Funkyslap said:

I'm glad to hear this acoustic 2008 version of Free.

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We don't have so many acoustic tracks in P. discography so this one is more than welcome even though it's just a demo

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Hopefully, it's just the beginning and a lot more is coming our way after this (very) long drought.

fredmagnus said:

bozojones said:

Funkyslap said:

I get your point, but who says music should be "fun" all the time ? There's beauty in melancholy/sadness too. You must skip all the ballads then..

Nah, some of my all time favorite Prince songs are ballads. "Free" is just a badly written and boring song, musically speaking.

Free takes a lot of heat, always have, but it's a little unfair IMHO.

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Part of it is unrealistic expectations raised by bootlegs: Moonbeam Levels (or A Better Place 2 Die, as it was believed to be called back then) was among the first outtakes to surface and was always perceived as the natural competitor to Free. ML most certainly is the better song, I won't argue about that, but AFAIK it's not been clearly established that he ever pondered which of the 2 songs to include and decided to favor Free over ML (for all we know, both or neither could have ended on the album) and, more importantly, Prince never intended for us to hear it and make a comparison that would lead us to question his tracklist choices.

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Then yeah, OK, it's the one song that stands somewhat a little out of place on 1999, it's a little corny and a little naive, in a way it's like 3 Chains O' Gold or Strays Of The World: it's Prince trying to emulate Queen or some kind of similar heavy, first degree post-glam rock, and it's not what he was best at. But one should take it in the context of 1982 for both Prince and the world.

Prince was 23 when he wrote this: just a kid. One can't blame a 23 y.o. for being a little immature. Most of his early political statements were very naive.

Then it was 1982 and I remember that as a child in the 80s, I was quite horrified at the thought of all those poor people living in communist, fascist and military dictatorships, and being awfuilly poor on top of not being free, whether in the East or in the Third World. It was in the air: the West felt like the only part of the world where one could enjoy freedom and material comfort and keeping in mind that WWII was still close in everyone's memory, a time when the whole world could have fallen under either communism or fascism, I'm not really surprised a 23 y.o. baby boomer would feel like writing a song like this.

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Now don't take me wrong: it always was my least favorite song on 1999, but as with most Prince songs it ended-up growing on me and either way, I can at least understand where it was coming from. And either way, it was part of, thus contributed to what is now perceived as one of Prince's best and most influencial record: it deserves our consideration if only for this.

I mean, the song could have ended world hunger and united everyone in harmony, and it still wouldn't change my opinion that it sucks to listen to on a musical level . You can't force yourself to enjoy something that's just plain bad.

"Free" taking all the heat is unfair for "Delirious".

bozojones said:

I mean, the song could have ended world hunger and united everyone in harmony, and it still wouldn't change my opinion that it sucks to listen to on a musical level . You can't force yourself to enjoy something that's just plain bad.

You don't have to enjoy it, but it's still cool that they'd release this version IMHO.

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The only annoying thing about choosing this particular song IMHO is this whole meta-nonsense being the tacit justification for its release. As in "the vault is free", but from what and who exactly, when it's mostly in the hands of corporate executives and at the same time you have Mr. McMillan lecturing fans on social media about being greedy and too demanding and that not everything in there should be released and this is about respecting Prince's dignity or whatever, and Mr Spicer teasing us with this "be glad for what you got" when fans worldwide are being taunted with vault material being played exclusively at selected events?

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Yet, and I mean no disrespect by this, it's just a fact, the one and only reason certain people are in the position to decide what comes out or not and none of us is is that they're multimillionnaires who could buy shares, and none of us is. Yes, they knew Prince and Prince may have liked and respected them, but they're not Prince's sons and they weren't appointed by him as his heirs either. So please let's chill with the lecturing and sense of entitlement already. If anyone here had 200M dollars, they'd be sitting at the table with them.

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The vault will be "free" the day its content is given for free to a public museum or university or some cultural heritage-oriented non-profit organization with the mission to inventory, study and share Prince's work with the world. And obviously this ain't happening anytime soon, is it?

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And yes, it's true: Prince was sometimes provocative like this with his fans ("no more candy 4 u" and all that), and the Estate is very right to assume we're not a nice community, because we're not. In Prince's lifetime, his fans totally deserved to be spanked: the amount of shit Prince had to take from this community, the amount of hatred and disrespect towards him and his collaborators that was displayed on this very board and others, day after day, year after year, was apalling (and yes, Mr. "Prince needs to take drumming lessons", I'm looking at you right now )

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Nevertheless, a relationship between an artist and their audience is often passionate, thus complicated. An estate isn't an artist and things don't have to be complicated like this. There really is one thing to be done to earn everyone's praise here: release enough material and do it right (i.e. no sound glitches, no mastering errors, no credits errors, no frankensteining and giving proper background info about the material). I'm not saying it's easy, but it's a job. Jobs can be done right. People are being trained to do them right.

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Now let's see, maybe by the end of the week they will have announced a cornucopia of upcoming quality releases, and they'll be done right (which would be a first since Prince passed, with every posthumous release displaying problems of one kind or another), and we can all be friends again?

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[Edited 6/6/25 15:16pm]

to me it doesn't give of rehearsal practice vibes .. sounds like the guitar was recorded separately from the vocals and there is a bass track on there .. lemon crush and horny toad are bangers .. dance on is not my favorite but the drums are a blast .. all are miles better than the post WB years .. which is more corny? free or free yrself? they are both pretty cheesy .. i forgave Prince for cheesy songs long ago cuz they are sincerely catchy and respectable .. it's his braggy "i'm still cool even if nobody buys my music" era i can't get past .. i always wondered what happened to his rerecorded hits album he teased with that new master 1999 .. this would have been a cool twist on a rerecorded hits package (maybe it still is)

olb99 said:

Vannormal said:

What about the typo 'FR33'?

Kinda strange, no?

Does '33' mean something? Probably not.

I'm pretty sure that, like me, you're old enough to have used a calculator. I mean a physical one. Type "33". Turn the calculator upside down and voilà: "EE".

Still no idea why they're using leetspeak, though. Prince never used that particular substitution, IIRC.

[Edited 6/6/25 12:02pm]

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"Lotusflow3r"

Kares said:

olb99 said:

I'm pretty sure that, like me, you're old enough to have used a calculator. I mean a physical one. Type "33". Turn the calculator upside down and voilà: "EE".

Still no idea why they're using leetspeak, though. Prince never used that particular substitution, IIRC.

[Edited 6/6/25 12:02pm]

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"Lotusflow3r"

And... thanks. My brain is fried.

And "Lotusflow3r" is Prince's "33rd full-length studio album" according to Princevault. Yes: 33.

So they finally post about this new song on the official Prince accounts, and the URL they posted leads to a 404 page:



they can't even share a URL without fucking up, and people really think they're suddenly going to turn the ship around and give us a whirlwind of exciting new releases?

Great version of a song I've never really liked much. Gives it a whole new life.

NOW... Why was he recording this in 2008? What was it part of? Are there more accoustic versions of "classic" songs from those sessions?

bozojones said:

So they finally post about this new song on the official Prince accounts, and the URL they posted leads to a 404 page:



they can't even share a URL without fucking up, and people really think they're suddenly going to turn the ship around and give us a whirlwind of exciting new releases?

Whatever happened, it's been fixed at least on X.

Still no information on the recording date (anyone who missed Mr. Spicer's Insta reel still wouldn't know) or the context of the recording, however.

Just another "the vault is now free" slogan, only it isn't free at all, is it?

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[Edited 6/6/25 17:04pm]

Maybe not groundbreaking. But I enjoy listening to it. Cool that this is released. As mentioned his vocals are great!

[Edited 6/6/25 17:20pm]

olb99 said:

FrankieCoco1 said:

In case yous were unawares, you can buy a download of the track on Amazon Music, iTunes Store, Qoboz,plus probably elsewhere if you look.

So Free isn't free?

The chord progression and vocal performance is outstanding!
i never understood all you snobs throwing this song in the gutter

nayroo2002 said:

The chord progression and vocal performance is outstanding!
i never understood all you snobs throwing this song in the gutter

I agree it's a great song with a great message.

nayroo2002 said:

SoulAlive said:

I have always loved “Free” Never understood the hate that it gets.
IMO,’1999’ is Princes’ best album and I love everything on it.

SoulAlive said:

nayroo2002 said:

The chord progression and vocal performance is outstanding!
i never understood all you snobs throwing this song in the gutter

I agree it's a great song with a great message.

I also like it!

jimino1 said:

I've always liked the original...nice to have this though....sounds very similar to his acoustic playing with Andy Allo...

my thoughts exactly

I like this version, but the original is a cut above it still, imo. Always loved the original.

databank said:

lustmealways said:

Folks, I get this isn't the most exciting thing ever but try to keep the bitching to a minimum as they are actually finally doing SOMETHING. If this upcoming "vault future plans" panel is a bust, I'll start the complaining again but for now just wait and see.

I've heard the rumors that the Estate considers us a bunch of ungrateful brats and will "punish" us by not giving a fuck about the hardcore fanbase and only aiming at the masses. Fine, what can I say? There's a new song, it's cool. How hard can it be to just drop us a word letting us know when this was recorded? Isn't giving a little context good PR anyway? Give a story to tell to the media. Now IDK, maybe they'll do it tomorrow and then they can have my apology for being impatient, that's cool.

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[Edited 6/5/25 16:29pm]

I would think that it is us, the hardcore fans that are buying celebration tickets

olb99 said:

Vannormal said:

What about the typo 'FR33'?

Kinda strange, no?

Does '33' mean something? Probably not.

I'm pretty sure that, like me, you're old enough to have used a calculator. I mean a physical one. Type "33". Turn the calculator upside down and voilà: "EE".

Still no idea why they're using leetspeak, though. Prince never used that particular substitution, IIRC.

Exactly.

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And by the way, the vault is not free, it's now again in the sticky hands of our wicked duo, and PW.

Like Bart said; four months sitting on one song. They could've released it four months ago, instead of the snippet.

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Is there any news yet on the unreleased listening session of two days ago?

[Edited 6/9/25 5:18am]

bizzie said:

databank said:

Either way this is most likely from a rehearsal/practice session, not anything supposedly finished or made to be released (though Prince did release rehearsal takes occasionally in his lifetime).

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I see no harm in releasing such material, mistakes and all, quite the contrary. Only thing that could maybe, again, have been useful is to give context (though it wouldn't have been written on Spotify and other streaming websites, but at least any casual fan could have googled the info and known it wasn't from some lo-fi project — unless of course it was, but then tell us either way ).

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They've been sitting on this track for at least four months and all they've managed to do is create some shitty artwork.

Worse, they could've re-used the fists and chains from the Emancipation artwork, in black and white,

with backwards written 'free'.