https://recordstoreday.co...ease/10787

.

Limited edition, numbered, picture disc. Composed and produced by Prince (under the pseudonym Alexander Nevermind), one of Sheena Easton's most well-known - and most contentious - releases, now for the first time ever on 12" picture disc, and transferred from the original master tapes at Abbey Road studios.

.

"one of Sheena Easton's most well-known - and most contentious - releases"

It really is hillarious that Sugar Walls was on the Filthy Fifteen back in the day.

[Edited 4/9/19 14:40pm]

Shiiiiiiit! It's too late for me to put it on my RSD wish list.

Dandroppedadime said:

The real master is in Iron Mountain!

Well, no. EMI owns (owned at least, IDK the current status of Sheena's catalogue) the Sheena recording, so Prince never had the multitracks or masters for that specific version and its alternate mixes.

databank said:

Dandroppedadime said:

The real master is in Iron Mountain!

Well, no. EMI owns (owned at least, IDK the current status of Sheena's catalogue) the Sheena recording, so Prince never had the multitracks or masters for that specific version and its alternate mixes.

.
Well, no. Prince made the original multitrack and it belonged to him. 2 days later he produced the session with Easton, recording her vocals. At this stage EMI probably wasn't involved at all. David Leonard engineered both the normal mix and the remixes and the resulting 2-track mixdown tapes are what most people call 'the original masters'. They certainly made safety copies of these masters too, so whether the masters or the safety copies ended up at EMI we don't know. Either way, the other ones, as well as the 2" multitrack reel were obviously returned to Prince so they must be at Iron Mountain now.

.

(And from these masters – or safety copies – EMI had to make the so-called production masters, different ones for cassette, vinyl and CD, and sometimes production masters are used for remastering when the original master is lost, so again, we can't be 100% sure what exactly a "transferred from the original master tapes" label means. Sometimes it's simply a lie.)

.

[Edited 4/10/19 2:57am]

Moving on...

LOL, they're actually sticking Prince's name on the cover of it. Some serious barrel scraping.

jaawwnn said:

LOL, they're actually sticking Prince's name on the cover of it. Some serious barrel scraping.

.
You mean they shouldn't indicate that it's a song created entirely by him?

.

[Snip - luv4u]

Kares said:

jaawwnn said:

LOL, they're actually sticking Prince's name on the cover of it. Some serious barrel scraping.

.
You mean they shouldn't indicate that it's a song created entirely by him?

.

They can do as they please if they want to squeeze a buck, i'm gonna laugh though.

jaawwnn said:

Kares said:

.
You mean they shouldn't indicate that it's a song created entirely by him?

.

They can do as they please if they want to squeeze a buck, i'm gonna laugh though.

.
I've no idea what your problem is. EMI is rereleasing a single from their back catalog, and they are crediting it to the guy who created it (wrote it, arranged it, played every instrument on it, produced it). They are also, horribile dictu, pocketing a bit of profit. That is truly scandalous indeed...

.

Kares said:

jaawwnn said:

They can do as they please if they want to squeeze a buck, i'm gonna laugh though.

.
I've no idea what your problem is. EMI is rereleasing a single from their back catalog, and they are crediting it to the guy who created it (wrote it, arranged it, played every instrument on it, produced it). They are also, horribile dictu, pocketing a bit of profit. That is truly scandalous indeed...

.

I see your point - however I believe that technically the writer and producer of "Sugar Walls" was Alexander Nevermind.

Kares said:

jaawwnn said:

They can do as they please if they want to squeeze a buck, i'm gonna laugh though.

.
I've no idea what your problem is. EMI is rereleasing a single from their back catalog, and they are crediting it to the guy who created it (wrote it, arranged it, played every instrument on it, produced it). They are also, horribile dictu, pocketing a bit of profit. That is truly scandalous indeed...

.

I'm not scandalized i'm amused. It's a silly little cash grab by a company with no imagination and i'm laughing at it, i'm not saying they're not allowed to do it

hardwork said:

Kares said:

.
I've no idea what your problem is. EMI is rereleasing a single from their back catalog, and they are crediting it to the guy who created it (wrote it, arranged it, played every instrument on it, produced it). They are also, horribile dictu, pocketing a bit of profit. That is truly scandalous indeed...

.

I see your point - however I believe that technically the writer and producer of "Sugar Walls" was Alexander Nevermind.

.

Perhaps you could try reading the artwork.

Kares said:

databank said:

Well, no. EMI owns (owned at least, IDK the current status of Sheena's catalogue) the Sheena recording, so Prince never had the multitracks or masters for that specific version and its alternate mixes.

.
Well, no. Prince made the original multitrack and it belonged to him. 2 days later he produced the session with Easton, recording her vocals. At this stage EMI probably wasn't involved at all. David Leonard engineered both the normal mix and the remixes and the resulting 2-track mixdown tapes are what most people call 'the original masters'. They certainly made safety copies of these masters too, so whether the masters or the safety copies ended up at EMI we don't know. Either way, the other ones, as well as the 2" multitrack reel were obviously returned to Prince so they must be at Iron Mountain now.

.

(And from these masters – or safety copies – EMI had to make the so-called production masters, different ones for cassette, vinyl and CD, and sometimes production masters are used for remastering when the original master is lost, so again, we can't be 100% sure what exactly a "transferred from the original master tapes" label means. Sometimes it's simply a lie.)

.

[Edited 4/10/19 2:57am]

Thx for those details.

What we know for sure is that Sheena left with the multitracks because the song was remixed later without any P involvement. And the Sheena session was not made at Sunset Sound so I assumed that EMI paid for it (I don't remember all the details from Duane's book) All this is what made me assume Prince never kept a copy of the session with Sheena and only had previous versions in the vault. But you're right, it may not be so simple.

It's clearly confusing that we never know whether people or labels mean "original" or "production" masters

databank said:

What we know for sure is that Sheena left with the multitracks because the song was remixed later without any P involvement.

.

They can make copies of tapes.

.

It's clearly confusing that we never know whether people or labels mean "original" or "production" masters

.

It's always likely multiple copies are made of the mixdown masters. IIRC I've heard of a case where the "original" one was damaged and they instead used the copy they had at the Japan branch.

databank said:

Kares said:

.
Well, no. Prince made the original multitrack and it belonged to him. 2 days later he produced the session with Easton, recording her vocals. At this stage EMI probably wasn't involved at all. David Leonard engineered both the normal mix and the remixes and the resulting 2-track mixdown tapes are what most people call 'the original masters'. They certainly made safety copies of these masters too, so whether the masters or the safety copies ended up at EMI we don't know. Either way, the other ones, as well as the 2" multitrack reel were obviously returned to Prince so they must be at Iron Mountain now.

.

(And from these masters – or safety copies – EMI had to make the so-called production masters, different ones for cassette, vinyl and CD, and sometimes production masters are used for remastering when the original master is lost, so again, we can't be 100% sure what exactly a "transferred from the original master tapes" label means. Sometimes it's simply a lie.)

.

[Edited 4/10/19 2:57am]

Thx for those details.

What we know for sure is that Sheena left with the multitracks because the song was remixed later without any P involvement. And the Sheena session was not made at Sunset Sound so I assumed that EMI paid for it (I don't remember all the details from Duane's book) All this is what made me assume Prince never kept a copy of the session with Sheena and only had previous versions in the vault. But you're right, it may not be so simple.

It's clearly confusing that we never know whether people or labels mean "original" or "production" masters

.
The multitrack was surely returned to Prince, regardless of when the remix was made. It's his work, his tape, no record company would just take it and put it on their own shelf. Besides, as Duane's book mentions, Prince later used some elements of 'Sugar Walls' for the 'Hot Thing' remix, which proves the tape was back in his posession. And I'm 100% sure that at least a safety copy of the mixdown tape with Easton's vocals was also given to Prince for reference.

.

BartVanHemelen said:

databank said:

What we know for sure is that Sheena left with the multitracks because the song was remixed later without any P involvement.

.

They can make copies of tapes.

.

Possible, of course, but with 2" multitracks, rarely done. Both Prince and Easton were working in LA at the time so it was much easier (and cheaper and better) to just send the tape over to the other studio, than having it copied.

BartVanHemelen said:

databank said:

It's clearly confusing that we never know whether people or labels mean "original" or "production" masters

.

It's always likely multiple copies are made of the mixdown masters. IIRC I've heard of a case where the "original" one was damaged and they instead used the copy they had at the Japan branch.

.

Sure. Back in the days when majors were pressing many of their releases simultaneously in several pressing plants worldwide, they either had to have copies of the original master tape (the mixdown tape) at each location so that each pressing plant could make its own production masters (that were used for duplication of the different formats), or these production masters would have to be made in several copies by one plant and distributed to the others. So yeah, either way, there are many many copies of tapes in the warehouses and going back to the truly original mixdown tape has only started to become important AFTER the first wave of CD releases, when companies needed a new selling point to justify putting out the same CDs again. Before that it was common practice to manufacture vinyl LPs and the first CD editions from 2nd or 3rd generation tapes.
.

Could see a version with glossy pink vinyl.

I didn't go to Record Store Day,but I'll find a copy on Ebay.This thing looks nice

Kares said:

databank said:

Thx for those details.

What we know for sure is that Sheena left with the multitracks because the song was remixed later without any P involvement. And the Sheena session was not made at Sunset Sound so I assumed that EMI paid for it (I don't remember all the details from Duane's book) All this is what made me assume Prince never kept a copy of the session with Sheena and only had previous versions in the vault. But you're right, it may not be so simple.

It's clearly confusing that we never know whether people or labels mean "original" or "production" masters

.
The multitrack was surely returned to Prince, regardless of when the remix was made. It's his work, his tape, no record company would just take it and put it on their own shelf. Besides, as Duane's book mentions, Prince later used some elements of 'Sugar Walls' for the 'Hot Thing' remix, which proves the tape was back in his posession. And I'm 100% sure that at least a safety copy of the mixdown tape with Easton's vocals was also given to Prince for reference.

.

OK, thx for all those explainations, I really appreciate all your contributions lately

Just to be clear I never doubted that he had the multitracks for his versions (hence Hot Thing), but I took it for granted that he didn't have Sheena's vocals, but yeah, what you say make sense so it's very possible in that particular case since he attended the vocals' recording sessions (unsusal for songs he gave away to others).