Glue, Walk In Sand and Sea of everything

Thoughts on Future Soul Song?

26ten said:

MIRvmn said:

I agree, there's only a few good songs on it but it's a very weak album and something is clearly missing on it. I remember how huge disappointment it was to get this album after the brilliant Lotusflow3r. I don't know if a deluxe edition could have saved 20ten but it would have made the album a little bit more interesting at least. My favorites from 20ten are Sticky Like Glue, Walk In Sand and Sea of everything

Thoughts on Future Soul Song?

I know I'm in the minority here, but I think its one of the weakest on the album. I think the same about Call Your Name on Musicology and I hate U on the Gold Experience. They are all Prince ballads by the numbers. To me, they are repeats of past successes , with Insatiable being the last true great one.

The ballad that I think did deliver and beat the usual pattern was Somewhere Here On Earth, followed by The Breakdown. Those didn't feel like repeats.

i've always loved "rich friends". on headphones that is a quality track for me,
there's so much going on in that song and it sounds to me like he put a lot of
work in it.

people still say it's shit and weak though. everyone has a different opinion so
whatever. glad to finally have confirmation that prince thought it was pretty
good too, since it was intended to be a single.

would love to know the tracklist for that 20Ten deluxe version one day and if
there were 'extended/longer' versions of some of those tracks like "Laveaux"
etc.

SquirrelMeat said:

26ten said:

Thoughts on Future Soul Song?

I know I'm in the minority here, but I think its one of the weakest on the album. I think the same about Call Your Name on Musicology and I hate U on the Gold Experience. They are all Prince ballads by the numbers. To me, they are repeats of past successes , with Insatiable being the last true great one.

The ballad that I think did deliver and beat the usual pattern was Somewhere Here On Earth, followed by The Breakdown. Those didn't feel like repeats.

I can see why you'd think that. There are too many parallels between Future Soul Song and The Beautiful Ones for me not to notice but I just loved the song so much I was willing to overlook it all.

.

Call My Name was kind of cool to me because his vocal register was lowering and it was interesting to hear him age a little bit.

Personally, apart from Laydown, I never listen to it. One of his weakest albums.

Maybe even him realized it didn´t deserve a Deluxe edition...

great to have confirmation. i would love to hear. i think 20ten is one of his strongest latterday albums.

Marco81 said:

He might have a tracklist if he was designing the box set...

+1

.

.

EG

SquirrelMeat said:

I also remember this at the time being 'confirmed'. I can't remember if there is a reference in a tour programme or a flyer.

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With regards the text in the origianl post, this implies Prince was over 20Ten and then gave it as a cover mount. I thought it was the other way round!

.

I kinda remember that 20Ten came out for free and then much later afterwards this would then be released for sale as the deluxe edition, after the free version had created the buzz and interest - in a similar way to Rave being first released and then Prince selling his own version.

.

Also, as this chap had created the artwork, it would be awesome if he knows what the full 2CD track listing is!!!

.

wow, great info. Thankyou. One of the many, many reasons I adore P is that trying to pin him down to a project was like trying to knit smoke!..he literally changed like the wind....what a journey he took us all on.

'Turn me Loose' was from an unreleased 2008 album that was also to include 'Prince and the Band'. Prince performed the song in front of the projected album cover on Leno in '08.

I want all of these unreleased albums to come out. ASAP.

But still I'd do anything to have Prince back here working on new music inspired by his experiences on the piano tour and his near-death experience on the plane. Anything.