databank said:

Hi y'all
.
Well the question's in the thread title. For lack of liner notes or any credits whatsoever, I've always wondered... Was it ever revealed who the person in charge of choosing and compiling the tracks was?
[Edited 12/3/25 14:30pm]

erik319 said:

databank said:

Hi y'all . Well the question's in the thread title. For lack of liner notes or any credits whatsoever, I've always wondered... Was it ever revealed who the person in charge of choosing and compiling the tracks was? [Edited 12/3/25 14:30pm]

I think they just wrote loads of song names on ping pong balls and put them in a bingo machine & went with what came out. It's a strange release. I like the artwork but the track selection and random flow are just jarring.

Agreed. I don't mind the song choices (mostly), but we def take the same tracks and create a better flow/sequence.

I think it was Londell.

Duane Tudahl started working for the Estate in August 2018, the same month the compilation was released. Have you tried asking him on Facebook?

skywalker said:

erik319 said:

databank said: I think they just wrote loads of song names on ping pong balls and put them in a bingo machine & went with what came out. It's a strange release. I like the artwork but the track selection and random flow are just jarring.

Agreed. I don't mind the song choices (mostly), but we def take the same tracks and create a better flow/sequence.

Yeah it's an odd one. The material is good, I won't question this, but the selection seems so arbitrary/random, if only because it excludes existing singles in favor of album cuts, and clearly favors some albums over others... It would have been great to understand the rationale behind it... Could have been good marketing too, to create a narrative around it, have whomever compiled it write a little essay about it or something...

But hey, it's the streaming era, right? People just absorb whatever is being thrown at them I guess... Some months ago one of my sisters in law came home and saw my Sandman trade paperbacks on my shelf and said "oh, I watched and liked the show, it was a comic book?", and later I asked my wife "your bro and his wife don't read at all about the things they watch?", and she was like "baby, I think most people don't..."

olb99 said:

Duane Tudahl started working for the Estate in August 2018, the same month the compilation was released. Have you tried asking him on Facebook?

Good idea, I will Thanks for the suggestion.

Off all the mix CDs/playlists I created from the era, none looked like this, especially the sequencing. A bit of a missed opportunity.

leecaldon said:

Off all the mix CDs/playlists I created from the era, none looked like this, especially the sequencing. A bit of a missed opportunity.

How would you sequence it? I think Pussy Control is a great opener. Maybe Gold or Emancipation as the closer?

skywalker said:

I think Pussy Control is a great opener. Maybe Gold as the closer?

Yup!

They should call it 'The Gold Experience'

Seriously, though,
where is that "Emancipation" remix from the NAAPC playback performance?
I find it better than the album version.

olb99 said:

skywalker said:

databank said:

skywalker said:

How would you sequence it? I think Pussy Control is a great opener. Maybe Gold or Emancipation as the closer?

What puzzles me is why 37 songs and 196 minutes. Why not round it up to 35 or 40 songs? Why 3 hours and 16 minutes? Why were some singles ignored in favor of album cuts? Why were albums favored over others. It all seems so arbitrary. Now curating a comp always involves making arbitrary decisions, but the way this was made is very mysterious to me, hence my curiosity. It's not so much about what I'd have done, more why it was done the way it was.

.
It's a textbook example of how not to make a playlist. It's been thrown together with absolutely no regards to any musical flow, no regards to any potential physical formats that it might gets released on in the future, no regards to any aspects of listening experience. Quite frankly it's unlistenable as it is.

.

Which is all a great shame and disrespectful towards Prince, who always took great care in compiling albums.

.

A great example of a compilation in my opinion is Pink Floyd's Echoes (The Best of Pink Floyd) (CD version) that has a flow and it gives you a great listening experience, even with the inclusion of a 17 min track. All the gaps/transitions are set perfectly, the mastering is perfect, the whole project is done with great care. The opposite of the P Anthology mentioned above.

[Edited 12/6/25 9:44am]

Kares said:

databank said:

skywalker said: What puzzles me is why 37 songs and 196 minutes. Why not round it up to 35 or 40 songs? Why 3 hours and 16 minutes? Why were some singles ignored in favor of album cuts? Why were albums favored over others. It all seems so arbitrary. Now curating a comp always involves making arbitrary decisions, but the way this was made is very mysterious to me, hence my curiosity. It's not so much about what I'd have done, more why it was done the way it was.

.
It's a textbook example of how not to make a playlist. It's been thrown together with absolutely no regards to any musical flow, no regards to any potential physical formats that it might gets released on in the future, no regards to any aspects of listening experience. Quite frankly it's unlistenable as it is.

.

Which is all a great shame and disrespectful towards Prince, who always took great care in compiling albums.

.

A great example of a compilation in my opinion is Pink Floyd's Echoes (The Best of Pink Floyd) (CD version) that has a flow and it gives you a great listening experience, even with the inclusion of a 17 min track. All the gaps/transitions are set perfectly, the mastering is perfect, the whole project is done with great care. The opposite of the P Anthology mentioned above.

[Edited 12/6/25 9:44am]

I agree that it seemed to have been assembled without rhyme nor reason, hence my curiosity about the project's genesis.

In the end, I guess it's usually better when artists get to assemble their own greatest hits compilations than leaving it into the hands of labels' employees.

Just out of curioisity, what was you opinion on the 4 WB comps' sequencing? We know Prince came-up with Ultimate after an original preselection by Mathieu Bitton, but my understanding is that he had nothing to do, nor any "final cut" rights, with 4ever, of course, but also with The Hits/The B-Sides and The Very Best Of, and I always wondered if he thought the selection and sequencing were OK or utter nonsense (they certainly made more sense than Anthology, even if there was cause for nitpicking IMHO).

databank said:

Just out of curioisity, what was you opinion on the 4 WB comps' sequencing? We know Prince came-up with Ultimate after an original preselection by Mathieu Bitton,

Well we don't know that. In fact someone else made the selection of songs for Ultimate. Prince accepted all songs except for "Erotic City". A shame that was not on Ultimate of course.

Chastity said:

databank said:

Just out of curioisity, what was you opinion on the 4 WB comps' sequencing? We know Prince came-up with Ultimate after an original preselection by Mathieu Bitton,

Well we don't know that. In fact someone else made the selection of songs for Ultimate. Prince accepted all songs except for "Erotic City". A shame that was not on Ultimate of course.

According to Princevault: "An early version of the album was planned in late 2005 - early 2006 with a different tracklisting (see below for details) and was planned by Warner Bros. with a 21 March 2006 release. Prince cooperated with the release, and revised a proposed tracklist."

And while I don't remember where it was, I very clearly remember Bitton explaining the story in details, and saying that Prince's intervention went farther away than removing Erotic City, but reworking the whole tracklist, including deciding the album/single versions should be on one disc and the 12'' on the other (differences between the original and final tracklists can be seen on Princevault.

I'm always opened to corrections and factchecking of course, I may misremember some details, but I really am pretty sure I didn't imagine this.

databank said:

Chastity said:

Well we don't know that. In fact someone else made the selection of songs for Ultimate. Prince accepted all songs except for "Erotic City". A shame that was not on Ultimate of course.

According to Princevault: "An early version of the album was planned in late 2005 - early 2006 with a different tracklisting (see below for details) and was planned by Warner Bros. with a 21 March 2006 release. Prince cooperated with the release, and revised a proposed tracklist."

And while I don't remember where it was, I very clearly remember Bitton explaining the story in details, and saying that Prince's intervention went farther away than removing Erotic City, but reworking the whole tracklist, including deciding the album/single versions should be on one disc and the 12'' on the other (differences between the original and final tracklists can be seen on Princevault.

I'm always opened to corrections and factchecking of course, I may misremember some details, but I really am pretty sure I didn't imagine this.

I'm not contradicting the story. I was merely pointing out that Bitton was not compiling the album. He might have told the story but he was not the one doing it.

Chastity said:

databank said:

Kares said:

.
It's a textbook example of how not to make a playlist. It's been thrown together with absolutely no regards to any musical flow, no regards to any potential physical formats that it might gets released on in the future, no regards to any aspects of listening experience. Quite frankly it's unlistenable as it is.

.

Which is all a great shame and disrespectful towards Prince, who always took great care in compiling albums.

.

A great example of a compilation in my opinion is Pink Floyd's Echoes (The Best of Pink Floyd) (CD version) that has a flow and it gives you a great listening experience, even with the inclusion of a 17 min track. All the gaps/transitions are set perfectly, the mastering is perfect, the whole project is done with great care. The opposite of the P Anthology mentioned above.

[Edited 12/6/25 9:44am]

I agree that it seemed to have been assembled without rhyme nor reason, hence my curiosity about the project's genesis.

In the end, I guess it's usually better when artists get to assemble their own greatest hits compilations than leaving it into the hands of labels' employees.

Just out of curioisity, what was you opinion on the 4 WB comps' sequencing? We know Prince came-up with Ultimate after an original preselection by Mathieu Bitton, but my understanding is that he had nothing to do, nor any "final cut" rights, with 4ever, of course, but also with The Hits/The B-Sides and The Very Best Of, and I always wondered if he thought the selection and sequencing were OK or utter nonsense (they certainly made more sense than Anthology, even if there was cause for nitpicking IMHO).

Regarding the earlier compilations:
I think TH/TBS is the best of the four, but I can't help noting that all of them seem to be half-assed jobs, clearly starting out as chronological lists, until someone intervened a little, changing a couple of songs around and then lost interest and left the project.

.
The problem with compiling a 'Best Of' of a prolific artist is that they have many hits and hits are usually bangers that don't work well right next to each other. So you'll either bloat the compilation into double, triple albums to create a great listening experience with the addition of lesser hits (but by significantly raising the costs), or you'll end up with a playlist like TVBOP with Raspberry Beret / Kiss / SOTT / UGTL / Alphabet St / TITT / Gett Off in a row.

Kares said: