BartVanHemelen said:

Threads like these really show what a shame it is that PrinceVault isn't db-driven. It would be so nice to run queries to determine how many songs were recorded in year X, or to generate "calendars" where we could see the "blind spots", or to look at the raw numbers (e.g. see that there's a steady increase in output that aligns with Prince getting access to better studios etc.)...

OperatingThetan said:

The largest quantity is likely the later years. Morris Hayes has gone on the record to state that ten albums of new material were recorded between 2010-14 alone.

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Assuming approx. 15 songs/album, that's still only about 30 songs per year.

soladeo1 said:

BartVanHemelen said:

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That seems to be a wildly inflated number. Considering that I even doubt Magnoli's claim of having received 100 outtakes for consideration for PR -- a claim that has never been substantiated, with Duane Tudahl referring to one claim of Prince having about 80 unreleased songs as the closest to that number -- then he would have recorded a vast amount of music between mid-1983 and mid-1986, on average 75 or so songs per year. Considering all of the other things he did in that time (including making two movies and several months of touring) and considering what has been documented, I very much doubt it is even possible Prince recorded that many unreleased songs.

I think that Prince was entirely capable of writing, producing, and recording 40-50 songs a year, for himself or others (Vanity 6, The Time, etc.), even while playing 40-60 concerts and making videos, etc. This being the case, looking at The Vault listings by year, there is a LOT missing.

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And plenty of those 40-50 songs were released. Prince is claiming 320 unreleased songs. I'm sure The Vault etc. don't have everything, but I doubt they're missing such vast amounts of songs from that era.

My thoughts exactly.

Strive said:

I wonder how much confusion comes from the definition of 'song' Think about some of his later work. Brand New Orleans is a long instrumental and he took that, cut it down and put vocals on top to make S.S.T. (or possibly the reverse) Would you consider that two songs? Same with something like Disco Jellyfish and Chocolate Box or Clouds and Mr. Nelson? Two songs or two different versions of one song? What about weird little fragments like the middle sections of the Deliverence EP or something like The X's Face?

I have no doubt that the vault contains different versions of the same song - released or not. Take the Space EP for example. That is not just the same song remixed in various ways, it is a bunch of different songs with the same name that have a common thread. Prince decided on one particular version to release on an album and, luckily for us, also released the other versions on an EP on this occasion. But how many similar "EPs" sit in the vault?

The song Come also springs to mind. The released version is vastly different from (in my opinion) the more superior versions that leaked. Are they the same song or should they be counted as seperate songs? To me they are clearly different songs in that you couldn't just take the released version and edit it down, remove some parts and add a few parts here and there and end up with one of the leaked versions. He basically built them from the ground up individually with a few common elements between them.

I am not saying WDC with bass should be considered a different song to the released version. Removing and adding tracks from a final version of a song does not count as creating a new song. But a fully fleshed out accoustic gospel version of Forever in my Life would count as a different song from the released version.

The master tapes with all the knobs switched on would be the final take of a song. Any version of that song with some knobs turned down, volume levels on different tracks changed and affects added to certain tracks all equate to the same song. But if you need to load up different master tapes to hear an alternate version of a song, then I would consider that to be a different song to be counted in its own right. Even if elements are shared with another song such as the vocal track or drum beat.

I imagine his early years in the studio he didn't produce as many alternate (ie completely different) versions of the same song and concentrated on completing the idea in his head first and foremost. But as his abilities expanded and his knowledge of the studio grew, he started to knock out many unique takes on the same idea. And not just by increasing or decreasing the levels of certain tracks, but by recording an entirely different version with perhaps some shared elements.

Whoever is tasked with cataloging the vault is going to have a mighty fine time. How I envy that person. I just hope they choose someone who is first and foremost a fan and not an accountant because it is going to take years and, possibly, the rest of their working life. So I hope it pays well too.

Rebeljuice said:

Strive said:

I wonder how much confusion comes from the definition of 'song' Think about some of his later work. Brand New Orleans is a long instrumental and he took that, cut it down and put vocals on top to make S.S.T. (or possibly the reverse) Would you consider that two songs? Same with something like Disco Jellyfish and Chocolate Box or Clouds and Mr. Nelson? Two songs or two different versions of one song? What about weird little fragments like the middle sections of the Deliverence EP or something like The X's Face?

I have no doubt that the vault contains different versions of the same song - released or not. Take the Space EP for example. That is not just the same song remixed in various ways, it is a bunch of different songs with the same name that have a common thread. Prince decided on one particular version to release on an album and, luckily for us, also released the other versions on an EP on this occasion. But how many similar "EPs" sit in the vault?

The song Come also springs to mind. The released version is vastly different from (in my opinion) the more superior versions that leaked. Are they the same song or should they be counted as seperate songs? To me they are clearly different songs in that you couldn't just take the released version and edit it down, remove some parts and add a few parts here and there and end up with one of the leaked versions. He basically built them from the ground up individually with a few common elements between them.

I am not saying WDC with bass should be considered a different song to the released version. Removing and adding tracks from a final version of a song does not count as creating a new song. But a fully fleshed out accoustic gospel version of Forever in my Life would count as a different song from the released version.

The master tapes with all the knobs switched on would be the final take of a song. Any version of that song with some knobs turned down, volume levels on different tracks changed and affects added to certain tracks all equate to the same song. But if you need to load up different master tapes to hear an alternate version of a song, then I would consider that to be a different song to be counted in its own right. Even if elements are shared with another song such as the vocal track or drum beat.

I imagine his early years in the studio he didn't produce as many alternate (ie completely different) versions of the same song and concentrated on completing the idea in his head first and foremost. But as his abilities expanded and his knowledge of the studio grew, he started to knock out many unique takes on the same idea. And not just by increasing or decreasing the levels of certain tracks, but by recording an entirely different version with perhaps some shared elements.

Whoever is tasked with cataloging the vault is going to have a mighty fine time. How I envy that person. I just hope they choose someone who is first and foremost a fan and not an accountant because it is going to take years and, possibly, the rest of their working life. So I hope it pays well too.

A new recording does not constitute a new musical composition, per se, and a new arrangement does not either. If it did, then each and every recorded live rendition of any given song would constitute a whole new musical composition, which of course does not make sense.

Notably, many songs were rerecorded from scratch but in a manner quite similar to the previous recording (see, for a radical example of this, the various cuts of Just As Long As We're Together).

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However, as you point out:

There are cases such as the Universal Love Remix of Space where it could be argued that it's a new track with the same chorus (this is not really true of any of the others Space remixes, though). The same could be said, for example, of The Good Life (Big City Remix).

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To some extent, certain instrumental remixes of Letitgo, as well or some Carmen Electra or Ingrid Chavez remixes by Junior Vasquez contain so few, if any elements of the original recording that they can hardly be considered the same song at all. But incidentally Prince wasn't responsible for those mixes so should they even be considered Prince tracks at all?

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Oppositely, despite having different titles, it could be argued that Grace is 777-9311, that Tricky is Cloreen Bacon Skin, that Brother With A Purpose is NPG, or that 2 The Wire is Cream.

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And what of Glam Slam '91, which is built out of elements from Glam Slam, Gett Off and Love Machine? Is it a remix of either, or a whole new composition, or a medley à la Purple Medley?

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It's a very thin line between Space (Universal Love Remix) still being Space, and Violet The Organ Grinder NOT being Gett Off. The example of Come that you gave is quite interesting because while all versions of Come are still Come (and indeed share the same lyrics, leadline and chords despite drastically different arrangements), you will notice that 18 & Over was considered (and copyrighted as) a different composition, despite being built on the album version of Come and sharing certain elements with Come (album version) that Come (album version) does not share with Come (Beautiful Experience version) and Come (Glam Slam Ulysses version).

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So I think in the end it's best to let Prince decide whether a version is a new composition or the same, no matter how arbitrary his decisions may seem in some cases. Of course there are a few cases where there is no possible confusion: Girl by The Time cannot possibly be considered the same song as Girl from the America single, despite sharing a title, and the live recording of ICNTTPOYM released in 2013 under the title "Medium" cannot possibly be considered a different composition than ICNTTPOYM. But when there is doubt, I'd say Prince must have the last word...

Strive said: