A lot of his later "albums" were just a collection of songs wothout a concept.

[Edited 1/30/17 10:18am]

Hi Mushmackalenta

I think that collecting works from roughly the same period would yield a sufficient sense of unity, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable with it being presented as some kind of “lost” album. I have no problem with smaller, more focused releases geared toward the general public though.

Obviously, it would make sense to select tracks that work well together in any case. Any multi-disc set should be programmed chronologically in my view. 1998’s Crystal Ball was proof that the pick-and-mix approach doesn’t really work. I’ve said it before, but I think that the Miles Davis boxsets are a good model (The Complete Jack Johnson, The Cellar Door Sessions etc) – thematically linked, exhaustive, lovingly presented and so on. A little niche perhaps, so I’m not sure how viable such releases would be economically.

I quite like the selection that you made above. Just out of interest, are the full versions of Cosmic Day and Emotional Pump out there? I’ve only heard a snippet of the former, and a crappy mobile recording of Questlove playing the latter. I’m itching to hear Emotional Pump.

I agree that era-specific compilations would be the way to do it, with unused session track being bonus tracks for their appropriate albums. Still, I feel like WB is just going to pluck out the most talked-about unreleased material with no particular care or unifying theme, see: the terrible 4Ever tracklisting.

mushmackalenta said:

I was wondering how people would feel if some of the vault material was presented as an album as opposed to a compilation I'm thinking like 10 or so tracks that work well together to give the album experience rather than a box set of 4 discs. For instances something like this. Cosmic Day Come Elektra Tuesday Adonis and Bathsheba Everybody Wants What They Don't got In a Large Room With No Light Splash Emotional Pump Empty Room Heaven Go Would you accept this sort of thing as a real album or consider it as an abuse of the vault material as it wouldn't really be Prince's own vision?

Definitely a selection of "Lost" mid 1980s out takes, add a few more jams to it and I might buy it, such as Wally, Billy's Sunglasses and We Can Fuck and we have a nice set of bootlegs, perfectly mastered of course with copious notes about the songs written by Matt Thorne or Per Nilsen.

ludwig said:

A lot of his later "albums" were just a collection of songs wothout a concept.

[Edited 1/30/17 10:18am]

Nonsense.

Romeoblu said:

I think if they compiled the songs from the dream factory sessions that did not make sign of the times you would have one he'll of an album. Dream factory It's a wonderful day Train Teacher teacher In a large room with no light Sexual suicide Big tall wall Crystal ball Power fantastic Last heart Witness Movie star A place in heaven All my dreams. I think however I would rather receive a larger release and create my own play lists from it. However if they discover full Prince compiled albums I would love that. [Edited 1/30/17 14:04pm]

Some of those songs now belong to another album: Crystal Ball.

fen said:

Hi Mushmackalenta

I think that collecting works from roughly the same period would yield a sufficient sense of unity, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable with it being presented as some kind of “lost” album. I have no problem with smaller, more focused releases geared toward the general public though.

Obviously, it would make sense to select tracks that work well together in any case. Any multi-disc set should be programmed chronologically in my view. 1998’s Crystal Ball was proof that the pick-and-mix approach doesn’t really work. I’ve said it before, but I think that the Miles Davis boxsets are a good model (The Complete Jack Johnson, The Cellar Door Sessions etc) – thematically linked, exhaustive, lovingly presented and so on. A little niche perhaps, so I’m not sure how viable such releases would be economically.

I quite like the selection that you made above. Just out of interest, are the full versions of Cosmic Day and Emotional Pump out there? I’ve only heard a snippet of the former, and a crappy mobile recording of Questlove playing the latter. I’m itching to hear Emotional Pump.

They're not.

mushmackalenta said:

I was wondering how people would feel if some of the vault material was presented as an album as opposed to a compilation I'm thinking like 10 or so tracks that work well together to give the album experience rather than a box set of 4 discs. For instances something like this. Cosmic Day Come Elektra Tuesday Adonis and Bathsheba Everybody Wants What They Don't got In a Large Room With No Light Splash Emotional Pump Empty Room Heaven Go Would you accept this sort of thing as a real album or consider it as an abuse of the vault material as it wouldn't really be Prince's own vision?

I'm not sure I understand what else you suggest they might do. Even a 4 CD box-set would have to present some sort of a cohesive ensemble. I don't think they can possible do it in a totally random manner like Prince did with Crystal Ball: he was free to do a daring thing like this and I think it worked, but many others did not and look at the bashing he got for that. I can't imagine them releasing CD's where a remix of Hot Wit' U is played back to back with Splash, that'd be utterly absurd.

Call it albums or compilations it's the same in the end, I find the way people segregate those 2 words somewhat abusive: a compilation is made of previously released material, and everything made of unreleased material is an album. Prince won't have assembled it, but unless they take a comprehensive approach, as in releasing every possible version of every possible track in chronological order, which I don't believe would work with such an amount of material, I think trying to assemble songs in a cohesive manner, based on eras, is the sole possible approach.

So in the end it's all a matter of making the right editorial choices for each project: what's left out, what's included, in which order, which version of which song, what goes in with what... It can't be perfect, there'll always be debates among experts as to what should have been done, but if the people doing it are qualified and take advice from collaborators who were there for each particular project, it should work.

^ In the end, beyond trying to be faithful to P's vision, what matters is that you get a smooth listening experience for listeners.

Things that can't really fit anywhere, such as the 7 different versions of any given songs, can always be released separately and digitally, or in the form of a maxi-single, if they choose a comprehensive approach, which of course one can only hope they will.

mushmackalenta said:

I was wondering how people would feel if some of the vault material was presented as an album as opposed to a compilation I'm thinking like 10 or so tracks that work well together to give the album experience rather than a box set of 4 discs. For instances something like this. Cosmic Day Come Elektra Tuesday Adonis and Bathsheba Everybody Wants What They Don't got In a Large Room With No Light Splash Emotional Pump Empty Room Heaven Go Would you accept this sort of thing as a real album or consider it as an abuse of the vault material as it wouldn't really be Prince's own vision?

That's a weak looking album IMO.

While it's all well and good to try and compile albums from stuff we know, do people really want an album fuill of stuff they've already got great quality bootleg versions of?

Personally I'd be excited by albums with music I haven't heard yet. Or top notch live releases.

TheEnglishGent said:

mushmackalenta said:

I was wondering how people would feel if some of the vault material was presented as an album as opposed to a compilation I'm thinking like 10 or so tracks that work well together to give the album experience rather than a box set of 4 discs. For instances something like this. Cosmic Day Come Elektra Tuesday Adonis and Bathsheba Everybody Wants What They Don't got In a Large Room With No Light Splash Emotional Pump Empty Room Heaven Go Would you accept this sort of thing as a real album or consider it as an abuse of the vault material as it wouldn't really be Prince's own vision?

That's a weak looking album IMO.

While it's all well and good to try and compile albums from stuff we know, do people really want an album fuill of stuff they've already got great quality bootleg versions of?

Personally I'd be excited by albums with music I haven't heard yet. Or top notch live releases.

Mushmackalenta's tracklist is utterly absurd, for that and several other reasons. But hopefully this will be dealt with by professionals.

TheEnglishGent said:

I think, if done correctly, that would be fantastic. My favorite Hendrix album is "First Rays of the New Rising Sun" which is exactly that... A Pseudo Posthumous album/compilation.

mushmackalenta said:

databank said:

mushmackalenta said:

databank said:

Mushmackalenta's tracklist is utterly absurd, for that and several other reasons. But hopefully this will be dealt with by professionals.

I was using that selection as an example, however I feel to call it absurd is in itself absurd. The Crystal ball set was a mess. I rarely listen to it as an album. Therefore if those tracks on Crystal ball were used again but put in a better context I really wouldn't mind.

In fact once you go past the initial shock, you get to realize that Crystal Ball was super carefully assembled in order to flow brillantly. Now one may consider Prince has succeeded or failed in this experiment, but the care and intention were there, the songs weren't thrown in entirely randomly. I've personally listened to it as a whole a zillion times, and 19 years later it still makes me groove my ass each time

.

I called your tracklist absurd because besides us knowing all the songs, it flows super badly, has too many downers, probably doesn't flow well though I'd have to hear it to really be sure, and could be assembled with a little more cohesiveness in terms of the choice of songs. Maybe "absurd" was excessive, I'll give you that, but it wouldn't work very well. However as you said it was an example so no need to argue about it all night

The difference can be seen comparing the posthumus Michael Jackson album's, "Michael" and ... whatever the second one was ... and the non-posthumus Bob Dylan "Bootleg Series", which comes in volumes. I greatly prefer the latter. Fake albums are cheesy, tend to be short, and feel dishonest / as opposed to "these are 30 unreleased tracks from years x - y".

.

Of course, the quality of the material is really what makes or breaks it.

databank said:

fen said:

Just out of interest, are the full versions of Cosmic Day and Emotional Pump out there? I’ve only heard a snippet of the former, and a crappy mobile recording of Questlove playing the latter. I’m itching to hear Emotional Pump.

They're not.

Thank you for taking the time to confirm this Databank – I thought I'd missed something.

I share the desire to hear new stuff, but I think that the best of the circulating tracks really deserve an official release. I'd happily purchase pristine collections of all those tracks provided that they were presented in a logical, coherent fashion. I'm less worried about the overall flow to be honest, just that they be designed to inform and illuminate his key creative periods.

Assuming that they exist, I'd be just as interested in hearing the discarded experiments, the incremental sketches, the weird sh!t – anything that illustrates his creative process. This is what I like about the Miles sets – it's amazing how much interesting and diverse material was generated in preparation for what were pretty focused albums (especially in the case of Jack Johnson and On The Corner). It's unlikely that this approach would have sufficient commercial appeal, but it would be interesting and valuable for fellow artists going forward. It's like any important artist, a great writer whose work has moved you in some way... once you've poured over and absorbed the central work, the notebooks, scraps and preparatory work becomes interesting. This is what I like about Susan's recent suggestion.

E319 said:

databank said:

databank said:

ludwig said:

A lot of his later "albums" were just a collection of songs wothout a concept.

[Edited 1/30/17 10:18am]

Nonsense.

No.

why would anyone have to compile albums ??...he had many already sequenced and complete...this is what the estate needs to release