The other day, I came across the "Ridiculous" version of SOTT. It's a 7-disc version made by a fan with B-sides, alternate recordings, the Black Album, etc. (Of course, it was missing the original, stripped down version of It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night, but I digress...)

It got me thinking. Pick an album in the Prince catalog, and make a huge, 3-disc minimum version of it, the bigger the better. You can use good-to-high quality alternate versions, b-sides, good remixes, unreleased tracks, and good-quality live material. You can also use tracks from whatever protege Prince was mentoring at the time.

My belief is that such an album would exist, with material on-hand to most die-hard Princeophiles, from 1999 to 3121. Before 1999 and after 3121 would probably be tougher. Thoughts?

Edit- changed post title per suggestion.

[Edited 10/27/16 18:50pm]

As an alternative idea, I think instead of album versions like this (although I do love the journey), is to house those recording sessions into a set of disks. He probably recorded 2 cds worth of stuff at a time, depending. Those 80s Sunset Sound, and home recordings listed in DMSR and the like would really highlight his thought process at the time for that group of songs. That would be a great thing. Peter Gabriel sort of did the same thing with the So album, and the session takes.

Actually they're called "Homemade Deluxe Editions".
"Ridiculously" was probably added to SOTT given the extravagant number of discs.

You may want to change the thread's title otherwise many will skip it IMO.

The good thing about some "Deluxe Editions" is that they're made out of ripped vinyls,
and while some may need EQ adjustments, they sound way much better
than the eighties era official CDs.

"Controversy" and "Dirty Mind" are a perfect example of how much
WB butchered the sound of the eighties albums due to poor mastering.
It's a miracle Prince sold as many millions of them with such a shitty sound.

The best I've come across so far is the "1986: One Year In The Life".
Now that's some box. But beware, it has videos, lives, interviews, the whole shebang:
it weighs almost 20 Gigabytes.

Thanks for the suggestion, bonatoc. I need to find a nice deluxe edition of 1999- the CDs just kill me in quality.

That 1986 project sounds like fun!

bonatoc said:

"Controversy" and "Dirty Mind" are a perfect example of how much
WB butchered the sound of the eighties albums due to poor mastering.
It's a miracle Prince sold as many millions of them with such a shitty sound.

.

Why would WBR be blamed for that bad mastering job? From what I've gathered mastering was handled by Prince's camp, WBR only got finished products.

.

CD mastering in the 1980s was quite simply in its infancy, and there should have been remasters later on. Guess who blocked that?

wishlish said:

Thanks for the suggestion, bonatoc. I need to find a nice deluxe edition of 1999- the CDs just kill me in quality.

That 1986 project sounds like fun!

More info here, and a review here.

It also was briefly discussed here around the time of its release.

BartVanHemelen said:

bonatoc said:

"Controversy" and "Dirty Mind" are a perfect example of how much
WB butchered the sound of the eighties albums due to poor mastering.
It's a miracle Prince sold as many millions of them with such a shitty sound.

.

Why would WBR be blamed for that bad mastering job? From what I've gathered mastering was handled by Prince's camp, WBR only got finished products.

.

CD mastering in the 1980s was quite simply in its infancy, and there should have been remasters later on. Guess who blocked that?

Thanks for the input, Bart.

Although it seems very strange to me that Bernie Grundman was handling the analog mastering, but the A/D conversion was left to Prince's camp. As PRN was the producer, it is very possible that PRN was the entity that commissioned Grundman, and then handled the master tapes to WB.
I don't have a CD at hand, but I vaguely remember the liner notes mentioning the company/entity/whatever in charge of the A/D transfer.

Also agree about the digital mastering being its infancy, but... I have some late eighties CD from other artists/record companies that have proper dynamic range. There are too many variables that can explain the difference, but still...

Whomever it was, it's a massacre when A/Bing the stuff.
Take the first seconds of "Dirty Mind": all transients have been decapitated on the CD.
The reverb tails are murky. The Prinz is castrated.

The only big taboo question left is: at which point did the opiods alter Prince's judgement and increased its paranoia? Could the WB Wars have originated mainly due to substance intake? I'm not sure this question is thread material (I'll be crucified by the zealots), but in the end, as there seems to be little to no logic in Prince's behaviour starting from the 90's, it's one of the plausible reasons I hang to.

Here's a man overprotective of its catalog, living for his music, very demanding when it comes to sound quality, and yet who completely overlooks how its albums sound. It doesn't make any sense.

[Edited 10/28/16 2:30am]

bonatoc said:

Here's a man overprotective of its catalog, living for his music, very demanding when it comes to sound quality, and yet who completely overlooks how its albums sound. It doesn't make any sense.

It's an interesting question. As far as I can tell, he was only obsessive about the quality of the sound in a live setting. I think he lived for the music only in the moment it was being created. By the next day, he'd moved on, not seemingly giving a great deal of thought to the sound quality of whatever was recorded and actually released.

I've seen this polemic on the Org before 04/21 on some replies around the same subject, it bascially says that Prince overlooked the sound in the studio.

What I think these people fail to understand, is that (and it's just an example) SOTT in its analog incarnations (Vinyl and K7) sounds incredible because it's organic and pristine at the same time.

SOTT sound lo-fi filtered throuhg hi-fi. Or maybe it's the opposite.
Whatever.

Massive Attack (It, Hot Thing for the deep purple and the red), Beck (the yellows and oranges of Play In The Sunshine, the browns and blue of I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man), the first Blur album (the peach and Black of Adore), Nellee Hopper & Bjork (the lo-fi of Hot Thing, Forever In My Life, the sonic hyper-realisms of Starfish & Coffee and U Got The Look), I could dropping names all day — but we'd be here 'til next october.

Take a 70's valve hi-fi amplifier, a Pioneer, something that weighed a ton, put a top notch sapphire on Dirty Mind, and it's one of the best sounding albums of all time.

I personally consider Irresistible Bitch (analog, are you following?) to be one of the best sonic experiences ever, along with Erotic City, Hello, 4 The Tears in Your Eyes, Wonderful Ass, geez I'm doing it again.

I cannot believe any of his friends never told him. They were all musicians, trained ears.


Last and defintive example. Some songs are mixed so good they kick ass even in mp3 format.
I recently grabbed from YT a 33 Mb "All My Dreams".
During the finale, I don't if it has slightly re-equed, I had an epiphany. Tears came to my eyes. I mean I've listend to the damn thing like a hundred times, it's my signature for Pete's Skate.

The voice of Prince was suspended in mid-air, with the level far in the mix, like some orb of Wendies and Lisas surrounding him, and him doing 3th, 4th and 5ths harmonies at full volume, effortlessly.

I know I'll never get that (renewed, reborn, what the fuck) high again.
Sometimes music on headphones is as potent as heroin.

Fuck, maybe Prince choosed to transition because of was going deaf.

Wasn't the ear ornament masking an earing aid?

To underline my theory of Prince being a great (and very underrated) mixer, is that "For You" and "Prince" sound fucking pristine. He had assistant engineers. I mean he learned all he had to learn around the time Chris Moon was handling him the keys to Studio 80, right?

I mean all of his 76-77-78 demos are impressive sounding demos. He knew how to make a fat sound and a crystalline sound, he already had digested Sly, Stevie and George subconsciously, just by digging their records. Prince, the human sponge.

I don't understand why some can't appreciate "Another Lonely Christmas". Besides having the most absurd and greatest basslines for a ballad, it's a sonic masterpiece, it's over the top despair, it's grandiose.
"Gold" sound a bit like Bruce Swedien going after the spirit of "Another Lonely Christmas".
OK, some days Gold actually sounds like you're on a top of a mountain, but you have to be in the mood for it.
Whereas Purple Rain draws you in. Gold takes more effort in the sense that it requires to have a good knowledge of Prince's previous records to fully appreciate it.
Otherwise it may appear to the casual listener like bling-bling and messianic hallucinations.
Superbly executed, but "too large for life", if you see what I mean.
It takes balls to put out a production that looks like The Great Wall.

But the warmth of the Oberheim and the DX7 and the Linn satured, over-EQued, flangered, phasered, laid on tape and staying analog from the producer to the consumer is something I'm glad I was twelve and I naturally had the damn full range, from 20 hz to 20 khz.

Now I need an EQ to compensate, man.

[Edited 10/28/16 18:21pm]