As a Metallica fan, I can offer the following points for their upcoming re-issue of Black:

- The "tracks" are not unreleased, as such, in that they do not have a "vault" of unreleased songs. Metallica almost always just write the album and nothing but the album. Yes, there have been some exceptions where a small handful of songs didn't make it to their album, but they usually get issued either as an EP or as a bonus disc. To date, the only "unreleased" tracks are some cuts from St. Anger that were scrapped before James went to rehab. But that's about it.

- Yes, the track listing for the Black Album's expanded deluxe edition is ENORMOUS. But it consists of bare bones demos of tracks already on the album. Again, it's nothing unreleased as such. Instead, they are either raw riff tapes or James literally going "wa-na-na-na-na" over a backing tape to find the vocal melody for songs.

- The remaster of the Black Album is totally unnecessary. It sounds fine.

Despite my observations above, there is absolutely a demand for the Black album re-issue. Absolute die hards will already be ordering the expanded boxset because....that's their thing. I love Metallica, but do I have a need to listen to table scrap riffs that eventually became hits? No. Especially as someone who doesn't play an instrument.

In short, the Metallica Black Album reissue is interesting but for a very niche crowd and doesn't stand up to any of the Prince SDE's released to date.

Honestly, the selling point for me of the Prince SDE is the abundance of unreleased songs. If the SDE's were just 5 Discs of P&M1983 style recordings....i'd honestly think twice. I love the P&M1983 album, but do I demand nearly 6 hours of it? No.

[Edited 6/22/21 20:25pm]

thank you for the insight from someone who knows better than me

i did kind of gather that the offerings were slim with that black album set when i saw everything was labled "riff" or whatever, but the point for me still stands that there was so, so, so, so much more stuff that could've been on the 1999 and sott sde's (and i'm sure i'll be saying the same about the diamonds and pearls sde) that wasn't on there for whatever reason and i think it leads to a release that doesn't do the eras justice. that's not even mentioning the live stuff limiting themselves to one video and one gig per box. and that's in addition to the artifical limitation they've placed on themselves for what seems like a max 3 vault discs, though i'm hoping diamonds and pearls bucks that trend. i want demos, i want different mixes, i want more live shows and videos. trying to make some palatable clean listen out of the vault discs as the estate have thus far may play well with the people who don't know any better, but i just think there's more to the story and at this point i've realized the sets are never going to be done the way i want them to be.

what i want are dylan style deep dives. i don't mean "release every note," but something more comprehensive than what we've been getting. things could be a lot worse, i'll be the first to admit that, but this material deserves nothing but the best and a curated set is not the full picture when it comes to any of prince's recording history or eras.

[Edited 6/22/21 20:33pm]

lustmealways said:

what i want are dylan style deep dives. i don't mean "release every note," but something more comprehensive than what we've been getting. things could be a lot worse, i'll be the first to admit that, but this material deserves nothing but the best and a curated set is not the full picture when it comes to any of prince's recording history or eras.

[Edited 6/22/21 20:33pm]

This.

While the SDEs are great, what I really want are multi-volume boxsets.

The Beatles Anthology, alon with Bob, is also another worthy model for the Prince estate.

-

I think it's about time we get a REHEARSAL disc,

included in the SDE.

-

No one ever mentiones this.

Prince did awesome rehearsals, the real work.

These kind of documents are important too.

I'm not talkng about an hour of one song, no.

There are fun rehearsals, listenable, enjoyable.

I would love that.

Although i doubt if those of the D&P era are worth having.

(still...)

-

[Edited 6/23/21 5:14am]

TryWhistlingThis said:

JorisE73 said:

RODSERLING said:

You are making me laugh... The SDE not enough comprehensive? There were so many fillers on the SDE, that it s even too comprehensive for me. I can't understand some wanted more Give us a good picture quality of a concert and music videos, for a change.

Both SDE's missed to many essential tracks to be considered comprehensive.

haveaglamslam said:

JorisE73 said:

I think they would choose the unreleased Earls Court show from London because that one is fully edited and ready for release, they only have to remaster it and press it.

That show really isn’t all that good tho imo

They don't care about that, it's the easiest to release.
Teh show included in Welcome 2 America is one of the worst he did on that tour and they choose to release that one only becuase they found multicam sources of it.

JorisE73 said:

JorisE73 said:

haveaglamslam said:

JorisE73 said: That show really isn’t all that good tho imo

They don't care about that, it's the easiest to release.
Teh show included in Welcome 2 America is one of the worst he did on that tour and they choose to release that one only becuase they found multicam sources of it.

I think the show is representative of the album in that it leans VERY heavily on the female (backing) vocals.

I remain to be proven wrong but I think they will be all over the album doing way more that we've ever heard his backing singers on other albums.

In some cases that could work, like with 3121, and Tamar, she adds such a lovely flavor to that whole experience, I love all of it.

Not sure how I will feel about especially Shelby and Elisa being so heavily featured on W2A but we shall see.

Ideally, I'd have much preferred D&P, Love Symbol and Come all being given straight vinyl reissues (no additions) as a single 'round' of Legacy reissues later this year, which would've been perfect timing given how the prices for original copies of all three are escalating now.

That would've freed the Estate up to focus on a Parade SDE this year, and then to revisit the D&P era for a full SDE treatment maybe five years from now. I'll still take an interest in the D&P SDE, but I'm not expecting too much absolutely jaw-dropping among the extras/outtakes...

EnDoRpHn said:

Judging from the paucity of responses to this post, I’d say this purported release is going to fall like a dud from the sky.

clunk

ChickenMcNuggets said:

Ideally, I'd have much preferred D&P, Love Symbol and Come all being given straight vinyl reissues (no additions) as a single 'round' of Legacy reissues later this year, which would've been perfect timing given how the prices for original copies of all three are escalating now.

That would've freed the Estate up to focus on a Parade SDE this year, and then to revisit the D&P era for a full SDE treatment maybe five years from now. I'll still take an interest in the D&P SDE, but I'm not expecting too much absolutely jaw-dropping among the extras/outtakes...

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Exactly.

-

''Schoolyard'' was the original title of the album, meaning that the same (known to most) mediocre track was thankfully left of the first configuration.

-

Songs like;

''Something Funky This House Comes''

''Horny Pony''

''The Flow''

and ''Schoolyard''

surely are nothing compared to any outtake on the ''1999'' or ''SOTT'' SDE outtakes.

I don't need those.

-

RODSERLING said:

JorisE73 said:

Both SDE's missed to many essential tracks to be considered comprehensive.

Like what ? 45 songs + 3CD live + 1 CD b-side, what is missing beside good picture quality for the dvd?

Like I said; essential tracks and not to mention videos of singles.
These SDE pale in comparrison to other real comprehensive sets like Bob Dylan's for exampel

JorisE73 said:

bob's team takes his legacy as an artist and his place in music history seriously, which is why you have the truly comprehensive and really thorough sets.

and guess what, every dylan set they do, there's always different tiers of options for the consumer, so you can get the 18 cd version or you can get a curated 6 cd version or you can get an even more curated 2 cd version. everybody wins, more money is made. it's not hard.

RODSERLING said:

JorisE73 said:

Like I said; essential tracks and not to mention videos of singles.
These SDE pale in comparrison to other real comprehensive sets like Bob Dylan's for exampel

I don't care about Bob Dylan. SOTT SDE is 45 solid unreleased tracks in various musical genres. You can't be comprehensive unless with 9 CD of unreleased music, which would be unbearable. 45 unreleased/outtakes is already almost too much for anybody to digest. I don't want 150 tracks, that would be absurd and too expensive than it was already.

-

It was not expensive (for what we had).

By the way I bought the vinyl box, and the prices varied everywhere, it was a question of haveing patience, and bye at the right time. Anyways...

Yes we got a good deal of unreleased trax,

but not 'essential' tracks, like Joris23 said.

It was a serious mistake to not put in the video's made for the project.

They easily could've added that - for me it was a must.

Same for the 1999 SDE - even worse they excluded the video's on the/a DVD.

-

--

As far as the D&P SDE goes, i personally don't care for the singles video's at all.

They were soooooo bad in my humble opinion.

But hey, maybe someone else is dying to have 'm,

so I better temper my ego down a bit.

-

Vannormal said:

RODSERLING said:

JorisE73 said:

Like I said; essential tracks and not to mention videos of singles.
These SDE pale in comparrison to other real comprehensive sets like Bob Dylan's for exampel

I don't care about Bob Dylan. SOTT SDE is 45 solid unreleased tracks in various musical genres. You can't be comprehensive unless with 9 CD of unreleased music, which would be unbearable. 45 unreleased/outtakes is already almost too much for anybody to digest. I don't want 150 tracks, that would be absurd and too expensive than it was already.

45 tracks almost too much form anyone to digest???
I guess you have never collected bootlegs or did tape trading back in the day?
When sets like the jewel box came out these were digested easily in a couple of days and fans were clamoring for a lot more.

JorisE73 said:

ReddishBrownOne said:

RODSERLING said:

JorisE73 said:

45 tracks almost too much form anyone to digest???
I guess you have never collected bootlegs or did tape trading back in the day?

No, not interested in so much bad quality bootlegs. I m fine with what has been released so far. I Don't want more, amd don't want to pay more. Like I said, most of the fans didn't buy these SDE because of the price. I also have friends fan who didn't buy it because of the price, and because they were bored after listening the first vault CD on streaming, and didn't want more.

Yeah, ok...
But anyway, it would be nice to finally get comprehensive SDE releases from The Estate.

MarshallStacks said:

ReddishBrownOne said:

A talking Tony M doll.

When you pull the string, it does one of the verses from Jughead or Push.

You know you want it!

Word!!

We need a version of the album with ONLY Tony on the mike on every track, not that Prince dude getting in the way all the time !

Also, we need stuff like Something Funky This Way Comes and every last jam featuring our main man Tony. This is TonyM.org right??

More seriously, if it ain’t got the incredible extended ‘ballet’ version of Thunder on it, it’ll be a travesty

RODSERLING said:

Phase3 said: