With all this talk and excitement over a possible Sign o the Times deluxe....got me to thinking...

I bought SOTTs the day it came out back in 87 on CD (long box!!!). Loved it from day 1, but DO remember thinking back in the day these were the weakest tracks on the album. When I taped the album to cassette to listen in the car and walkman I would leave these off, and replace with some b-sides, remixes, or faves from other albums. So for years I just wrote them off.

Fast foward to now...like SOOO many Prince tracks and albums...these have since grown on me. They have become three of my fave tracks of the album. It, in particular, is brilliant imo. Give it to maturity or age, or just nostalgia, but the whole album really is perfection. I wouldn't THINK of leaving ANY of them off.

Anyone feel the same or have other tracks that you once you rejected and have grown to LOVE?

[Edited 6/5/20 12:22pm]

I agree with you 100% on Slow Love. I love the Sign 'O' The Times album, but Slow Love is the track that slows the momentum of the entire abum for me. Take that one song off and SOTT could be so much better.

Having said that... I can't agree with you about the songs It and It's Gonna Be A Beautuful Night. I really like these two tracks! IGBABN is one last ride with the baddest band in the universe and I'm glad it's on the album!

Slow Love agree, it took a while for that one to grow on me, it's still probably my least favourite although we're talking least favourite amongst a bunch of 9.5+'s out of 10.

It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night has been one of my top songs on that album since day 1, I've never understood why people don't dig it. Too much of one groove? For me, it never gets boring. I actually prefer it to the doublespeed tour version, although obviously I still like that.

I suppose IT could be seen as weak, and I think it suffers from placing next to Hot Thing, but once you get into what he's doing - building up one groove heavier and heavier as he gets more and more into .... *it*.... it makes sense.

The only thing that bugs me on the album these days is the lack of a final chorus for I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man.

I've always loved "It". It wasn't until the internet/forum age that I discovered people didn't like it. Listening to that song is like being in a trance with that hypnotic groove. The unrelenting beat, the ominous keyboards swirling in the background, the increasingly frantic background vocals, the orchestra hits stabbing through...brillliant.

'It' is brilliant. It's always been one of my favourite tracks from that album.

It's such a great feeling when one 'discovers' a Prince track they haven't previously tapped into.

I had that with All the Critics and Beginning Endlessly recently.

'It' is one of the few Prince tracks that seems to have a very specific sound design, in terms of where the instruments appear in the soundstage, in particular in the second part of the song, the largely instrumental section. Like the positioning of the sounds themselves are part of the story of the song.

Sometimes these ideas are there in tracks but are often lost within the mastering.

The second half of When Doves Cry is a prime example. The vocal arrangements are sublime but are almost lost in the mix / master.

With that in mind 'It' comes across as a far more engaging listen with headphones / earphones rather than through speakers, I find. It enables an intimacy with the sound design.

A remastered version would be potentially good news but seeing as Prince was never bothered with the audiophile aspect of his work I'm uncertain as to what a remaster will really do. While the 1999 remaster was a slight improvement, it still didnt manage to bring any sparkle to the upper end of most tracks and some tracks still seem a little muddy.

I think I will go and listen to 'It' right now!

Thanks for the nudge.

the second half of "It" is so amazing. the backing vocals on the 'instrumental' portion of the song

i agree with thepersian that it takes a good pair of headphones to enjoy it best. those vocals that
are so deep in the mix in the second half and the way they just go more and more crazy

LovesexyIsThe1 said:

I agree with you 100% on Slow Love. I love the Sign 'O' The Times album, but Slow Love is the track that slows the momentum of the entire abum for me. Take that one song off and SOTT could be so much better.

Having said that... I can't agree with you about the songs It and It's Gonna Be A Beautuful Night. I really like these two tracks! IGBABN is one last ride with the baddest band in the universe and I'm glad it's on the album!

I love them now...just wasn't cray over them back in 87. Like I said above, It is amazing. Took some time for me to realize.

"It" might be one of his greatest tracks ever. The things going on musically in that track are intense and masterful, the build is sublime and that concluding climax is one of his best ever, I'm convinced fandom not liking it is due to the kind of basic/obvious/direct lyrics, which is just so incredibly myopic but whatever, these people probably like "Free" when it's musically flacid as Prince gets.

This sentiment is I feel confirmed when people love the title track yet somehow dislike "It". "It" takes those grooves/sounds/musical concepts of the title track and pushes them into the next stratosphere. Clearly they enjoyed the title track for the lyrical sentiment and not the beats/groove.

[Edited 6/5/20 14:19pm]

When the album came out, my sister dubbed it to cassette for me. The only blank cassettes she had were 60-minute cassettes, so she cut out one song entirely, and other songs were either partial or missing because the tape had run out.

It wasn't until 1993 when I got SOTT on CD that I discovered the "missing" songs!

The version of SOTT I had for 5 years was as follows:

Side A:

* SOTT

* Play in the Sunshine

* Housequake

[Dorothy Parker missing - cut out by my sister]

* It

* Starfish & Coffee

* Slow Love

* Hot Thing [partial - tape runs out before sax solo]

[Forever in My Life missing]

Side B:

* U Got the Look

* If I Was Your Girlfriend

* Strange Relationship

* I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man

* The Cross

* It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night [partial - tape runs out halfway through]

[Adore missing]

It is great quite hysteric, it sounds like someone's lust out of control and going mad. I like the three of them. However some songs deserved their place, for instance the genius of Shocakedelica and Joy In Reptition and La La La He He He.

WhisperingDandelions said:

"It" might be one of his greatest tracks ever. The things going on musically in that track are intense and masterful, the build is sublime and that concluding climax is one of his best ever, I'm convinced fandom not liking it is due to the kind of basic/obvious/direct lyrics, which is just so incredibly myopic but whatever, these people probably like "Free" when it's musically flacid as Prince gets.

This sentiment is I feel confirmed when people love the title track yet somehow dislike "It". "It" takes those grooves/sounds/musical concepts of the title track and pushes them into the next stratosphere. Clearly they enjoyed the title track for the lyrical sentiment and not the beats/groove.

[Edited 6/5/20 14:19pm]

Indeed, actually it sounds like a terror movie song.

renfield said:

mushmackalenta said:

jaawwnn said:

WhisperingDandelions said:

"It" might be one of his greatest tracks ever. The things going on musically in that track are intense and masterful, the build is sublime and that concluding climax is one of his best ever, I'm convinced fandom not liking it is due to the kind of basic/obvious/direct lyrics, which is just so incredibly myopic but whatever, these people probably like "Free" when it's musically flacid as Prince gets.

This sentiment is I feel confirmed when people love the title track yet somehow dislike "It". "It" takes those grooves/sounds/musical concepts of the title track and pushes them into the next stratosphere. Clearly they enjoyed the title track for the lyrical sentiment and not the beats/groove.

[Edited 6/5/20 14:19pm]

Indeed, actually it sounds like a terror movie song.

IMO the weakest track on SOTT is Hot Thing...I would have replaced it with Shockadelica. Other than that, SOTT is definitely in my top 5 Prince albums.

PurpleColossus said:

PurpleColossus said:

IstenSzek said:

the second half of "It" is so amazing. the backing vocals on the 'instrumental' portion of the song

i agree with thepersian that it takes a good pair of headphones to enjoy it best. those vocals that
are so deep in the mix in the second half and the way they just go more and more crazy

This. Case closed.

SoulAlive said:

PurpleColossus said:

IMO the weakest track on SOTT is Hot Thing...I would have replaced it with Shockadelica

I would have replaced it with the superior “Wonderful Ass”.

An excellent choice as well

WhisperingDandelions said:

"It" might be one of his greatest tracks ever. The things going on musically in that track are intense and masterful, the build is sublime and that concluding climax is one of his best ever, I'm convinced fandom not liking it is due to the kind of basic/obvious/direct lyrics, which is just so incredibly myopic but whatever, these people probably like "Free" when it's musically flacid as Prince gets.

This sentiment is I feel confirmed when people love the title track yet somehow dislike "It". "It" takes those grooves/sounds/musical concepts of the title track and pushes them into the next stratosphere. Clearly they enjoyed the title track for the lyrical sentiment and not the beats/groove.

[Edited 6/5/20 14:19pm]

This x 1000.

"IT" wasn't a favorite, but "Slow Love" is still an underrated Prince ballad. "It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night" was the first track I just went gaga over. There are a few songs in the middle of disk 1 that I had to get used to, whereas disk 2 was a hit all the way around.

Frankly, the one song that is just hard to hear and feels cheap is "The Cross." (Don't come for me, bitches.)

I sorta feel like "Black Sweat" is "Hot Thing"'s cousin. "Forever in My Life" was always a mistaken genius track, as was "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker."

I swear I had adhd as a younger person, because I just could not be bothered with long and/or sparse shit. Which means "SOTT" "ICNTTPOYM" and "IT" were not favorites. I sometimes skipped them to get to the funky stuff. Sometimes, back then, I let "Adore" slip to the side, too.

I suppose the album is just a lot to absorb. It came out while I was in boot camp so I didn't find it until late April. Being sidetracked with the shithole that is the U.S. military, I wasn't as music centered as I had been before. I missed the details, stories, etc., of the whole campaign, but I did go see SOTT in Philadelphia when it came out.

PurpleColossus said:

IMO the weakest track on SOTT is Hot Thing...I would have replaced it with Shockadelica. Other than that, SOTT is definitely in my top 5 Prince albums.

Me too.

SoulAlive said:

I love “It”. Many will disagree,but I think “Hot Thing” is filler...and so is “It’s Gonna Be A Beautiful Night”.

Hot Thing yes, it should have been replaced by the great Shockadelica.

I just thought of something. Since SOTT was a whittled down version of something else, imagine what he would have made had he left the Camille tracks intact as their own, released it without pomp or circumstance, and then whatever SOTT was around the same time. SOTT would've probably just been another track on an album with another name.

'It' is fantastic IMO, but when SOTT was just released it was one of the tunes that took me longer to get into. Never really dug 'Slow Love', it is a bit boring IMO and the weakest track on the album for me. 'It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night' is great, but I have to be in the mood for that one.