LoveGalore said:

dodger said:

There's Something I Like About Being Your Fool is the track I keep going back to. Nothing spectacular but I dig his reggae efforts. Also interesting hearing him mention, like in Adore, about smashing up his ride

Vanity.

dodger said:

LoveGalore said:

Vanity.

You sure it’s not about Suzanna Melvoyn

LoveGalore said:

Overall, after listening to the entire package i am kinda torn, On the one side i think as important artistic documentation of a great artist we get to take a peek at what he decided decided to scrap from his official releases.

On the other hand i think it's a kinda unfair to have songs that he for whatever reason didn't want to include in his official release.

And honestly a lot of these tracks that didn't make the cut into any of his configurations to any of his planned releases are pretty bad.

There was so much amazing music from this era that he was proud of and wanted out, that it's kinda sad that some truly atrocious vault tracks were inserted into an official release of a masterpiece.

.

Possibly if these were on a completely separate album of curiosities that distances themselves far away from his official releases would be fine, but not as part of his carefully curated masterpiece where he worked hard to edit down from so many truly great tracks to then include clunkers he didn't seem interested in people hearing as part of a collection he was proud of? I don't know.

.

The three or so amazing albums that were planned and compiled would have been a far more respectable thing to honor him and the fans with. Especially as how sad/angry he was at having edit his work and have it cut down for supposed better commercial success.

.

Rant over, but my absolute favorite thing that will get the most plays on loop in my car is the live album. Simply amazing!

[Edited 9/26/20 10:44am]

1. Emotional Pump

Mediocre track
2. Rebirth Of The Flesh (with original outro)

Terrific but outro superfluous
3. Cosmic Day

Cool track. I just think he over-Camilled his voice on this one.
4. Walkin' In Glory

One of the best tracks on the whole box. Righteous!
5. Wally

Like many have said doesn't live up to hype but it's still a very very good piece of work
6. I Need A Man

mediocre for Prince
7. Promise To Be True

Love this. Another track that should have been released
8. Jealous Girl (version 2)

Could have been a hit for the Bangles
9. There's Something I Like About Being Your Fool

Decent but not extraordinary
10. Big Tall Wall (version 2)

I don't know. Both versions just sound like unfinished demos
11. A Place In Heaven (Lisa vocal)

pointless. skippable
12. Wonderful Day (12" mix)

zzzzz
13. Strange Relationship (1987 Shep Pettibone Club Mix)

pretty cool

Trax 4 Bonnie Raitt are suprisingly great. Maybe not for Bonnie tho...

Revolution81 said:

Seriously hearing the Crucial guitar solo style at the end of Cosmic Day

homesquid said:

Question about "Rebirth", hopefully this is a good place for it.

The boot version has a slightly different middle where he doesn't say the thing about wife -- but also seemed a little heavier(?) like the beat sounds a bit harder.

I'm wondering if anyone knows what I mean and if it is the mix or just the slightly distorted quality of the bootled that creates that effect

v10letblues said:

v10letblues said:

LoveGalore said:

TheFreakerFantastic said:

I thought the original outro to Rebirth Of The Flesh ended with a loud voice talking slowly (it does on the boot version). Anyone know what it said/what it sequenced to?

This ending here sounds just a messily cobbled together one taken from another source.

[Edited 9/26/20 1:15am]

"Welcome to the crystal balllllllll"- into Play in the Sunshine gunfire intro

Ah thanks, shame they didn't include that...

LoveGalore said:

v10letblues said:

Overall, after listening to the entire package i am kinda torn, On the one side i think as important artistic documentation of a great artist we get to take a peek at what he decided decided to scrap from his official releases.

On the other hand i think it's a kinda unfair to have songs that he for whatever reason didn't want to include in his official release.

And honestly a lot of these tracks that didn't make the cut into any of his configurations to any of his planned releases are pretty bad.

There was so much amazing music from this era that he was proud of and wanted out, that it's kinda sad that some truly atrocious vault tracks were inserted into an official release of a masterpiece.

.

Possibly if these were on a completely separate album of curiosities that distances themselves far away from his official releases would be fine, but not as part of his carefully curated masterpiece where he worked hard to edit down from so many truly great tracks to then include clunkers he didn't seem interested in people hearing as part of a collection he was proud of? I don't know.

.

The three or so amazing albums that were planned and compiled would have been a far more respectable thing to honor him and the fans with. Especially as how sad/angry he was at having edit his work and have it cut down for supposed better commercial success.

.

Rant over, but my absolute favorite thing that will get the most plays on loop in my car is the live album. Simply amazing!

[Edited 9/26/20 10:44am]

This seems pretty cynical to me. There's plenty of us out there who love it all and are really just grateful that our dude provides boundless gifts even after he's passed on. There are surprises on this set and the 1999 one that any fan or passersby would be lucky to hear in anyone else's repertoire. While I think some outtakes are better than others, the general quality tended to scale proportional to the quality of the album itself. YMMV I guess. I feel like so many of the songs on here paved the way to where the canon releases got and precious few artists out there document it this well or have this much volume. Rant over sorry.

Nothing I wrote is cynical. As I said, there was so much music he set out to release that year. Tracks and albums that were fully conceived and planned. So much that could have been released here. Truly geat tracks.

While awful things shep petibone remixes and single edits are par for the course, and I can understand why as completist to this release, some awful vault tracks have no place in this. For example why not every track from the albums that were set for release in various configurations?

.

But like I said I'm torn, happy and grateful for the release, and sad for what could have been something truly great to honor Prince and this era.

rebelenterprise said:

v10letblues said:

Romeoblu said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

VaultCurator said:

Well, it turns out the ending of Rebirth is fucked! On the other hand, the missing segments during the body of the track sounds great.

Even with the edited ending, I prefer this over the bootleg version. Don't know why, just enjoy it more.

That guitar in Jealous Girl - I think Terence Trent D'Arby must have heard a bootleg before Introducing the Hardline...

*

What a delight.

I need a MAAYYN. I need an M.A.N, real man.
This is song is awesome.
.
If you can't make me hot, i don't NEEEED you around.
.
I need a lover that is strong, ain't got TIIIME to fool around
.
This is funky and hummable and cool. It's interesting how Prince's voice almost cracks when he hits that little bit high note (maayyn, neeed, tiiime) on those lines. But that's my factorite part of the song.

i like wally (the tape seems a bit messed up though so it goes funny mid way for a short period). its not a masterpiece, a bit overblown at times, but i can imagine it being much more wounded and simpler.

walking in glory is cool, though i wish it wasnt in falsetto.

i dont know if i like gospel in falsetto lol

Even after a few listens, that outro in "Rebirth Of The Flesh" sounds as butchered / out of place as the intro to the 7" edit of "Let's Go Crazy"...

.

What was he thinking?

[Edited 9/28/20 6:19am]

Did anyone else pick up on Prince singing "Free Nelson Mandela" around the 3.14 mark of There's Something I Lie About Being Your Fool - ust after the guitar solo.

Not something I'd ever thought I'd hear him sing, don't know why but just never associated Prince with the SA politics in the '80s.

I don't have the book with me, but what was the reason for putting A Place in Heaven (Lisa) at the end of the set when everythong else is chronological - it seems really out of place after Wally and all his solo work to hear the Revolution again.

Other than that, I really enjoyed my first listen through of the Vault tracks, it's mind boggling what he recorded adn left int he vault and the quality of these tracks in terms of how produced and fleshed out they are and the standard of the songs. Will be fun getting acquainted with them properly over the next few months.

olb99 said:

Even after a few listens, that outro in "Rebirth Of The Flesh" sounds as butchered / out of place as the intro to the 7" edit of "Let's Go Crazy"...

.

What was he thinking?

[Edited 9/28/20 6:19am]

Is this edited like this by Prince??? or is this a cut and paste job by The Estate?

lavendardrummachine said:

I wasn't a fan of Wally until this release [...] The warble or whatever it is, is on the leak too, I think my brain just treats it like an intentional effect at this point.

.

Do you mean you hear the tape warble on the previously bootlegged version of "Wally"? Because I don't. I've checked the version on "Blast From The Past 4.0". The sound quality is horrible (mono, etc.), of course, but there's definitely no tape warble there. I'm now wondering if a multitrack tape exists for "Wally".

JorisE73 said:

olb99 said:

Even after a few listens, that outro in "Rebirth Of The Flesh" sounds as butchered / out of place as the intro to the 7" edit of "Let's Go Crazy"...

.

What was he thinking?

[Edited 9/28/20 6:19am]

Is this edited like this by Prince??? or is this a cut and paste job by The Estate?

.

We know that the track was not mixed by Bolas. We know it's missing high frequencies (it's "lossy"). But, you're right, it doesn't mean the outro was not added in 2020 from different sources.

.

Neversin knows the answer. It's a shame he's not here anymore...

olb99 said:

JorisE73 said:

Is this edited like this by Prince??? or is this a cut and paste job by The Estate?

.

We know that the track was not mixed by Bolas. We know it's missing high frequencies (it's "lossy"). But, you're right, it doesn't mean the outro was not added in 2020 from different sources.

.

Neversin knows the answer. It's a shame he's not here anymore...

I certainly hope they didn't make some frankenstein edit. But why do this if they had a master of it? As for the lossy tracks I still don't understand how this could have happened. I'm baffled.

Regarding the ending of Rebirth, I honestly don't think anyone would have noriced anything odd about it if that was the only version we knew.

Prince was also known for brutal editing at times. Typically Duane assumes that the butcher cut on If The Kid Can't Make You Come is the result of a sloppy, hasty job, but unless an engineers says otherwise I'm pretty sure it was an intentional decision to weird the track out. One can evoke the ending of I Don't Wanna Leave You or the brutal ending of Life Can Be So Nice for similar experiments.