The amazing and ongoing, crowd-sourced Google doc confirms my growing suspicians...

Unless there are other, un-photographed sections of tapes and reels there's not much in The Vault that Piers and the various Purple Archivists haven't noted already...especially the Golden age 80s material...

I was hoping that weird, bizarre, completely surprising song titles would pop out...

But it's all the stuff we've known about for years (and have been collecting)...

Thoughts guys?

what pops out at me as striking is that what's seen on the pictures is mainly albumtracks,
with a few outtakes strews in and a few songs given to others.

many of the outtakes that we already know about are actually missing from the material
we see, sorted by time of recording.

so there must be more, stored eleswhere or in different sections of the original vaul that
we just haven't got pictures of right now.

yes, just like i wrote 2 days ago as well.

We can't see every single thing. Some photos are blurry, some just too far away. We can't assume what we're seeing is all there is out there. The only admission I'm willing to make is that there is more than we see.

some engineers might have some songs too.The "Deliverance" EP surfaced last year and one of prince's engineers brought that to light

I think I said the same a while back. that the photos should provide a relatively random sampling of what is in the vault. And what we can see is not indicative of having 1000+ unreleased songs.



EDIT:



Dang it there was more!


However, Prince said there is more than one vault. Of the songs we saw...we did not see very much of what we know exists. I read a list of over 700 songs and most are what we know...and some were live sets... so what we saw was not even close to what there is.

I agree you would think we would have a representative sample. But it seems we did not.


There may not be 100 albums of releasable songs... but I bet there is enough for 20 to 30.

[Edited 4/26/18 17:10pm]

IstenSzek said:

TrivialPursuit said:

We can't see every single thing. Some photos are blurry, some just too far away. We can't assume what we're seeing is all there is out there. The only admission I'm willing to make is that there is more than we see.

I totally agree!

I did find it odd (and a little annoying) that someone was taking photos in a professional capacity while investigating a death yet they weren't totally capable of taking a photo that was in focus!!

The mind boggles!

Just playing the percentages, based on the pictures, there won't be heaps of unknown gems.

But that's the negative side of listening to bootlegs. There are a lot of unlreased tracks, but we happen to have most of them in one form or another. The fans that shunned boots are going to have a much better time over the next few years.

This is why I'd rather have the unlreased songs in project form, i.e. a few on each remaster, and concepts like The Time by Prince, or The Family, plus things like Dream Factory.

That, for me, will keep the excitement of new releases.

Also, I'm one of those die hards who would like all of the off cuts and takes of songs. For that, perhaps they do a subscription.

you are joking?, he was working on so much new stuff in the final year, likewise do you seriously think we have everything from 82 - 86? Recorded stuff aside I drool at the thought of the aftershows & pro-shot stuff from way back when.

IstenSzek said:

I haven’t pored over the photos and I've only seen the ones that have been posted here, but how comprehensive is the coverage? Are there clear photos of the inner aisles and so on? How does this tally with Troy Carter’s recent comments:

“Prince recorded and rehearsed and performed constantly, and he taped everything, so once you think you’ve gotten close [to finding everything], you find new things. The vault was just one room and that room ran over into multiple rooms, and this was [mostly] before digitization so you have hard drives, and tapes and things like that. So we’re still in the process, and the fun part of my job is finding new things — every week I’m getting a new call about something special.”

I know that things that are new to him are not necessarily new to us, but still...

[Edited 4/27/18 6:39am]

Thizz said:

Pessimistic and shortsighted thread. There’s more than the eyes can see

Thiz! ^^^

u people r crazy....only go by what u think u see.....

in an era where volumes can be placed on something as small as your fingernail, i don't see how anyone can say anything that definitively.

Thizz said:

PeteSilas said:

in an era where volumes can be placed on something as small as your fingernail, i don't see how anyone can say anything that definitively.

when I was in high school you needed a big book or backpack to carry cassettes around. Maybe you had 20 albums? for 15 hours of music...

now a stamp can hold 10K albums or about 10 months worth...

[Edited 4/26/18 17:22pm]

OnlyNDaUsa said:

PeteSilas said:

in an era where volumes can be placed on something as small as your fingernail, i don't see how anyone can say anything that definitively.

when I was in high school you needed a big book or backpack to carry cassettes around. Maybe you had 20 albums? for 15 hours of music...

now a stamp can hold 10K albums or about 10 months worth...

[Edited 4/26/18 17:22pm]

ya, incredible but kind of sad too, i'll get excited when i go to second hand stores and see an album i love but then i remember i can hear it for free and there is a good chance i already have it downloaded in my files somewhere. It used to be so much more fun.

I thought the same. Sheile E said herself that they recorded hundreds of songs that she had yet to hear or see released. I'm guessing there is a lot. Time will tell...

soladeo1 said:

The amazing and ongoing, crowd-sourced Google doc confirms my growing suspicians...

Unless there are other, un-photographed sections of tapes and reels there's not much in The Vault that Piers and the various Purple Archivists haven't noted already...especially the Golden age 80s material...

I was hoping that weird, bizarre, completely surprising song titles would pop out...

But it's all the stuff we've known about for years (and have been collecting)...

Thoughts guys?

There's a strong possibility that the stuff in Warners' vault has more substantial audio from prior to '96. I believe that he may have turned albums and songs in that ended up being rejected by WB (such as "The Undertaker") that stayed in their vault due to their owning the masters at the time. Whatever's at Iron Mountain may contain smatterings of WB stuff as well for preservation..

The pictures made available actually aren't *that* comprehensive are they? There were a lot of aisles that were not focused upon it seemed like.

The fact that there's also a lot of material we do know about that's not on those pics makes it hard to know, and there are definitely certain titles that we didn't know. I'm also confused about the order: it doesn't seem to be strictly chronological to me. It's definitely not when it comes to the pre-"Susan puts it all together" era, and after that I'm not so sure. Certain dates also seem to conflict with Princevault (I haven't checked myself but someone mentioned it), so IDK. I really hope when all is properly catalogued, tapes and digital, audio and video alike, the Estate will make the list public even if they won't/can't release everything: it'd be unvaluable for scholars, researchers and fans alike, and it's a matter of public interest.

.

On the very long run, I believe it could be realistic to make everything available on an online store or subscribtion site or, at the very least, in an on-site library that scholars and researchers can visit to listen to/watch anything they wish to hear and see even if the stuff can't be purchased or copied.

Oh i'm sure there's still a lot !

I don't agree at all.

We only see tapes of pre-computer and internet times.

I believe it when most people, and Prince himself said that there is so much we never heard of.

From 1993 till 2016 alone, on harddrives, new tchnology tapes... I'm not an expert for one, but can U imagine ?

And what is in the vault at Warners ? Who (really) knows ?

-

Do we have a lot of the early days and the eighties ? Possibly.

Do we nearly have it all ? Certainly not !

Foxy Prince was keen enough to keep songs/projects aside (from official registers, ASCAP etc).

I'm pretty much sure about that.

-

Thing is, most of us older fans won't be able to live long enough to hear it all.

Isn't that somehow also comforting?

OperatingThetan said:

The vault would have gone digital at some point, likely twenty or more years ago. There is a wealth of unreleased material from 1995 onwards and Mayte recently confirmed there was a significant amount from 1992 also, but I'm guessing the 80s are leaner given the number of songs already released and leaked. Morris Hayes recently confirmed that several new unreleased albums were recorded between 2010-14.

Late 93/early 94 "a computer arrived" and the music went digital, according to Michael B in Mobeen's book.

Well, my "vault" (which is pretty disorganised) has more than what is being listed here. So we can probably assume 1 of 2 things:

1) The photos do not cover everything, or

2) Lots of tape has been thrown out/destroyed etc.

If it is the latter I would hope the reasons for that is because it has been digitised and not because Prince said "fuck" on it.

Prince's digital vault, wherever that may be will be the place where we find a lot of stuff we have never heard.

I think the estate should make it a priority to get to know and understand the bootleg catalogue and what is out there. That really can only be done by a fan or three who know their bootlegs. Trying to get someone to learn it all from scratch just doesn't seem possible. Drafting in a few fans to help with the vault is really the only way to get an understanding of what is in there and what would make a good fan release vs what would make a good commercial release. The curators of Princevault might be a good starting place... Or me...