My bad. I thought we were talking about the SOTT rehearsals from Paisley. I've not listened to the First Ave gig in years, will need to rectify that soon.

TheDigitalGardener said:

My bad. I thought we were talking about the SOTT rehearsals from Paisley. I've not listened to the First Ave gig in years, will need to rectify that soon.

That's what I thought at first too.

djThunderfunk said:

BartVanHemelen said:

databank said:

djThunderfunk said:

Oh my, so much drama. We all love the material discussed in the OP though, right?

Of course we do, but those weekly "why oh why don't they release...?" threads are themselves ridiculously dramatic, and dramatic questions call for dramatic replies. There is no "why?", we perfectly know why and Sharon Nelson recently dissipated all ambiguities regarding this matter on this very message board. It's not like there's some evil person sitting on all those tapes and having fun keeping them in the vault. So those threads, asking a question that's already been answered, are nothing but a denial of reality, as if asking why and why over and over again was going to magically change anything to it, and it's irritating. Of course we all want the shit out, and when the legal aspects are solved then maybe we the fans can moan why oh why if nothing gets released on the long run. But now there's no why oh why. There's reality and don't we all have a life, tons of Prince recordings already out there and tons of other music to listen to?

Yeah, I get it. But if we're to take the OP at their word that they just heard this for the first time (which to someone like me who's had this for 29 years, sounds strange, but whatevs), and they're excited about it... where better for them to start a discussion but the org? The topic is at least better than the endless threads about Prince's sexuality, or the "can't stop grieving" threads. I don't know man, it's probably easier to just skip it?

databank said:

BartVanHemelen said:

.

Prince's entire post-1995 output combined is nowhere as good as City Lights. Dream Factory is better than any album Prince released post-1995. Yet if it was up to Prince we never would have heard those.

Oh please. You know I'm with you on many things including the nonsense that this thread is, but for crying out loud just cut the crap, will you? Enough is enough. You're talking shit and you know it.

Truth.

NorthC said:

Bart is stuck in the 80s. But then again, so was Prince. So that's why we have these discussions over and over again...

djThunderfunk said:

NorthC said:

Bart is stuck in the 80s. But then again, so was Prince. So that's why we have these discussions over and over again...

Oooohhh, the blasphemy...

TheDigitalGardener said:

My bad. I thought we were talking about the SOTT rehearsals from Paisley. I've not listened to the First Ave gig in years, will need to rectify that soon.

So what is the musical value about the rehearsals? Is there a "Sex Of It"?
I tried to listen, but honestly, SOTT dry from the console, with the boombastic pattern deprived of the venue reverb?
Without the crowd going mad in the background?
I don't know. I'm not that a completist.

bonatoc said:

TheDigitalGardener said:

My bad. I thought we were talking about the SOTT rehearsals from Paisley. I've not listened to the First Ave gig in years, will need to rectify that soon.

So what is the musical value about the rehearsals? Is there a "Sex Of It"?
I tried to listen, but honestly, SOTT dry from the console, with the boombastic pattern deprived of the venue reverb?
Without the crowd going mad in the background?
I don't know. I'm not that a completist.

Fair enough. I personally really enjoy studio based rehearsals, in fact I'd much rather listen to a rehearsal or soundcheck than a live performance in front of an audience. That's not to say I don't enjoy live shows though because I do.

mclihah2 said:

Why not release that?'

Duh!

It has already been released.

Please have them release (plenty of) stuff that we do not yet have.

They will never ever succeed to release most of it within our lifetimes.

tomds said:

BartVanHemelen said:

.

Prince's entire post-1995 output combined is nowhere as good as City Lights. Dream Factory is better than any album Prince released post-1995. Yet if it was up to Prince we never would have heard those.

just what I told you it's all 80's prince for you. He released many many great tracks after 95.

.

And yet somehow this completely escaped everyone's attention, none of them had any significant chart impact, none of them are played over and over again (while several album tracks and B-Sides from the 1980s are stone cold classics), none of them are covered,...

.

Oh wait, I forgot, that's part of the big conspiracy.

BartVanHemelen said:

tomds said:

BartVanHemelen said: just what I told you it's all 80's prince for you. He released many many great tracks after 95.

.

And yet somehow this completely escaped everyone's attention, none of them had any significant chart impact, none of them are played over and over again (while several album tracks and B-Sides from the 1980s are stone cold classics), none of them are covered,...

.

Oh wait, I forgot, that's part of the big conspiracy.

All I can tell you is that they all had a significant impact on my life and that they all got played over and over again in my house.

That may not be enough for you, but that's enough for me.

tomds said:

Maybe he didn't know this thing existed ? He just discovered this bootleg. Simple as that. Are you sure you are a prince fan bart ? Because in your eyes everything is prince's fault and he did nothing right. You don't like his new material only the 80's or so. Looking back it is easy to say where he made a mistake. But that goes for everyone. If I knew 10 years ago what I know now, I probably make some better decisions. That's life. With all respect bart, don't be so hard on prince all the time. He only did one thing completely wrong imho and that is dying.

You want to know if Bart is a Prince fan? Check Bart's profile; his feelings are right there in the "Fan level" descriptor. It says "Not a fan" and always has.

Just so you know where Bart's coming from with all his diatribes. He's not a Prince fan and is pretty open about that.

BartVanHemelen said:

tomds said:

BartVanHemelen said: just what I told you it's all 80's prince for you. He released many many great tracks after 95.

.

And yet somehow this completely escaped everyone's attention, none of them had any significant chart impact, none of them are played over and over again (while several album tracks and B-Sides from the 1980s are stone cold classics), none of them are covered,...

.

Oh wait, I forgot, that's part of the big conspiracy.

There is no major rockstar who was capable of constant good output through their whole carreer.
It just can't be done. If Rock'n'Roll is all about young pheromones, they do eventually fade out for everyone.

The charts? When did they become the compass for quality?
Love, Nick Drake, Tim Buckley, Karen Dalton, pop's history is full of good confidential stuff
that's passed around. Long tail and such.

You're entitled to see the second half of Prince's carreer a wreckage.
But you have to admit that it is one of the most interesting wreckages in all pop history.
Now go and put "The Good Life" on. Hopefully it will cheer you up.
Generation after generation, the Soul will never die.

bonatoc said:

BartVanHemelen said:

.

And yet somehow this completely escaped everyone's attention, none of them had any significant chart impact, none of them are played over and over again (while several album tracks and B-Sides from the 1980s are stone cold classics), none of them are covered,...

.

Oh wait, I forgot, that's part of the big conspiracy.

There is no major rockstar who was capable of constant good output through their whole carreer.
It just can't be done. If Rock'n'Roll is all about young pheromones, they do eventually fade out for everyone.

Commercial success aside (given that it is totally insignificant in terms of quality, as you well said yourself), I've tried to find musical artists who received critical acclaim all throughout their career, and were not perceived as having had a low point after their peak, and while many, including Prince, saw their later works better received by both critics and fans, there always seems to have been a low point around the second decade of their career or so.

.

I am not, of course, privy of each and every recording artist's career but that's more or less how it was for nearly every artist I know of except, strangely enough, for artists that were more contemporary composers or experimental artists. It seems the works of people such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, John Cage, Bill Laswell, Brian Eno, David Sylvian or John Zorn to name a few were well received throughout their whole career, and possibly even more at the later stages than during their early or most innovative, so-called "peak" years.

.

But most pop/rock/funk and even jazz composers that I know had a low point at some stage. I was surprised to realize that even Kate Bush, for example, got pretty bashed for The Sensual World and The Red Shoes (how unfair!). James Brown, David Bowie and George Clinton were typically all at a very low point in the 80's in terms of fandom and critical reception, before at least the last two somewhat redeemed themselves in the mid to late 90's. I remember that Madonna went through a lot of criticism from I'm Breathless up until she redeemed herself with Ray Of Light. Even Miles Davis actually was harshly rejected by the jazz community during his now, retroactively worshipped electric period, and his later works left the world pretty indifferent. Joni Mitchell took a lot of shit when she went synth in the 80's. So did Herbie Hancock when he went disco in the late 70's, then electronic in the 80's. Sting was considered a sold out whore by his own fans in the late 90's until he became a respectable musician again. I'm not even gonna address Carlos Santana and his Clive Davis success that was at the same time an artistic shame. The later works of Lenny Kravitz or Terence Trent D'Arby didn't leave a lasting impression. I knew some Pink Floyd and Genesis fans who couldn't find enough words to explain how ashamed they'd become of their favorite bands in the 80's and 90's. Those are just a few examples on top of my head but I could dig out many others.

.

Now I'm sure that there are exceptions, that someone is going to tell me something maybe like Bob Dylan or Ani DiFranco or whomever, but Prince's trajectory in terms of both fans reception and critical reception may, in fact, be one of the most typical and ordinary aspects of his career:

Warming up the critics and building an audience, then universal critical accclaim, then progressive critical decline, then some years perceived as a really low point, then some sort of a critical redemption, then a legacy artist.

.

If anything, I'm afraid this all reveals much more about us, the listeners, than about the artists. And the fact that the most experimental artists are the ones who usually evade this peak/low point/redemption scenario tends to show that their audience is maybe a little more inclined to judge their works by trying to understand what they're trying to achieve from a more intellectual perspective, while pop acts tend to have audiences who demand an immediate emotional satisfaction, are much more prone to nostagia regarding their own youth, and are more vulnerable to trends.

.

BartVanHemelen said:

bonatoc said:

BartVanHemelen said:

.

And yet somehow this completely escaped everyone's attention, none of them had any significant chart impact, none of them are played over and over again (while several album tracks and B-Sides from the 1980s are stone cold classics), none of them are covered,...

.

Oh wait, I forgot, that's part of the big conspiracy.

There is no major rockstar who was capable of constant good output through their whole carreer.
It just can't be done. If Rock'n'Roll is all about young pheromones, they do eventually fade out for everyone.

The charts? When did they become the compass for quality?
Love, Nick Drake, Tim Buckley, Karen Dalton, pop's history is full of good confidential stuff
that's passed around. Long tail and such.

You're entitled to see the second half of Prince's carreer a wreckage.
But you have to admit that it is one of the most interesting wreckages in all pop history.
Now go and put "The Good Life" on. Hopefully it will cheer you up.
Generation after generation, the Soul will never die.

Excellent post!

I fail to see why anything matters to anyone except whether or not one likes the music. I'm past the point of my life where I need validation of my musical preferences from others. I would expect most of us on this site are, too. So why Bart is hung up on chart positions is baffling.

I consider myself fortunate in that with the exception of "Hit N Run Part 1", there are several songs on every Prince album ever released that I like/love/consider life-giving. Add to that much of his unreleased material, and every single live performance I've ever seen, and I think that enjoying so much of one artist's prolific output the way that I do must make me the luckiest man in the world!

There's no reason I can see to try toi rain on parades such as that, but I guess it takes all types, doesn't it?

bonatoc said:

Poplife88 said:

4 Those of U on Valium is my fave live boot. Ive had it for awhile now and agree it should have an official release with DVD. The audio i have is great but the video I have is very poor quality. It deserves to be seen/heard. Strange Relationship is so damn funky I can't handle it.

Same here. Oh-wee-oh, Ooh-oh.
Gives me the funk face on the spot, and pelvis goes by himself.
Gets me in a trance.
Cuz, when Prince says you'll dance, you dance.

What fantastic Organ parts, how he plays with silence is and always be baffling.
Can't get any more musical than that, the fun is so infectious.
It makes me shake my head in disbelief this didn't help cure the ears of the people.
I just wish for more people to be touched by Prince.
It's good for the soul.

Such humour. Brings back to memory the genesis of the legendary imageries,
"Squirrel Meat", "Hit me in the back", Shockadelica, the satin laces in the hair,
the mad scientist glasses, the Prince/Cat male/female twins concept, Jeff Katz program...

bonatoc said:

databank said:

bonatoc said:

There is no major rockstar who was capable of constant good output through their whole carreer.
It just can't be done. If Rock'n'Roll is all about young pheromones, they do eventually fade out for everyone.

Commercial success aside (given that it is totally insignificant in terms of quality, as you well said yourself), I've tried to find musical artists who received critical acclaim all throughout their career, and were not perceived as having had a low point after their peak, and while many, including Prince, saw their later works better received by both critics and fans, there always seems to have been a low point around the second decade of their career or so.

.

I am not, of course, privy of each and every recording artist's career but that's more or less how it was for nearly every artist I know of except, strangely enough, for artists that were more contemporary composers or experimental artists. It seems the works of people such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, John Cage, Bill Laswell, Brian Eno, David Sylvian or John Zorn to name a few were well received throughout their whole career, and possibly even more at the later stages than during their early or most innovative, so-called "peak" years.

.

But most pop/rock/funk and even jazz composers that I know had a low point at some stage. I was surprised to realize that even Kate Bush, for example, got pretty bashed for The Sensual World and The Red Shoes (how unfair!). James Brown, David Bowie and George Clinton were typically all at a very low point in the 80's in terms of fandom and critical reception, before at least the last two somewhat redeemed themselves in the mid to late 90's. I remember that Madonna went through a lot of criticism from I'm Breathless up until she redeemed herself with Ray Of Light. Even Miles Davis actually was harshly rejected by the jazz community during his now, retroactively worshipped electric period, and his later works left the world pretty indifferent. Joni Mitchell took a lot of shit when she went synth in the 80's. So did Herbie Hancock when he went disco in the late 70's, then electronic in the 80's. Sting was considered a sold out whore by his own fans in the late 90's until he became a respectable musician again. I'm not even gonna address Carlos Santana and his Clive Davis success that was at the same time an artistic shame. The later works of Lenny Kravitz or Terence Trent D'Arby didn't leave a lasting impression. I knew some Pink Floyd and Genesis fans who couldn't find enough words to explain how ashamed they'd become of their favorite bands in the 80's and 90's. Those are just a few examples on top of my head but I could dig out many others.

.

Now I'm sure that there are exceptions, that someone is going to tell me something maybe like Bob Dylan or Ani DiFranco or whomever, but Prince's trajectory in terms of both fans reception and critical reception may, in fact, be one of the most typical and ordinary aspects of his career:

Warming up the critics and building an audience, then universal critical accclaim, then progressive critical decline, then some years perceived as a really low point, then some sort of a critical redemption, then a legacy artist.

.

If anything, I'm afraid this all reveals much more about us, the listeners, than about the artists. And the fact that the most experimental artists are the ones who usually evade this peak/low point/redemption scenario tends to show that their audience is maybe a little more inclined to judge their works by trying to understand what they're trying to achieve from a more intellectual perspective, while pop acts tend to have audiences who demand an immediate emotional satisfaction, are much more prone to nostagia regarding their own youth, and are more vulnerable to trends.

.

Bob Dyaln went through the same phase once he started his Christian trilogy and much more with his 80's output, up to Oh, Mercy.

And here comes the hammer, Bart.
One thing is records. But what if we consider a musician on more grounds than just studio work?
After all, this is a rehearsal thread, so let's talk musicians in the act of performing.

What about taking into account the artist's constancy in musicality over the years,
the ability to render more than slightly rearranged replicas of his.her records on stage,
and the skills, be them vocal or instrumental, performed live in front of audiences in the thousands, or the hundreds,
with totally different approaches for arenas and clubs? Never calling a play-back tape or auto-tune to the rescue, not once?
What about ethics and craftsmanship?

If we choose to consider pop musicians on these terms as well, then, Barf,
the last twenty years of Prince's career have simply no equivalent,
with a bar set so high it just humbles anyone who's ever tried to record something or perform in public.

It doesn't matter if the repertoire was at times lazy and self-indulgent. Musicality never left the building.
Prince is simply the best live performer there is, no matter the pop or rock giant you choose to compare him to.
One may even safely argue that when it comes to live, Prince got better with each year passing by.

Kudos to databank to reveal the Rome Circus mechanics at play for pop musicians.
Most of them become slaves to this system. They become a caricature of their younger selves.
The ones who rebel against it, it still takes them a while to adjust and absorb a traumatic transition:
rags to riches is a fairy tale, riches to rags is a curse.

bonatoc said:

And here comes the hammer, Bart.
One thing is records. But what if we consider a musician on more grounds than just studio work?
After all, this is a rehearsal thread, so let's talk musicians in the act of performing.

What about taking into account the artist's constancy in musicality over the years,
the ability to render more than slightly rearranged replicas of his.her records on stage,
and the skills, be them vocal or instrumental, performed live in front of audiences in the thousands, or the hundreds,
with totally different approaches for arenas and clubs? Never calling a play-back tape or auto-tune to the rescue, not once?
What about ethics and craftsmanship?

If we choose to consider pop musicians on these terms as well, then, Barf,
the last twenty years of Prince's career have simply no equivalent,
with a bar set so high it just humbles anyone who's ever tried to record something or perform in public.

It doesn't matter if the repertoire was at times lazy and self-indulgent. Musicality never left the building.
Prince is simply the best live performer there is, no matter the pop or rock giant you choose to compare him to.
One may even safely argue that when it comes to live, Prince got better with each year passing by.

Kudos to databank to reveal the Rome Circus mechanics at play for pop musicians.
Most of them become slaves to this system. They become a caricature of their younger selves.
The ones who rebel against it, it still takes them a while to adjust and absorb a traumatic transition:
rags to riches is a fairy tale, riches to rags is a curse.

Post of the year.

RodeoSchro said:

bonatoc said:

And here comes the hammer, Bart.
One thing is records. But what if we consider a musician on more grounds than just studio work?
After all, this is a rehearsal thread, so let's talk musicians in the act of performing.

What about taking into account the artist's constancy in musicality over the years,
the ability to render more than slightly rearranged replicas of his.her records on stage,
and the skills, be them vocal or instrumental, performed live in front of audiences in the thousands, or the hundreds,
with totally different approaches for arenas and clubs? Never calling a play-back tape or auto-tune to the rescue, not once?
What about ethics and craftsmanship?

If we choose to consider pop musicians on these terms as well, then, Barf,
the last twenty years of Prince's career have simply no equivalent,
with a bar set so high it just humbles anyone who's ever tried to record something or perform in public.

It doesn't matter if the repertoire was at times lazy and self-indulgent. Musicality never left the building.
Prince is simply the best live performer there is, no matter the pop or rock giant you choose to compare him to.
One may even safely argue that when it comes to live, Prince got better with each year passing by.

Kudos to databank to reveal the Rome Circus mechanics at play for pop musicians.
Most of them become slaves to this system. They become a caricature of their younger selves.
The ones who rebel against it, it still takes them a while to adjust and absorb a traumatic transition:
rags to riches is a fairy tale, riches to rags is a curse.

Post of the year.

Not this time, he always got it, every single year...

[Edited 10/13/17 17:02pm]