Looking at the views across all media from hardcore there's a gulf of opinions [as always!]

Simple question for you all then -

1] Leave the vault tracks as they are - BUT clean up the sound & release without any instrumental / vocal embelishments. So many examples of tracks we have have that are mere sketches whihc we know he would have reworked. Imagine say I Wonder as a fully produced track -even though I love it as it is!

2] Get bands from each era to finish off tracks. Prime example being The Revolution from 84 - 86...would you prefer Wendy & Lisa to add their incredible magic to add to unfinished tracks or even compile albums from their era? Imagine a raw version the Parade album without W&L's genius!

I guess the vault has many tracks that were considered done , finished & completed..however I am sure there are hundreds that weren't?

Personally I'd have both!! Unfinished brilliant tracks would be amazing with some purple circle magic sprinkled on- NPG crew knew what P was all about as did W&L etc.

Thoughts?

1

1, Hell yeah

2, Fuck no

#1 without a doubt. I'm not opposed to #2 as a bonus companion to the original recordings, I'm actually curious to hear how his ex-bandmates would embellish those 'unfinished' tracks, but they shouldn't be the only (or even the main) versions released

I've been very vocal about this lately, so 1/, without hesitation.

In the case where the original mix only exists on a cassette mixdown, I'd even say remix it as closely as possible for the audiophiles, yet release the cassette mixdown as well for those (like me) who favor authenticity over audio quality.

AS FRICKIN' IS.

[Edited 6/18/19 7:14am]

Always as he left them......always.

Even if unfinished, it is still Prince's vision up to THAT point, and not some strangers interpretation of what they feel it should sound like or what they feel Prince would have wanted it to sound like.

The altering of vault tracks sets a horrible precedent. The added reverb they put on the vocals for most of the Originals songs is a prime example, not sure what else they did on this release, but I am sure they probably took some liberties.

[Edited 6/19/19 6:57am]

TheEnglishGent said:

1, Hell yeah

2, Fuck no

just leave it as it is.

i find it so weird that they say they had about 250 tracks longlisted for "originals"
and whitled it down to what they released, eventually.

that makes it all the more insane that they chose to tamper/tinker/fuck with some
of the tracks they released.

surely, if you have to start adding stuff to tracks or make hybrid mixes of tracks
he left in the vault with released tracks on protege albums etc, you could just as
easily or in fact more easily say 'fuck that, we'll just release the stuff prince put
to tape that stands up well enough on it's own'.

instead of digging through crates of cassette tapes that might or might not have
a 'final' version of a song on them, of which there are multiple versions already in
circulation, why not just look for FINISHED songs and projects?

perhaps there are very few from the 80s, in so far as completed albums go?

but we know that he worked very hard and fast the last decade at the very least
and we know of many projects and completed albums even.

it'll be interesting to see if they start releasing projects prince completed, and leave
them as they are, without fucking with them in any way. once sony starts to get the
chance to release post WB vault material and not just reissue released albums, it'll
be an interesting time to be a fan, i think.

i know it's difficult for the people working on this stuff right now, but moving forward
from this point, there needs to be a bit more quality control imo. it's not like they're
on year 20 of vault anthology releases and they are scraping the barrell to find one
or two more songs to put out and decide to complete unfinished tracks just to have
some more stuff to milk for money. they have enough prime material so hey.

but let's wait for the Parade and 1999 expanded reissues. we'll know more about who
we are dealing with once they release those.

anyway, after all that: please just release stuff AS IS. amen.

.

[Edited 6/18/19 9:06am]

1 - no brainer for me. Want pure releases. Can't think f anything worse than embellishments from others - whether original band mebers or not.

1

If I'm not mistaken, the Deliverance EP was finished posthumously by others. Most people loved that, and didn't complain too much. I think it was because actual "Prince camp" players/singers were used.

But, personally, I would just like to hear the stuff cleaned up as he left them. His vision - even in demo form - was why we're all here.

I was listening to INXS on my way home from work yesterday, and I thought to myself "too bad they didn't have their own Vault". I'd love to hear another INXS album with Michael Hutchence on vocals! We take for granted that there is so much unreleased Prince music, something that doesn't apply to other bands. They either released their work or scrapped what didn't work.

Se7en said:

If I'm not mistaken, the Deliverance EP was finished posthumously by others. Most people loved that, and didn't complain too much. I think it was because actual "Prince camp" players/singers were used.

But, personally, I would just like to hear the stuff cleaned up as he left them. His vision - even in demo form - was why we're all here.

I was listening to INXS on my way home from work yesterday, and I thought to myself "too bad they didn't have their own Vault". I'd love to hear another INXS album with Michael Hutchence on vocals! We take for granted that there is so much unreleased Prince music, something that doesn't apply to other bands. They either released their work or scrapped what didn't work.

The other part of it is that the man who "finished"/released Deliverance was absolutely, 100% up front about the work he'd done on the tracks after Prince.

I'm not an absolutist regarding what happens to Prince-penned tracks - whether they stay "pure" (whatever that means) or are worked on before release. But I do think it's fair to tell listeners that the tracks have been sweetened or augmented by others. I don't need all the gory details - just a quick "this isn't just Prince, anymore" or "we used multiple takes to create this one" is fine.

who ever is releasing his stuff thinks they has to "update" the sound or it wont appeal to the public----fools

AS IS OR NOT AT ALL!

this ain't the other dead artists who needed stuff worked on and sold, it's the greatest, most prolific genius in his genre of music. susan rogers says that he would typically complete a song and not come back to it, hard to believe but that's what she said. He must have thought the songs were done. Leave them like they were unless it's the mundane issues like quality loss from age or something. Prince never needed interpreters and him being dead doesn't change that.

PeteSilas said:

this ain't the other dead artists who needed stuff worked on and sold, it's the greatest, most prolific genius in his genre of music. susan rogers says that he would typically complete a song and not come back to it, hard to believe but that's what she said. He must have thought the songs were done. Leave them like they were unless it's the mundane issues like quality loss from age or something. Prince never needed interpreters and him being dead doesn't change that.

I love everything that you said. I agree wholeheartedly. Complete a song like Da Bang or Dream Factory or Last Heart and not come back to it? Thank god he found those bootlegs in the mid 90's or we might not have some of his best shit(Crystal Ball-the album).

Both or 1, and don't "clean up" the sound either.

[Edited 6/19/19 3:33am]

Se7en said:

If I'm not mistaken, the Deliverance EP was finished posthumously by others. Most people loved that, and didn't complain too much. I think it was because actual "Prince camp" players/singers were used.

But, personally, I would just like to hear the stuff cleaned up as he left them. His vision - even in demo form - was why we're all here.

I was listening to INXS on my way home from work yesterday, and I thought to myself "too bad they didn't have their own Vault". I'd love to hear another INXS album with Michael Hutchence on vocals! We take for granted that there is so much unreleased Prince music, something that doesn't apply to other bands. They either released their work or scrapped what didn't work.

i thought deliverance was stunning! ..really couldn't tell it had been tinkered with.

PURPLEIZED3121 said:

Se7en said:

If I'm not mistaken, the Deliverance EP was finished posthumously by others. Most people loved that, and didn't complain too much. I think it was because actual "Prince camp" players/singers were used.

But, personally, I would just like to hear the stuff cleaned up as he left them. His vision - even in demo form - was why we're all here.

I was listening to INXS on my way home from work yesterday, and I thought to myself "too bad they didn't have their own Vault". I'd love to hear another INXS album with Michael Hutchence on vocals! We take for granted that there is so much unreleased Prince music, something that doesn't apply to other bands. They either released their work or scrapped what didn't work.

i thought deliverance was stunning! ..really couldn't tell it had been tinkered with.

It had. The results were satisfying but, not cool in the principle. Now given how the record was withdrawn after a few days and it was not an Estate-sanctioned release, I thought it was OK to let it go and didn't comment much on it back then... It didn't reach canon level.

From a commercial point, I think we will see unreleased Prince songs getting features. Justin Timberlake, will.i.am, Drake, Weeknd, Bruno Mars, etc.

williamb610 said:

PeteSilas said:

this ain't the other dead artists who needed stuff worked on and sold, it's the greatest, most prolific genius in his genre of music. susan rogers says that he would typically complete a song and not come back to it, hard to believe but that's what she said. He must have thought the songs were done. Leave them like they were unless it's the mundane issues like quality loss from age or something. Prince never needed interpreters and him being dead doesn't change that.

I love everything that you said. I agree wholeheartedly. Complete a song like Da Bang or Dream Factory or Last Heart and not come back to it? Thank god he found those bootlegs in the mid 90's or we might not have some of his best shit(Crystal Ball-the album).

ya, hard to believe, i wouldn't question what susan rogers said at all, she was there but for the putting it in the vault and never touching it again applying to everything? no way. Not that he wasn't good enough but songwriters (I am one) often have a hard time shutting off the creativity even after a song is "done" I always interpreted Prince's saying to the 1999 revolution that "it has to be better than it was on the album" meaning the songs would have some extra stuff, and they did. the dirty mind version of "i wanna be your lover" is phenomenal, the only thing I didn't like in that era and later ones was that he rarely did the full album versions. One more thing, we do know that he had to have come back to Wally because susan erased the song at his request and he did it again when she wasn't around, just an all around mad genius/artist/composer.

also, just because it may not be finished or top quality may not mean it's superior to what could come after. I've said recently that I preferred the horribly recorded "thieves in the temple" demo version to the lackluster final version. Other artists it's the same, I'm listening to Springsteen's "The Promise" a song which was strong enough to go on his Darkness on The Edge Of Town but was left off for one reason or another, maybe because he felt it was too self-aggrandizing, at any rate, the first version is perfect, the version he rerecorded some 25 years later, with full band and pristine sound is, to borrow what some people here say about people fucking with Prince's music, "an abomination".

Am somewhat torn. I'd say to leave everything as-is, but if you take a track like Da Bourgeoisie, I like the version with the horns added a lot better. I imagine there are quite a few tracks that were still "waiting" for strings or horns. I mean, I'm dying to hear Prince's version of Nothing Compares To You in the actual version, like it appears on the Family album. Prince had a habit of having more tracks recorded for any song than he'd actually use. (most famous with When Doves Cry, I guess)

.

This is, for instance, where the Originals version of 100MPH goes wrong, it kept, amongst other things, some guitar tracks in that were muted in all of Prince's mixes and should have been left off.

.

So... as-is might not be as-is (as it might have instruments Prince didn't want after the song took final shape) and additions by people he worked with might be what was intended. (Mostly horns/strings)

mediumdry said:

Am somewhat torn. I'd say to leave everything as-is, but if you take a track like Da Bourgeoisie, I like the version with the horns added a lot better. I imagine there are quite a few tracks that were still "waiting" for strings or horns. I mean, I'm dying to hear Prince's version of Nothing Compares To You in the actual version, like it appears on the Family album. Prince had a habit of having more tracks recorded for any song than he'd actually use. (most famous with When Doves Cry, I guess)

.

This is, for instance, where the Originals version of 100MPH goes wrong, it kept, amongst other things, some guitar tracks in that were muted in all of Prince's mixes and should have been left off.

.

So... as-is might not be as-is (as it might have instruments Prince didn't want after the song took final shape) and additions by people he worked with might be what was intended. (Mostly horns/strings)

the problem with that is we'd have someone doing the interpreting, it may be good or bad. I loved the recent elvis album where the london philharmonic did arrangements, it wasn't bad at all, but if I had to choose between that and the originals, of course it would be the originals everytime. Elvis wasn't a writer but he was a genuine creative force who would direct the bands, albeit not in specific enough fashion to call him a writer, he could have definitely been called a producer and a great one at that.

I say BOTH.

It depends on the track and it's context.

If Prince was jammin' and created a demo, then leave it.

If Prince with his band, created the first version of an album, then let the band finish it. For example, Crystal Ball is clearly finished so don't touch it. Maybe Roadhouse Garden needs the Revolution to finish it (as a general example).

I'd also be happy if a 2 CD package was created with both versions - just like MJ's Xscape.

However, I feel in his latter decades, technology meant that whatever Prince was working on with his engineers, was already at a 'finished' studio quality rather than the very early cassette masters.

Ultimately, as has been said many times, we just need to know what has happend rather than being mislead.

darkroman said:

I say BOTH.

It depends on the track and it's context.

If Prince was jammin' and created a demo, then leave it.

If Prince with his band, created the first version of an album, then let the band finish it. For example, Crystal Ball is clearly finished so don't touch it. Maybe Roadhouse Garden needs the Revolution to finish it (as a general example).

I'd also be happy if a 2 CD package was created with both versions - just like MJ's Xscape.

However, I feel in his latter decades, technology meant that whatever Prince was working on with his engineers, was already at a 'finished' studio quality rather than the very early cassette masters.

Ultimately, as has been said many times, we just need to know what has happend rather than being mislead.

totally agree with that.

Produced, Arranged, Written, and Composed by Prince, Bill and Steve.

No thank you.......