I'm starting to become a bit disillusioned with all these posthumous releases. Yes, it's incredible how prolific he was, but honestly speaking, how many unreleased songs of his are really as great as the ones he put out? Not that many. We all have tons of them but I can count on one hand the ones that are truly great.

It all looks very impressive, elaborate boxsets with multiple discs of outtakes etc, but if the 1999 one is anything to go by, he definitely kept the cream of the crop for the albums themselves and there is a lot of mediocrity in his unreleased work. It feels a little quantity over quality with Prince's vault music, which is not too surprising, he was only human after all. One man can only contain so many inspired ideas.

No.

Smokey80 said:

It all looks very impressive, elaborate boxsets with multiple discs of outtakes etc, but if the 1999 one is anything to go by, he definitely kept the cream of the crop for the albums themselves and there is a lot of mediocrity in his unreleased work. It feels a little quantity over quality with Prince's vault music, which is not too surprising, he was only human after all. One man can only contain so many inspired ideas.

I highly disagree.

I disagree. There are hundreds of unreleased (or previously unreleased) songs that are so much better than many of the songs he decided to include on his official albums. It boggles the mind that he didn´t release, for example, a strong song like Someone 2 Call but instead released stuff like Jughead, Push, I Like Funky Music, or AOC. Sure, they´re from different eras but still....

.

Also, it´s nice to have live versions, alternate versions and rehearsals of songs we´ve known for many years.

I guess it depends on your expectations. One man's treasure is another man's trash right?

For me personally, I adore all the unfinished sketches of songs, the prototypical ideas behind such and such a song, all the rough early demos and unreleased jams that give deeper insight into his songwriting. Of course I'm not expecting all of it to live up to the studio album releases that he loved enough to polish up and present to the world, but this material scratches a different kind of itch for me. I know Prince is gone, I'm not looking for a new, totally finished Prince studio album release, that can't happen now.

I also love the live performances, the rehearsal footage, all that stuff that exposes his musicianship, unclouded by studio technique and over-embellishment. On his studio albums, he often buried guitar parts that I'd love to hear more clearly, or he polished up songs that I'd love to hear in more basic form. So for me, all the vault releases so far have been wonderful.

As for quantity over quality, of course. Prince recorded damn near constantly, so it absolutely and definitely is quantity over quality. That's why it needs careful curating. Personally, I'm happy to hear anything at all, even Prince humming an idea for a bassline is super interesting to me. I guess if you go into this with the right expectations, you'll enjoy it more. The only thing that kills me is that I probably won't get to hear all of it before I run out of time myself.

Any Prince outtake is somebody else's gem.

It's that easy.

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[Edited 7/5/20 8:52am]

No, I don't think so at all.

Prince wasn't always the best judge of what to include on official releases, what singles to release and what tracks would resonate with his fans. Some of the best things I've ever heard him do (Old Friends, Large Room, Rebirth of the Flesh, Extraloveable, Others Here WIth US) were from the vault/bootlegged and Im quite excited for what SoTT Deluxe brings.

The unreleased tracks from PR and 1999 Deluxe I thought were fantastic. P&M less so but I really love hearing this stuff that he considered throwaways or otherwise not completely baked or fully realized songs that blow away half the stuff from other artists' officially released material.

Sure, there's some filler in there - but there was filler on a lot of his official albums and web releases too so...Emacipation and Crystal Ball are the epitome of quantity over quality but I much preferred having the 3CD approach that let me pick and choose the songs that floated my boat over weeding though D&P, C&D, Rave, NPS and Come that left me with half a good album. Shit, even Prince's own "The Vault" official WB release watered down the good tracks and we KNOW he had better songs lying around. But I made GREAT SINGLE CD's from the triple albums he released.

Prince's fans, more than most other artists', have a VERY eclectic opinion on "what's good". Their tastes are all over the fucking place. I'm not a huge fan of the ballads, for instance, but others eat that shit up. I enjoy some of the hip hop style things but others despise them. Finding consensus in his catalog is a rough road to pave so release it all and let us choose what to eat from the buffet.

...

One GOOD thing to come from Prince's passing, for me anyways, has been the lax monitoring and the online policing of stuff like Youtube that, in his absence, has opened up all sorts of new songs and unreleased live material I'd never knew about; a lot of which I wondered why he sat on.

He left this vault and saved this stuff for us precisely for this reason. I want to hear it all and say bring it on. Cuss words and shit be damned.

Wolfie87 said:

When I heard Open Book and Get Blue on that YELLOW bootleg I couldn't believe this was at the same time as he made Graffitti Bridge. Those songs would've been stone cold classics if released officially in 1990/1991 [Edited 7/5/20 14:35pm]

I had a tape of that bootleg in my car and gave some friends of mine a ride and they were blown away by both songs but more so by Open Book. They asked me if that was really Prince and why he didn´t release the song on his own album. They thought it sounded a bit like U2´s Still Haven´t Found What I´ve Been Looking For. I disagreed, but I agreed that it´s a great song that he should have kept for himself.

I heard Someone 2 Call for the first time a couple of days ago and was surprised that he never released or played that song. It´s fantastic and I can´t get enough of it. In my opinion right up there with those other gems from the Purple Rain heyday.

Smokey80 said:

I'm starting to become a bit disillusioned with all these posthumous releases. Yes, it's incredible how prolific he was, but honestly speaking, how many unreleased songs of his are really as great as the ones he put out? Not that many. We all have tons of them but I can count on one hand the ones that are truly great.

It all looks very impressive, elaborate boxsets with multiple discs of outtakes etc, but if the 1999 one is anything to go by, he definitely kept the cream of the crop for the albums themselves and there is a lot of mediocrity in his unreleased work. It feels a little quantity over quality with Prince's vault music, which is not too surprising, he was only human after all. One man can only contain so many inspired ideas.

I would say many unreleased tracks are just as good if not better than a lot of the album tracks. Not all of course, but all in all the quality of the unreleased stuff especially from the '80s I think is very high


A lot of times the tracks that went on the albums went well together as a theme or unified sonic vision. So not every great track produced in that era found its way onto an official album even if the quality was just as good

Wolfie87 said:

I think a lot of the outtakes are absolutely incredible and on par with his best work. My very favorite song by anyone is "Moonbeam Levels". I agree that his output on albums (particularly during the 80s) was by-and-large phenomenal, but that doesn't mean the vault is any less worthy.

Let's take 1999 as an example. It's my favorite album ever by quite some distance, so if any album is going to trounce its contemporaneous outtakes, it should be this one. Well, based on 1999 Deluxe as well as the era-appropriate tracks from Originals and the notable exclusions, I'd rank (and rate) all of the era's songs this way:

10/10:

Moonbeam Levels
Something in the Water (Does Not Compute)
1999
Something in the Water (Does Not Compute) (Original Version)
All the Critics Love U in New York
Automatic
Rearrange
Purple Music
Delirious (Full Length)
Delirious
Extraloveable
D.M.S.R.
Make-Up
Gigolos Get Lonely Too
Bold Generation
Let's Pretend We're Married
Possessed
Lust U Always
No Call U
Free
Baby, You're a Trip
Lady Cab Driver
Turn It Up
Do Yourself a Favor
How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore (Take 2)
How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore
Wouldn't You Love to Love Me?
Irresistible Bitch

9/10:

Yah, You Know
Little Red Corvette
Teacher, Teacher
Irresistible Bitch '81
Vagina
International Lover (Take 1)

8/10:

Feel U Up
International Lover
Don't Let Him Fool Ya
Lady Cab Driver / I Wanna Be Your Lover / Head / Little Red Corvette (Tour Demo)
Horny Toad
Can't Stop This Feeling I Got

7/10:

You're All I Want
Colleen
Money Don't Grow on Trees
You're My Love

6/10:

If It'll Make U Happy

Bearing in mind that again, 1999 is the pinnacle of music for me as is, it's remarkable that the vault contains so many songs that compete with the upper end of the album for me. There are 9 songs from the vault (7 of which are completely new and not directly tied to the released songs) that would place among the top half of the 14 released 1999-era songs had they been added. Yes, the released material does tend to outpace the vault material, but there's a treasure trove of material here, more than enough to make what would be my second favorite Prince album (and maybe my second favorite album ever) if you take the top 11 unreleased songs that aren't connected to any of the released songs from the era.

Smokey80 said:

I'm starting to become a bit disillusioned with all these posthumous releases. Yes, it's incredible how prolific he was, but honestly speaking, how many unreleased songs of his are really as great as the ones he put out? Not that many. We all have tons of them but I can count on one hand the ones that are truly great.

It all looks very impressive, elaborate boxsets with multiple discs of outtakes etc, but if the 1999 one is anything to go by, he definitely kept the cream of the crop for the albums themselves and there is a lot of mediocrity in his unreleased work. It feels a little quantity over quality with Prince's vault music, which is not too surprising, he was only human after all. One man can only contain so many inspired ideas.

Not according to Michael Howe, and he would know.

SantanaMaitreya said:

honestly we don't know.Everything that we have already has come to by some pretty raggedy means ranging from disgruntled girlfriends to tapes that were "borrowed from his car."

The first attempt at a full sample from the vault by time period was 1999 deluxe which I believe has about an albums worth of excellent vault outtakes, but that is personal preference.

So many people have vastly different opinions that what I think is embarrassing, mediocre and missable might end up being the same track somebody else thinks is the holy grail.

So my answer would be "let me listen to the vault and I'll let you know

herb4 said:

Mikado said:

Smokey80 said:

Smokey80 said:

I'm starting to become a bit disillusioned with all these posthumous releases. Yes, it's incredible how prolific he was, but honestly speaking, how many unreleased songs of his are really as great as the ones he put out? Not that many. We all have tons of them but I can count on one hand the ones that are truly great.

It all looks very impressive, elaborate boxsets with multiple discs of outtakes etc, but if the 1999 one is anything to go by, he definitely kept the cream of the crop for the albums themselves and there is a lot of mediocrity in his unreleased work. It feels a little quantity over quality with Prince's vault music, which is not too surprising, he was only human after all. One man can only contain so many inspired ideas.

having been a fan for 30+ years, it may be blasphemy to say it but....I do agree sort of. Let me explain....

Yes, he has lots of stuff where he was just trying things out. As Eric Leeds said to Michael Dean, Prince spent all his time in the studio and a lot of vault stuff is him going from one place to another musically. However, along the way there are absolute gems like the forthcoming 'All My Dreams'. There is the original 'Old Friends 4 Sale'. There is 'Large Room, No Light'. What about 'Train'? Wow. If it took him 10 songs to come up with each of these...you can see why the vault may have such quantity but just look at the level of the gems....it's just incredible.

Now, the ones i mentioned are the most perfect diamonds. There are also many very interesting fruits....'Adonis and Bathsheba' is an odd one that Susan Rogers laughed at but I absolutely LOVE. His music was such an extension of himself that even what's not top tier is top tier in terms of being interesting. Think of 'Soul Psycadelicide'. It's a genius just doing whatever he wanted and b/c he was a genius, it wasn't totally aimless...there are so many cool ideas happening

Then there are songs that sound like ones that came out...think 'Rearrange' from the 1999 Deluxe. I was blown away. Yes, it has that Lady Cab Driver sound but man is it awesome. Just awesome...

Then there is the alternate takes of songs we know...the version of 'How Come U Don't (take 2)' on 1999 SuperDeluxe is now the best version in my mind. The released classic pales. to hear him nearly out of breath during 'take 2' is a thrill. I say the same for the othe take of 'International Lover'....incredible.

Then there is all the live stuff.

So, yes, if the good to great songs ratio is 10:1 it explains why there is so much but should also confirm that there enough gems i this vault to mine for many many years.

JoeyCococo said:

Smokey80 said:

I'm starting to become a bit disillusioned with all these posthumous releases. Yes, it's incredible how prolific he was, but honestly speaking, how many unreleased songs of his are really as great as the ones he put out? Not that many. We all have tons of them but I can count on one hand the ones that are truly great.

It all looks very impressive, elaborate boxsets with multiple discs of outtakes etc, but if the 1999 one is anything to go by, he definitely kept the cream of the crop for the albums themselves and there is a lot of mediocrity in his unreleased work. It feels a little quantity over quality with Prince's vault music, which is not too surprising, he was only human after all. One man can only contain so many inspired ideas.

having been a fan for 30+ years, it may be blasphemy to say it but....I do agree sort of. Let me explain....

Yes, he has lots of stuff where he was just trying things out. As Eric Leeds said to Michael Dean, Prince spent all his time in the studio and a lot of vault stuff is him going from one place to another musically. However, along the way there are absolute gems like the forthcoming 'All My Dreams'. There is the original 'Old Friends 4 Sale'. There is 'Large Room, No Light'. What about 'Train'? Wow. If it took him 10 songs to come up with each of these...you can see why the vault may have such quantity but just look at the level of the gems....it's just incredible.

Now, the ones i mentioned are the most perfect diamonds. There are also many very interesting fruits....'Adonis and Bathsheba' is an odd one that Susan Rogers laughed at but I absolutely LOVE. His music was such an extension of himself that even what's not top tier is top tier in terms of being interesting. Think of 'Soul Psycadelicide'. It's a genius just doing whatever he wanted and b/c he was a genius, it wasn't totally aimless...there are so many cool ideas happening

Then there are songs that sound like ones that came out...think 'Rearrange' from the 1999 Deluxe. I was blown away. Yes, it has that Lady Cab Driver sound but man is it awesome. Just awesome...

Then there is the alternate takes of songs we know...the version of 'How Come U Don't (take 2)' on 1999 SuperDeluxe is now the best version in my mind. The released classic pales. to hear him nearly out of breath during 'take 2' is a thrill. I say the same for the othe take of 'International Lover'....incredible.

Then there is all the live stuff.

So, yes, if the good to great songs ratio is 10:1 it explains why there is so much but should also confirm that there enough gems i this vault to mine for many many years.

What a good answer! I appreciate that you took the time to write this. I pretty much agree, but you said it way better than I could. Thanks!

Would love to hear the psychedelic rock songs of The Time that Prince once mentioned.

PRNelson said:

Please. This is a bad take. Prince acknowledged many times that his vault would be opened after his death. He knew it was an important aspect of his lasting legacy.

CAL3 said:

Smokey80 said:

I'm starting to become a bit disillusioned with all these posthumous releases. Yes, it's incredible how prolific he was, but honestly speaking, how many unreleased songs of his are really as great as the ones he put out? Not that many. We all have tons of them but I can count on one hand the ones that are truly great.

It all looks very impressive, elaborate boxsets with multiple discs of outtakes etc, but if the 1999 one is anything to go by, he definitely kept the cream of the crop for the albums themselves and there is a lot of mediocrity in his unreleased work. It feels a little quantity over quality with Prince's vault music, which is not too surprising, he was only human after all. One man can only contain so many inspired ideas.

. YES! A million times, YES! So glad to see a post like this. . The “vault” material — ALL of which is, by definition, UNFINISHED work due to the very nature of its unreleased status — has had (and will continue to have) a DIMINISHING effect on the carefully-crafted official canon of work Prince finished during his lifetime. . The tomb-raiders who have curated this mess of largely uninspired leftovers and works-in-progress are actively diluting the potency of Prince’s officially-released legacy. And the vultures swooping in to pick the leftovers apart only contribute to the indecency. . “Dig U Better Dead,” indeed. A mantra for the entitled, forever-carping fanbase, their appetite for every single scrap of unfinished music — every ultimately UNSANCTIONED (by the creator of the work, obviously) — impossible to satiate. Prince’s untimely passing and the subsequent opening of the floodgates — through which every boring, subpar recording (intermittently interesting, yes, though ALWAYS unfinished) could now flow - provided the “gift” that so many fans craved during Prince’s lifetime. Not that hours of “vault” material that has so far emerged been anywhere near enough to calm the vultures’ feeding frenzy. .