https://www.washingtonpos...opriation/ Chris Richards in the Washington Post ponders "The five hardest questions in pop music", and number two is "Should we listen to music against a dead artist's wishes?":

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Everything about Prince's death felt unreal, including the fact that the single greatest musician of our time vanished from this world without leaving a will. Maybe he thought he was going to live forever, just like the rest of us did.

What Prince did leave us, however, is a knot of anxiety over how to approach his body of recorded work. Would he really want us streaming his albums on Spotify, the very type of hyper-corporate, artist-unfriendly music distribution system that he spent all of his purple life railing against? And what about the contents inside his mythic vault? Would he have wanted us rifling through the recordings that he had so purposefully locked away in the depths of his Paisley Park studio?

I believe that vaults are meant to be cracked open - and even if they weren't, it's ultimately a musician's responsibility to be clear about what should happen to their music when they die. If an artist doesn't want a particular recording in circulation once he's gone, he should destroy that recording himself, or at least leave explicit instructions for his executors in regards to the shredding. Otherwise, that music will find its way out into the world.

But "the world" and "the sales floor" are two very different things, and I know I'd feel much better listening to Prince's unheard music via the Library of Congress or the Free Music Archive than on a commercial streaming service. In September, I'll have to decide exactly how to listen once Prince's estate releases "Piano and a Microphone 1983," his first posthumous album from the vault.

Paying cash money to hear songs that Prince may not have wanted us to hear in the first place might flash us back to the unfinished Michael Jackson recordings that L.A. Reid finished off in 2014, or those private Kurt Cobain demos that surfaced a year later. The listening might feel good on our ears, but the money changing hands will inevitably feel gross.

That's one of the ugliest downsides of the streaming era. When we stream music, our listening becomes transactional. And surely, that drove Prince crazy. To honor his memory, I continue to listen to his albums on vinyl and CD, and I sleep a little better at night.

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as harsh as this sounds it's probably better that a will was never done. P's decison making, be it drug influenced or just part of his ever changing funky psyche was either great or bloody ridiculous. At least this way we have a chance of hearing more than we already have on bootleg & in better quality....if the estate & the idiots involved ever get their shit together!

Didn't he say in interviews that the vault was for when he was gone? Also that he wouldn't release it all but someone would. Didn't he also say that there was enough for an album a year for a hundred years after he died?

I think it's pretty clear that Prince wanted his music put out there when he left this Earth.

TheEnglishGent said:

He already knew songs were leaking out when he was alive. I don't imagine he cares now. I think incomplete songs should be left where they are. I think badly recorded songs (as long as they are basically complete) should be remastered and listened to. The best thing is for his music to be put in context. A rough little half-ass song should not be promoted as a masterpiece..this would lead to "overrated" labels by new listeners.

TheEnglishGent said:

Didn't he say in interviews that the vault was for when he was gone? Also that he wouldn't release it all but someone would. Didn't he also say that there was enough for an album a year for a hundred years after he died?

I think it's pretty clear that Prince wanted his music put out there when he left this Earth.

i don't think so...what i always took from his comments was that he was indifferent. he knew the vault would be raided, but he also knew that it would be beyond his control, influence or possibility of having any personal effect on him.

if he expressly wanted the contents of the vault to see release, i think there might have been a bit more effort put towards organization of general posthumous formalities.

TheEnglishGent said:

Didn't he say in interviews that the vault was for when he was gone? Also that he wouldn't release it all but someone would. Didn't he also say that there was enough for an album a year for a hundred years after he died?

I think it's pretty clear that Prince wanted his music put out there when he left this Earth.

Yup.

he even said ...wouldnt it be cool to find an old prince and the revolution album from a time period ...not a quote

TheEnglishGent said:

TheEnglishGent said:

Didn't he say in interviews that the vault was for when he was gone? Also that he wouldn't release it all but someone would. Didn't he also say that there was enough for an album a year for a hundred years after he died?

I think it's pretty clear that Prince wanted his music put out there when he left this Earth.

Thank you & thats all I needed to hear.

Why hell yes. My only request is that anytime something is remixed, we should also be provided as much as possible the track as it originally appeared in the vault. Do not want Prince's music to become a refugee camp remix to use a dated but pertinent reference.