How would it have been recieved? Differently? Would it be more praised today?

I always thpught about what if SOTT was released as a single album. What songs wouldn't made the cut? I made this configuration years ago.

Side 1

1. Sign 'O' the Times

2. Housequake

3. The Ballad of Dorothy Parker

4. Hot Thing

5. Forever in my Life

Side 2

1. U Got the Look

2. If I Was Your Girlfriend

3. I Can Never Take the Place of Your Man

4. Adore

As you notice, all the singles that were actually released are in this configuration.

I always thought about what if SOTT was released as a single album. What songs wouldn't made the cut? I made this configuration years ago.

Side 1

1. Sign 'O' the Times

2. Housequake

3. The Ballad of Dorothy Parker

4. Hot Thing

5. Forever in my Life

Side 2

1. U Got the Look

2. If I Was Your Girlfriend

3. I Can Never Take the Place of Your Man

4. Adore

As you notice, all the singles that were actually released are in this configuration.

Single album:

do this, just remove 3 or 4 seconds of silence inbetween songs:

And, there u have a cd under 80 minutes

However, back in 1987 the cd's contained 74 minutes music (not 80 mins, this became run-time, (later on)

Therefor SOTT was made into 2 cd's back then:

Ok then... IF I had to remove 1 song then Slow Love... weakest song imho..

seanski said:

I always thought about what if SOTT was released as a single album. What songs wouldn't made the cut? I made this configuration years ago.

Side 1

1. Sign 'O' the Times

2. Housequake

3. The Ballad of Dorothy Parker

4. Hot Thing

5. Forever in my Life

Side 2

1. U Got the Look

2. If I Was Your Girlfriend

3. I Can Never Take the Place of Your Man

4. Adore

As you notice, all the singles that were actually released are in this configuration.

This is a good single album tracklist except....I would replace "Hot Thing" with "It"

The album's impact is relative. Hardcore fans get the relevance and importance of the album. They understand and know the history and its journey to what we know it as today.

To the casual fan or the top 40 fan, it's significance is different. They don't care about "Strange Relationship" or maybe "Adore" (although it was popular on R&B stations), "Housequake", or "Forever In My Life". They may know "Sign O The Times", probably remember "U Got The Look", but haven't heard the joy of "It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night", "Hot Thing", or I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man", or the sheer genius of "If I Was Your Girlfriend".

Prince didn't tour for it in the U.S., and the movie was popular but it wasn't selling out theaters with music lovers. It wasn't The Passion of the Christ or Love, Simon. Would it have been received differently? Probably not, not on the regular market. Fans would have salivated more having eventually learned about the outtakes.

So would it have been received differently overall? Probably not. It's history though, given that it would have been on relatively the same journey as we know now, would have been similar. Pick either of those two disks, and it can stand on its own as a single album. From "Sign O The Times" to "Forever In My Life" or "U Got The Look" to "Adore" - solid.

Just for technical sake, the album is barely over the 80 minutes of a CD anyway, so a shortened "IGBABN" or removing something like "IT" would have made it a single album anyway.

Just for the sake of it, here's my tracklist based on a 45-minute vinyl format:

Side One:

U Got The Look

Hot Thing

If I Was Your Girlfriend
Adore

Side Two:

I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man (a shorter version; the longer on the 12")

Play In The Sunshine

Starfish and Coffee OR The Ballad of Dorothy Parker

Strange Relationship

Forever In My Life

It's a tough call, actually.

thedance said:

Single album:

do this, just remove 3 or 4 seconds of silence inbetween songs:

And, there u have a cd under 80 minutes

However, back in 1987 the cd's contained 74 minutes music (not 80 mins, this became run-time, (later on)

Therefor SOTT was made into 2 cd's back then:

Ok then... IF I had to remove 1 song then Slow Love... weakest song imho..

I've never been into Slow Love. I wonder how Joy In Repetition or even Old Friends 4 Sale would've worked in its place

hard to say for a couple reasons, number one, upon release it didn't get super reviews, the super reviews were coming in at the end of the year when people had enough time to listen to all of it. as i recall, it was much more highly regarded by the end of 87 than it was when it came out. another thing is, it probably could have made a super one disk album, just super but some people think it worked better as a sprawling opus with peaks and valleys, songs that weren't as good as the others to set the listener up for the kayo punch. I do think the album has some "fat" or "flab" as some people called it. Personally, i was never crazy about several of the songs, but the ones that i was crazy about are still in the league of any i've heard in the history of our music. so, hard to say, his biggest mistakes were just the senseless marketing(single choices) and the lack of a tour.

thedance said:

However, back in 1987 the cd's contained 74 minutes music (not 80 mins, this became run-time, (later on)

Therefor SOTT was made into 2 cd's back then:

The number of albums was not determined by the capacity of a CD, it was determined by the available space on an LP. Lovesexy was the first Prince album that released to CD on the same day as the LP.

TrivialPursuit said:

The album's impact is relative. Hardcore fans get the relevance and importance of the album. They understand and know the history and its journey to what we know it as today.

To the casual fan or the top 40 fan, it's significance is different. They don't care about "Strange Relationship" or maybe "Adore" (although it was popular on R&B stations), "Housequake", or "Forever In My Life". They may know "Sign O The Times", probably remember "U Got The Look", but haven't heard the joy of "It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night", "Hot Thing", or I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man", or the sheer genius of "If I Was Your Girlfriend".

Prince didn't tour for it in the U.S., and the movie was popular but it wasn't selling out theaters with music lovers. It wasn't The Passion of the Christ or Love, Simon. Would it have been received differently? Probably not, not on the regular market. Fans would have salivated more having eventually learned about the outtakes.

So would it have been received differently overall? Probably not. It's history though, given that it would have been on relatively the same journey as we know now, would have been similar. Pick either of those two disks, and it can stand on its own as a single album. From "Sign O The Times" to "Forever In My Life" or "U Got The Look" to "Adore" - solid.

Just for technical sake, the album is barely over the 80 minutes of a CD anyway, so a shortened "IGBABN" or removing something like "IT" would have made it a single album anyway.

Just for the sake of it, here's my tracklist based on a 45-minute vinyl format:

Side One:

U Got The Look

Hot Thing

If I Was Your Girlfriend
Adore

Side Two:

I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man (a shorter version; the longer on the 12")

Play In The Sunshine

Starfish and Coffee OR The Ballad of Dorothy Parker

Strange Relationship

Forever In My Life

It's a tough call, actually.

Where the hell is the title track?

Here's my take on a 9 song SOTT without songs that didnt appear on it:

1. Sign O' The Times (4:56)
2. Play In The Sunshine (5:05)
3. Housequake (4:41)
4. The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker (4:02)

• Side 2:

1. U Got The Look (3:47)
2. If I Was Your Girlfriend (5:01)
3. Strange Relationship (4:01)
4. I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man (6:28)
5. Adore (6:29)

If it were only 5 songs per side maybe:

Side One:

Sign O' the Times

Housequake

I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man

Ballad of Dorothy Parker

Adore

Side Two

U Got The Look

Hot Thing

If I Was Your Girlfriend

The Cross

It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night

No.

214 said:

Where the hell is the title track?

Not on my configuration. Have to pick another name.

thedance said:

Hot Thing is the worst track, delete it

SoulAlive said:

seanski said:

I always thought about what if SOTT was released as a single album. What songs wouldn't made the cut? I made this configuration years ago.

Side 1

1. Sign 'O' the Times

2. Housequake

3. The Ballad of Dorothy Parker

4. Hot Thing

5. Forever in my Life

Side 2

1. U Got the Look

2. If I Was Your Girlfriend

3. I Can Never Take the Place of Your Man

4. Adore

As you notice, all the singles that were actually released are in this configuration.

This is a good single album tracklist except....I would replace "Hot Thing" with "It"

Yes that's a good choice. I basically made my configuration based on the songs that were actually released as singles or b-sides.

[Edited 4/2/18 15:29pm]

TKO said:

Hot Thing is the worst track, delete it

TrivialPursuit said:

214 said:

Where the hell is the title track?

Not on my configuration. Have to pick another name.

Horrible configuration yours.

1. SOTT

2. If I was your girlfriend

3. Housequake

4. I could never take the place of your man

5. Starfish and Cofee

6. U got the Look

7. The Ballad of dorthy Parker

8. Forever in my life

9. Adore

214 said:

TrivialPursuit said:

Not on my configuration. Have to pick another name.

Horrible configuration yours.

TheFman said:

Here's my take on a 9 song SOTT without songs that didnt appear on it:

1. Sign O' The Times (4:56)
2. Play In The Sunshine (5:05)
3. Housequake (4:41)
4. The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker (4:02)

• Side 2:

1. U Got The Look (3:47)
2. If I Was Your Girlfriend (5:01)
3. Strange Relationship (4:01)
4. I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man (6:28)
5. Adore (6:29)

excellent, best take so far, imho..

however leaving The Cross out, and some other great song

that hurts a bit..

Ps it's a short edit versions of Adore + I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man?

Not time/ space for the full album-versions???

I......... Juuuuusssttttttt...... caaannnn'''tttt do it!

Can never cut anything from thsi masterpiece, Sony or whoever the fuck designed discs needs to alter their format to accommodate the whole thing one disc.

.

Let me make this shit crystal clear!

THERE ARE NO WORST SONGS, NO SONGS TO CUT, LEAVE THE ALBUM ALONE, STEP BACK AND LET IT BE!

thedance said:

TheFman said:

Here's my take on a 9 song SOTT without songs that didnt appear on it:

1. Sign O' The Times (4:56)
2. Play In The Sunshine (5:05)
3. Housequake (4:41)
4. The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker (4:02)

• Side 2:

1. U Got The Look (3:47)
2. If I Was Your Girlfriend (5:01)
3. Strange Relationship (4:01)
4. I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man (6:28)
5. Adore (6:29)

excellent, best take so far, imho..

however leaving The Cross out, and some other great song

that hurts a bit..

Ps it's a short edit versions of Adore + I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man? (OH hell naw!)

Not time/ space for the full album-versions???

If anyone edits Adore, I will edit them

Lawd I am leaving the hot mess of a thread now.