Dangelus said:

Moonbeam Levels got played on UK Radio 2 today. Very cool

I was just about to post the same thing!

musicfan77 said:

shame on Warners for not putting together some type of video for "Moonbeam Levels".This song has the potential to be a big hit.

SoulAlive said:

shame on Warners for not putting together some type of video for "Moonbeam Levels".This song has the potential to be a big hit.

i think it was a poor choice... it should have been something truly unheard and with all the unreleased songs WITH videos... why not something NOT in circulation and with a VIDEO?

CherryMoon57 said:

dodger said:

dodger said:

CherryMoon57 said:

I was just about to post the same thing!

Now on UK iTunes and available as single download, not 'album only' as expected. Is The Cross nailed on (honestly no pun intended!) as the Prince For Christmas choice?

Looks like it's gone again from Dutch iTunes. Was available for a while but now back to pre-release...

skipthecharades said:

Tried to buy on Amazon and my payment isn't working even though my card is correct and fine.

dodger said:

Amazon UK has now taken it off and is saying 25th November.

I JUST WANT TO BUY THE SONG.

Thrilled that it is available for purchase through Itunes!

I posted this on Facebook, so I might as well post it here.

Man it feels kinda surreal to finally have this track in great quality as part of an official release, I'm very glad that they made it purchasable as an individual track as I didn't have any intention of buying 4ever. This is a huge improvement on the hissy and unclear bootleg versions we've had so far, let's hope that we'll see official releases of many more vault tracks in the coming years.

Agree one thousand percent!

SoulAlive said:

shame on Warners for not putting together some type of video for "Moonbeam Levels".This song has the potential to be a big hit.

Exactly.

Everybody,be sure to purchase a copy of this song on iTunes....let's all turn this song into the hit that it deserves to be!

...

[Edited 11/22/16 14:41pm]

feeluupp said:

Good song but highly over rated here on the Org... From all the amazing songs and out takes from 1982... Moonbeam Levels in my opinion is not that "special".

Objectively speaking, I have to agree.

SoulAlive said:

Everybody,be sure to purchase a copy of this song on iTunes....let's all turn this song into the hit that it deserves to be!

...

[Edited 11/22/16 14:41pm]

I'll be buying it through Itunes in Australia once it is released. Best song released this millennium.

Moonbeam said:

Moonbeam said:

I posted this on Facebook, so I might as well post it here.

Today is kind of a big deal to me. Today marks the release of what has heretofore been my favorite unreleased Prince song, “Moonbeam Levels”, forever immortalized on a new compilation that casts it as being of the same caliber as his biggest hits. Of the hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of unreleased songs in his massive vault, it is “Moonbeam Levels” that was chosen to share disc space with songs like “Kiss”, “Sign o’ the Times”, and “Diamonds and Pearls”. Curious customers who decide to give Prince a try for the first time because they like “Purple Rain” or “Raspberry Beret” and pick up this 2-disc set will be graced to hear this song as if it is just another highlight in a career full of them, rather than its current status as a deeply beloved gem sitting amongst an endless treasure trove of unreleased goodies that have seen fans pay top dollar for decades for 10th generation cassettes besieged by hiss and distortion muffling most of their sheen. But it is in that world of crazy devotion, those seas of bootlegs by the thousand chronicling a parallel universe of purple grooves and lightning-in-a-bottle concert experiences from which “Moonbeam Levels” comes. No more.

Prince fans have clamored for the release of these countless unpolished jewels to make their way onto official releases for decades, and not just so that we have these songs in superior sound quality. This may seem peculiar (and rightly so), but for so many of us, Prince has been such a constant source of limitless joy that we are so eager to share it. To be a Prince fan is to feel like you’ve stumbled upon the world’s best kept secret – that somehow you’ve tapped into a new and glorious consciousness, and as such, you’re eager to see this Uptown expand its borders as far as its diminutive colossus of a Prince can spread.

And so it is that my brother and I came to buy copies of his albums just to give away to those cashiers who responded well to hearing Prince’s music as we went through a drive-thru. We collected books that documented his feverish recording sessions and used this information to concoct our own alternative Prince albums of unreleased outtakes, agonizing over track sequencing and font sizes and colors for the album covers we designed. As such, this release of a song from his precious vault of music is a momentous occasion rendered so painfully bittersweet by the circumstances of its green light. Surely, as big of a moment as this is, I’m positive that all of us who love Prince would happily exchange it if we could somehow rewrite the history of April 21st such that the world kept turning with is most artful passenger still alive and well. But we are left with small consolations now, and I’m going to try to take what joy I can from these moments as they come.

Nonetheless, any other song chosen to turn the key unlocking Prince’s secret genius would not have had the same personal impact. “Moonbeam Levels” represents a glimpse into Prince’s vulnerability – it is a desperate plea for help from someone who has reached the end of his ability to persevere through the world while feeling so alien in its midst - a humble and hopeful supplication for other-worldly healing. It is this feeling of otherness that unites Prince fans as a community, and I can’t think of a song that better represents that feeling than “Moonbeam Levels”.

This is a song that inspired me through many tough times growing up as an awkward kid in a place in which I never felt that I had a place. This is the song that gave me the username with which I registered on prince.org: it was as Moonbeam that I came to meet the love of my life, Tracy. And it was this song that I played on the piano in the funeral home during the last moments with my father before his cremation.

In a year that has been tough on so many fronts, I’ll take this as a reminder of the strength that I’ve needed to overcome previous hardships. The hope that the majesty of this song can more easily find its way into some other souls in need of solace brings me great joy.

Beautiful ...thank you x I commented on facebook too

[Edited 11/22/16 18:44pm]

RaspBerryGirlFriend said:

Man it feels kinda surreal to finally have this track in great quality as part of an official release, I'm very glad that they made it purchasable as an individual track as I didn't have any intention of buying 4ever. This is a huge improvement on the hissy and unclear bootleg versions we've had so far, let's hope that we'll see official releases of many more vault tracks in the coming years.

Actually, it appears to be the same source as what was used on Blast From The Past 2.0. Pretty crap if it's been sourced from this boot, although it sounds slightly crisper EQ wise.

jjam said:

RaspBerryGirlFriend said:

Man it feels kinda surreal to finally have this track in great quality as part of an official release, I'm very glad that they made it purchasable as an individual track as I didn't have any intention of buying 4ever. This is a huge improvement on the hissy and unclear bootleg versions we've had so far, let's hope that we'll see official releases of many more vault tracks in the coming years.

Actually, it appears to be the same source as what was used on Blast From The Past 2.0. Pretty crap if it's been sourced from this boot, although it sounds slightly crisper EQ wise.

.

I share the same belief. It's mostly better than what we've had. That doesn't take away that it's varyingly (courtesy of the EQ changes) muddled, screechy, and tinny. They certainly do not appear to have consulted the original multitrack. I realize that the original may have deteriorated slightly through inattention to these older tapes, and that the song may have been recorded 'hot' (as with 'Little Red Corvette'), but this sounds to be back-sourced from the bootleggers, or or a digitally enhanced 'rip' from a test cassette/pressing or other non-multitrack/non-master source. It sounds (facetiously) like a 32KHz RealAudio stream.

.

Wherever they drew this from, it was a barely-lifting-a-finger effort for them. Decaying vintage in-house test cassette, or the hasty digital transfer of the some of the tapes baked back 10-15 years ago (perhaps the one teased at as an offer for NPGMC subscribers, which would have been a substantial upgrade versus what was circulating at the time).

.

I was holding out for something having the clarity and sonic punch of the tracks on '1999', in particular 'Free'. We may never have a truly 'pristine' version of this song, if such a source for it still exists. Now that it has been officially liberated in some form, the Estate will move on.

.

[Edited 11/22/16 21:02pm]

The official version sounds pretty much like the bootleg I had for years...

When I heard the sample on Amazon it sounded much better imo. What are you guys listening to it on?

Trust me, Moonbeam Levels would have been digitally transferred if it was considered for release on Rave - around this time, the multitracks of his albums were also digitally transferred.

I think it's ridiculously cheap to use a bootleg as the source for this track. I'm not on Twitter but someone should contact Londell about this.

jjam said:

Trust me, Moonbeam Levels would have been digitally transferred if it was considered for release on Rave - around this time, the multitracks of his albums were also digitally transferred.

I think it's ridiculously cheap to use a bootleg as the source for this track. I'm not on Twitter but someone should contact Londell about this.

.

Suggests the posthumous Purple 'transition team' knows very little as to where to locate these archived materials in their various forms, nor much about their recording history, nor have personnel at their disposal capable of operating vintage equipment for what has not already been digitized in a 2016-convenient format.

.

Will the commercial interest down the road be enough to sustain costlier and deeper interrogations of the Vault, if the initial cut-and-paste Hits release, hot on the heals of his passing, wasn't financial incentive enough?

.

We may eventually get truly rare material, as subsequent releases will be more dependent on the fanbase rather than the broader public, but don't expect newly mastered or multitrack-sourced recordings (for material from '78-'91), unless those are easily locatable and readily at hand. (PR Deluxe may be a partial exception, as he delivered the bulk of it to WB himself, although likely little beyond possibly EI to excite. I suspect some project/era-inaccurate outtake material may be added to the second disc, however, by the Estate).

.

Another complicating circumstance that doesn't bode well for those wishing for the release of his own vocal take versions of the more obscure associated artist songs ('Dance Electric' might be in reach, however).

.

[Edited 11/23/16 4:34am]

This is a mess.

Moonbeam said:

I posted this on Facebook, so I might as well post it here.

Today is kind of a big deal to me. Today marks the release of what has heretofore been my favorite unreleased Prince song, “Moonbeam Levels”, forever immortalized on a new compilation that casts it as being of the same caliber as his biggest hits. Of the hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of unreleased songs in his massive vault, it is “Moonbeam Levels” that was chosen to share disc space with songs like “Kiss”, “Sign o’ the Times”, and “Diamonds and Pearls”. Curious customers who decide to give Prince a try for the first time because they like “Purple Rain” or “Raspberry Beret” and pick up this 2-disc set will be graced to hear this song as if it is just another highlight in a career full of them, rather than its current status as a deeply beloved gem sitting amongst an endless treasure trove of unreleased goodies that have seen fans pay top dollar for decades for 10th generation cassettes besieged by hiss and distortion muffling most of their sheen. But it is in that world of crazy devotion, those seas of bootlegs by the thousand chronicling a parallel universe of purple grooves and lightning-in-a-bottle concert experiences from which “Moonbeam Levels” comes. No more.

Prince fans have clamored for the release of these countless unpolished jewels to make their way onto official releases for decades, and not just so that we have these songs in superior sound quality. This may seem peculiar (and rightly so), but for so many of us, Prince has been such a constant source of limitless joy that we are so eager to share it. To be a Prince fan is to feel like you’ve stumbled upon the world’s best kept secret – that somehow you’ve tapped into a new and glorious consciousness, and as such, you’re eager to see this Uptown expand its borders as far as its diminutive colossus of a Prince can spread.

And so it is that my brother and I came to buy copies of his albums just to give away to those cashiers who responded well to hearing Prince’s music as we went through a drive-thru. We collected books that documented his feverish recording sessions and used this information to concoct our own alternative Prince albums of unreleased outtakes, agonizing over track sequencing and font sizes and colors for the album covers we designed. As such, this release of a song from his precious vault of music is a momentous occasion rendered so painfully bittersweet by the circumstances of its green light. Surely, as big of a moment as this is, I’m positive that all of us who love Prince would happily exchange it if we could somehow rewrite the history of April 21st such that the world kept turning with is most artful passenger still alive and well. But we are left with small consolations now, and I’m going to try to take what joy I can from these moments as they come.

Nonetheless, any other song chosen to turn the key unlocking Prince’s secret genius would not have had the same personal impact. “Moonbeam Levels” represents a glimpse into Prince’s vulnerability – it is a desperate plea for help from someone who has reached the end of his ability to persevere through the world while feeling so alien in its midst - a humble and hopeful supplication for other-worldly healing. It is this feeling of otherness that unites Prince fans as a community, and I can’t think of a song that better represents that feeling than “Moonbeam Levels”.

This is a song that inspired me through many tough times growing up as an awkward kid in a place in which I never felt that I had a place. This is the song that gave me the username with which I registered on prince.org: it was as Moonbeam that I came to meet the love of my life, Tracy. And it was this song that I played on the piano in the funeral home during the last moments with my father before his cremation.

In a year that has been tough on so many fronts, I’ll take this as a reminder of the strength that I’ve needed to overcome previous hardships. The hope that the majesty of this song can more easily find its way into some other souls in need of solace brings me great joy.

jjam said:

RaspBerryGirlFriend said:

Man it feels kinda surreal to finally have this track in great quality as part of an official release, I'm very glad that they made it purchasable as an individual track as I didn't have any intention of buying 4ever. This is a huge improvement on the hissy and unclear bootleg versions we've had so far, let's hope that we'll see official releases of many more vault tracks in the coming years.

Actually, it appears to be the same source as what was used on Blast From The Past 2.0. Pretty crap if it's been sourced from this boot, although it sounds slightly crisper EQ wise.

Yeah you're 100% right as far as I can tell, I had a listen to these two different versions yesterday night and couldn't really notice any difference. I had completely forgotten that the BFTP 2.0 version existed and was using older, less clear bootleg versions as my mental point of comparison. It is as you say a real shame if this version of the track was taken from a bootleg.