GustavoRibas said:

SoulAlive said:

yeah,TGE was a unique situtation.We got to hear many of the tracks all throughout 1994, months before the album was finally released.We knew about songs like "Days Of Wild",
"Interactive","Ripopgodazzipa","Acknowledge Me",etc....so when the album finally came out,there was some disappointment among fans because of the many great tunes that were left behind.All in all,I think that was a fun,exciting era.

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- Yes, and some songs were played live so much that they became ´90s classics´ to us fans, like Days of Wild and The Ride. So, it´s strange that they never appeared on a regular studio album.

one thing's for sure: if they ever do a Gold Expeience SDE,they have lots of top-notch tracks to choose from

SoulAlive said:

One thing's for sure: if they ever do a Gold Expeience SDE, they have lots of top-notch tracks to choose from

You. Me. Liquor. Charquerterie board. Listening party. I'm so there for that.

This is a complex question - Complex because it is hard to give a balanced answer.

The first problem is it asks people to look past their biases - Hence we have already had claims of perfection during a fan's favourite period followed by how it fell apart outside of this period.

Then there is the issue that so many of us have played the albums in tracklist order to the point that we not only know but expect the next track to immeidately follow the one we just listened to. This is not necessarily a problem for streamers and shufflers or those who use non-album based playlists. However, where there is an expected order, to not have the "right" next song is like missing a expected drop. The is despite the fact that there are very few specifically paired songs like I would die 4 U and Baby I'm a Star - Note we expect Purple Rain after this pair but that is only because of the album's final configuration - It is not the movie order nor the initially proposed order.

All I feel that we can say is we know that Prince put a lot of effort into the tracklists and orders and this shows in most albums - even the compilation albums (except possibly Chocolate invasion and Slaughterhouse). We see this in what survived the death of Dream Factory, Camille and the Black album. Also in what was in Lotusflow3r vs MPLSound and other paired albums. It is very hard to say that this means the unreleased tracks are worse than the released tracks because if Prince took a different path or made a different decision, he would have tweaked the unreleased songs to fit better and we would have tuned our ears so we would be used to this selection or order.

[Edited 10/8/23 12:39pm]

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

Mostly He was a good album editor up to a period But then cds as the main format threw his instincts off And then his judgement and ambitions/plans/interests/tastes etc for albums changed so ofc what he picked changed How else to explain why pussy control was track one on TGE and interactive was nowhere? Or how he left so much average material on emancipation when old prince (or warners) would have shaved half that off?

It's all personal taste at the end of the day. I love Pussy control, and think it's perfect as the opener on TGE. And we've discussed Emancipation to death, the beauty of that album is in its length. Yes, we could all shave half off. But Warner's half, wouldn't equal your half and neither would equal my half. We could have a single disc Emancipation that was utter shit, given the right(wrong) editor.

Of course there are songs which we can maybe all agree should have been released on a mainstream album. But for every Moonbeam Levels, there's a dozen Eggplants. For the most part, even thought I do like the majority of them, it's easy to see why most of the unreleased tracks didn't find a home.

if the prince that edited crystal ball down to SOTT edited emancipation down to two discs, i think it would prob have been fine (even allowing for the fact that doubles in the 90s were almost double the length of a double in the 80s).

i like eggplant, though its more of a b-side type of song, so i can see why it wouldnt make an album.

I agree and disagree in the sense that he did choose great material for his album but also left out great stuff that could have been used in the future.

with parade, i dont think you could say kiss, another lover, etc shouldnt be there, they are great tracks, i just think all my dreams, or old friends... for example would have been a better fit. but he was prob thinking 'i need some singles here'.

SoulAlive said:

GustavoRibas said:

.

- Yes, and some songs were played live so much that they became ´90s classics´ to us fans, like Days of Wild and The Ride. So, it´s strange that they never appeared on a regular studio album.

one thing's for sure: if they ever do a Gold Expeience SDE,they have lots of top-notch tracks to choose from

That's the album they should have rolled the dice on the first 90s SDE for. Not the album that's the epitome of the "chasing trends" requisite 90s critique. TGE actually has a legacy with the fans. D&P only has a legacy with people who are like, "yeah, I kinda stopped bothering with 'new' Prince albums after that one..."

WhisperingDandelions said:

SoulAlive said:

one thing's for sure: if they ever do a Gold Expeience SDE,they have lots of top-notch tracks to choose from

That's the album they should have rolled the dice on the first 90s SDE for. Not the album that's the epitome of the "chasing trends" requisite 90s critique. TGE actually has a legacy with the fans. D&P only has a legacy with people who are like, "yeah, I kinda stopped bothering with 'new' Prince albums after that one..."

its a fan fave, thats it.

it has some good tracks, for sure, but are the standouts better than cream, gett off, D&P, insatiabale? im gonna say no.

TGE is an album most ppl are prob not that aware of tbh.

yeah they know TMBGITW but that came out quite a bit before the album did, so most ppl bought it on its own already.

D&Ps legacy is that its the album that birthed the NPG really, which prince kept as the band name the rest of his career, more or less.

IanRG said:

Then there is the issue that so many of us have played the albums in tracklist order to the point that we not only know but expect the next track to immeidately follow the one we just listened to. This is not necessarily a problem for streamers and shufflers or those who use non-album based playlists.

[Edited 10/8/23 12:39pm]

THIS point is very true - at least for all of us who first listened to Prince on vinyl.

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

its a fan fave, thats it.

it has some good tracks, for sure, but are the standouts better than cream, gett off, D&P, insatiabale? im gonna say no.

TGE is an album most ppl are prob not that aware of tbh.

yeah they know TMBGITW but that came out quite a bit before the album did, so most ppl bought it on its own already.

D&Ps legacy is that its the album that birthed the NPG really, which prince kept as the band name the rest of his career, more or less.

I disagree on your list of D&P vs. TGE "standouts". Half of those ("Cream", "Diamonds & Pearls") are unequivocally the worst singles he ever put out.

Your observation on TMBGITW emphasizes why my point why TGE might sell more now. It has a mega-hit on it in addition to being a fan fav, the low sales are more attributable to it being years after the single release rather than pure audience disinterest; they masses already had the single by then.

I don't even like TGE either, for the record, but I like it a lot better than D&P, would be more interested in an SDE than D&P, and genunely believe it would sell more in SDE form than D&P will. It has potential whereas D&P has none, you see how unenthused people are with these Vault singles.

And "New Power Generation" birthed the New Power Generation. He literally says "We are the New Power Generation" on it. It was only a "real" band for like two main albums and two side albums anyway. Otherwise just a name like on "New Power Generation".

[Edited 10/11/23 7:45am]

GustavoRibas said:

Llistening to the SDEs of 1999 and SOTT, I understand why some songs weren´t included. For us, fans, it´s cool to listen to them because of the process of the album, but not great songs.

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Having said that, in some cases, I don´t think he made the best choices. To me, the best example is The Gold Experience. I love that album, and I feel frustrated everytime I think songs like Days of Wild, The Ride and Interactive were shelved, while others like We March and Shy or 319 were there (cool songs, but I think Gold would have been a lot better with those outtakes)

To this day, I still believe that Prince purposefully didn't deliver his personal cut of that album because he was giving it to WB. I have always maintained that he sabotaged it by putting P Control at the front of it. We all saw the original configurations vs. what got released. I contend that it was a decision he made because TGE was an album he was so proud of, and he wasn't going to get to release it independently, so he fucked with it before he gave it up.

TheBigBang said: