The more and more I listen to this song, the more and more I like it, the more and more things I pick up.

It's my favorite track of the 'previously unreleased' songs from 1999.

I don't know why this wasn't included in the original release of 1999, do you?

It's one of his best songs, and a theme song for the era, so yeah, it seems like an essential track.

But I can't picture it on 1999 musically, he'd have had to do a much more produced pop version. I'm not sure people were ready for that minimal bass, rhythym guitar combo like that.

Would have been the hit off ATWIAD though. As a follow up to Purple Rain? Would have bridged into Parade too.

Purple Music is great, He shoud have included this instead of International Lover, this would have been a much better closure to the album.

I loved this one from the first listen. Felt like I was pulled back to 1982 in a home studio at night

FanAllMyLife said:

The more and more I listen to this song, the more and more I like it, the more and more things I pick up.

It's my favorite track of the 'previously unreleased' songs from 1999.

I don't know why this wasn't included in the original release of 1999, do you?

Probably too long and repetitive on an album already full of long and repetitive songs. I believe Neversin (I think?) said that there was an acetate 12" made for it that was planned for a club release but it never happened. Great track though!

LOVE this one! Prince at his quirky, creative best!

slyjackson said:

Purple Music is great, He shoud have included this instead of International Lover, this would have been a much better closure to the album.

>

Seems to me that it was between Purple Music and All the Critics Love U in New York. They're too similar to have included both, but I think it could have easily gone the other way...

[Edited 4/6/20 7:36am]

FanAllMyLife said:

The more and more I listen to this song, the more and more I like it, the more and more things I pick up.

It's my favorite track of the 'previously unreleased' songs from 1999.

I don't know why this wasn't included in the original release of 1999, do you?

It usually isn't known why Prince would specifically choose to exclude such or such song from an album. He had a lot of great material to choose from and his choices can be confusing to the fans.

According to what is known, his main preoccupation was to built a cohesive ensemble with each album. I think he even said himself once that the best songs may not make the cut for an album because they just wouldn't fit in the rest or that some great songs would have to sit in the vault for as many years as it takes for them to find the right "home" on an album (I'm paraphrasing, not his exact words, but the spirit overall), and other engineers also said things along these lines (Susan Rogers notably).

It may sound utterly absurd to edit down a song like Computer Blue Hallway Speech on PR, or to exclude a song like All My Dreams from Parade or one like Crystal Ball from SOTT, among others, but at the end of the day if sequencing and tone was P's main preoccupation, these choices suddenly start to make way more sense. I find the 1999 Deluxe CD's to illustrate this quite perfectly: tonally, many of the unreleased songs included here would simply not fit in if only because they're more rock n roll than the cold, mechanical sound Prince chose to favor on 1999. And those who could be candidates are usually redundant of other tracks (typically, Possessed '83 couldn't be on the same album that 1999, both tracks are structurally too similar). On an opposite end of the spectrum, while most fans find Crystal Ball (the album) to be a mess, I find myself very impressed by how its sequencing works well despite how different the material is. I would therefore assume that Prince didn't just throw tracks in randomly but cared very much about the overall pace of the record.

So I didn't really answer your question, but hopefully gave you a few educated guesses

TheLotus said:

slyjackson said:

Purple Music is great, He shoud have included this instead of International Lover, this would have been a much better closure to the album.

>

Seems to me that it was between Purple Music and All the Critics Love U in New York. They're too similar to have included both, but I think it could have easily gone the other way...

[Edited 4/6/20 7:36am]

I'm not sure if P ever felt he had to choose between these 2 specifically, but clearly ATCLUINY makes a point, lyrically, that I think was very important to the building of the Prince "brand" back then, so that would have been a no brainer.

Thank god he didn't fuck up a near-perfect album by including this particular track.

.

Great discovery as a bootleg. But like the vast majority of tunes he quite wisely left in the vault, this one doesn't pass muster. The vault tracks - if nothing else - demonstrate how canny Prince really was in separating the jewels from the dross.

.

TheLotus said:

slyjackson said:

Purple Music is great, He shoud have included this instead of International Lover, this would have been a much better closure to the album.

>

Seems to me that it was between Purple Music and All the Critics Love U in New York. They're too similar to have included both, but I think it could have easily gone the other way...

I thought about this before: "Purple Music" being on the album instead of "All The Critics..."

but then I always come back to my original opinion that 1999 is a perfect album just the way it is.And as much as I like "Purple Music",it was a wise idea for Prince to save the "purple" concept for his next big project "Purple Rain".