droppingdishes said:

My first topic was prompted by my first quick listening session of some of the recent leaks. Tracks like the Feel U Up and She's Always In My Hair demos and several others made me wonder. Susan Rogers and others have always relayed the narrative that Prince would record, mix and finish a song in one session, however long. But more and more examples pop up of well-known tracks where signifcant work was done over several sessions and several earlier mixdowns exists.

Do you think that this narrative might be less true than previously believed? Similar to how in the early years it turns out he wasn't truly the one-man band that he was portrayed as.

Just a thought.

i'm sure it depended on the song, revision is an all important tool for any artist. I'm sure Prince did his share of revisions and got better ideas for songs all the time. I still get new ideas for old songs years later, However, i'm sure that prince did often do everything in one session. You can kind of hear improvements in many of the extended mixes too which shows the songs were still on his mind in some capacity. Also, i think it depends on what he was doing, we know for a fact that Prince put together purple rain very painstakingly, he did a million studio edits and overdubs before the major songs like Purple Rain and Let's Go Crazy were done. At least for that one album, he seemed to go over and over stuff, apparently even having the band rehearse for hours on one riff. He certainly didn't do that for most of his career, stories were that he did lovesexy/batman/atwiad in about the period of a week or less.

I never believed that.

The recent leaks provide evidence that Prince didn't attempt to nail his vocal performance for each and every track he recorded. Previously we had heard only a few tracks like "Melody Cool" from the later period that had him doing demo-like vocals, but the vocals on many of the recent leaks of the earlier tracks ("Glamorous Life", "Screams Of Passion") suggest that when the pieces were intended for protege artists he didn't give his all when singing them.

I have no way of actually knowing (like the rest of us), but, it would seem alot more plausible talking about the Prince of the 2000's "ProTools" era, but back in the 70's, 80's and '90s, dealing with a bunch of heavy tapes and analog equipment, that would seem very daunting even for somebody with the endurance and fortitude he possessed to knock out complete songs in one shot on a consistent basis.

scorp84 said:

I have no way of actually knowing (like the rest of us), but, it would seem alot more plausible talking about the Prince of the 2000's "ProTools" era, but back in the 70's, 80's and '90s, dealing with a bunch of heavy tapes and analog equipment, that would seem very daunting even for somebody with the endurance and fortitude he possessed to knock out complete songs in one shot on a consistent basis.

i think it all depends on the song, many of his songs were sparse and simple and as for the tapes and bulky stuff, he had a lot of people helping him by the time of Purple Rain so he didn't have to worry as much about the other stuff. I could definitely see it, definitely.

This narrative was only believed by those not paying attention, we've all been guilty of it at some point i'm sure.

e.g. the story of the Parade intro tracks was always that he laid down the basics of the first 5 or whatever tracks in a single take, it wasn't that he finished them in that same session. People added onto the stories in their own head.

[Edited 7/23/17 14:58pm]

For me, I never thought or believed he finished a song entirely in one day.

Personally, I think "Take 1" is Prince getting the song out of his brain and onto tape. IIRC correctly he mentoned this in a written interview, that the songs came from God and he was the medium. Something to that effect. In that regard, he was getting the idea(s) down before they got lost or jumbled up with the next idea(s) that were flowing through him.

And if that's true, that's pretty amazing.

Go to any fine art museum . . . many times, you can see the artist's sketches (some good, some bad) leading up to the final masterpiece. That's kind of what a lot of these outttakes are -- the sketches.

talent can accomplish the miraculous, they say most of Elvis' sun sessions were done in a couple takes, Jerry Lee Lewis' Whole Lotta Shakin' was done in one take, I think the first take of Purple Haze was the one that was released, if not, it was not far from it. it all really depends on the song and what the artist wants to do with it, Jimmy Jam said Prince had the song 1999 done overnight, whether he meant the backing vocals via jill and dez i doubt but he says it was done in one night. Quincy Jones once said something that is very true of songs, it can take five minutes or five years to complete a song. With Prince, I'm sure he had lots of songs that came out of his subconscious fully formed or close to it.

Se7en said:

For me, I never thought or believed he finished a song entirely in one day.

Personally, I think "Take 1" is Prince getting the song out of his brain and onto tape. IIRC correctly he mentoned this in a written interview, that the songs came from God and he was the medium. Something to that effect. In that regard, he was getting the idea(s) down before they got lost or jumbled up with the next idea(s) that were flowing through him.

And if that's true, that's pretty amazing.

Go to any fine art museum . . . many times, you can see the artist's sketches (some good, some bad) leading up to the final masterpiece. That's kind of what a lot of these outttakes are -- the sketches.

The story that the song "Sign O' The Times" was written, recorded and mixed in one day was told so many times that it was obvious that this one was one of a few.

And I guess we all know that "Power Fantastic" is a 1st-Take-recording.

So if there were many other tracks with a quite fantastic recording-background story, I think we would have heard of it.

Neverthless:

Prince's "sketches" are mostly just so wonderful (and sometimes even more enjoyable to me).

In all honesty, I never really thought any Prince song was "finished".

He'd do so much with them live, or have other versions out there - he may have considered some songs not worth revisiting, but very few just stayed the same over the years.

When songs as iconic as Little Red Corvette and Let's Go Crazy end up sounding vastly different years later in live shows, it suggests he saw everything as capable of evolving.

droppingdishes said:

My first topic was prompted by my first quick listening session of some of the recent leaks. Tracks like the Feel U Up and She's Always In My Hair demos and several others made me wonder. Susan Rogers and others have always relayed the narrative that Prince would record, mix and finish a song in one session, however long. But more and more examples pop up of well-known tracks where signifcant work was done over several sessions and several earlier mixdowns exists.

Do you think that this narrative might be less true than previously believed? Similar to how in the early years it turns out he wasn't truly the one-man band that he was portrayed as.

Just a thought.

It doesn't change the narrative at all because 'finishing' and mixing the song in the moment of creating it means to me that Prince put everything he heard or saw for the song on the record right then and there. Many of these songs were recorded years before they were released, if you recorded a song in 1980 and decided to use it in 2015, there are going to be significant sonic changes to the 2015 song. Also, She's Always In My Hair and songs that were recorded solo first and then recorded with the band will surely sound broader sonically with the band playing than just Prince. So, finishing a song I've always interpreted as completing the idea at that moment, not necessarily finished to the point of being ready for release although a lot of songs were completely finished and ready to go as well.

boom

Polo1026 said:

It doesn't change the narrative at all because 'finishing' and mixing the song in the moment of creating it means to me that Prince put everything he heard or saw for the song on the record right then and there.

alxndrstff said:

In all honesty, I never really thought any Prince song was "finished".

He'd do so much with them live, or have other versions out there - he may have considered some songs not worth revisiting, but very few just stayed the same over the years.

When songs as iconic as Little Red Corvette and Let's Go Crazy end up sounding vastly different years later in live shows, it suggests he saw everything as capable of evolving.

it's true, he used to say "it's got to sound better live than on the record" which isn't really possible unless you're doing something to it, and even then, you can't compare to the perfection of a studio, but he wasn't saying that literally.

alxndrstff said:

In all honesty, I never really thought any Prince song was "finished".

He'd do so much with them live, or have other versions out there - he may have considered some songs not worth revisiting, but very few just stayed the same over the years.

When songs as iconic as Little Red Corvette and Let's Go Crazy end up sounding vastly different years later in live shows, it suggests he saw everything as capable of evolving.

As a teenager, I would always hate that the live version DIDN'T sound JUST like the album. Chalk that up to being young.

Fast forward to 2015 when I saw Prince last, and long slow jams of Little Red Corvette (slow down) and Purple Rain . . . the more different in concert, the better!

Se7en said:

alxndrstff said:

In all honesty, I never really thought any Prince song was "finished".

He'd do so much with them live, or have other versions out there - he may have considered some songs not worth revisiting, but very few just stayed the same over the years.

When songs as iconic as Little Red Corvette and Let's Go Crazy end up sounding vastly different years later in live shows, it suggests he saw everything as capable of evolving.

As a teenager, I would always hate that the live version DIDN'T sound JUST like the album. Chalk that up to being young.

Fast forward to 2015 when I saw Prince last, and long slow jams of Little Red Corvette (slow down) and Purple Rain . . . the more different in concert, the better!

in the early days, he did play them close to the original, but usually there was some extra stuff, the I wanna be your lover from the 81 live show is just what he said "better live than on record". I think though that the type of musicians he worked with later were the kind to bring their own style to a song, that must have been what he wanted. Most musicians are like that, if you go hear a song done by someone, it's usually their watered down version of that song with an outline of the original, why? because it's simpler that way. Most rockers though play songs just like the album or as close as they can, bruce springsteen did born in the usa the same as the album right to each little vocal mannerism and he had his band doing the same. It's because the dumbed down public isn't sophisticated enough to want to hear anything else generally. Prince, i think had outgrown that stipulation a long time ago.

since there's multiple version of some songs wouldnt it make sense he would go back and retouch songs?

alxndrstff said:

In all honesty, I never really thought any Prince song was "finished".

He'd do so much with them live, or have other versions out there - he may have considered some songs not worth revisiting, but very few just stayed the same over the years.

When songs as iconic as Little Red Corvette and Let's Go Crazy end up sounding vastly different years later in live shows, it suggests he saw everything as capable of evolving.

This right here ^^^^^^^. Definitely the truth in my opinion.