Every time I try to put together a homemade "best of" Prince comp for a friend, or even for myself, I always have a difficult time of it and wind up giving up in a frustrated huff.

I'm typically pretty good at this kind of thing - I've made CD-Rs of my favorite stuff by other artists I like, and they're good subway listening for when I wanna hear a particular artist but can't decide on one album...but it's just too dang difficult with Prince.

First off, there's SO much stuff to go through. And it's all mixed at different levels, some louder, some softer, some more lush, some cheap and tinny (and I'm just talking about officially released stuff). Some songs segue and don't end cleanly, and you can tell it's cutting off into another song.

THEN there's the question of bootleg tracks - SO damn many of them, SO many different versions. Then there are NPG albums, and associated artists - a song from the Jill Jones album or from The Family's album might as well be a Prince track - and so on and so on and so on.

Yeah, I'm whining. And there are bigger fish to fry in life, of course. But dang, it's weird to me that it's so difficult to put a compilation together for myself of music that I know better than any other music. Maybe THAT's the problem. Bleh.

Any pointers from those who have less difficulty?

Oh, Nana.

I can tell this Stuart Smalley phase of yours is going to be a bumpy ride, innit?

bananacologne said:

creepy how he looks like G. Norton with a wig on

anxiety is definitely speaking the truth here.
strange, but true.
before you know it, your draftin up a 4 sometimes a four-cd compilation. but nothing really works.
there too much stuff, and weird segues, mixes, levels, etc. i think sometimes you just gotta pick an era, or just go with exclusively live, or bootleg material, which again raised the problem of making a single cd that captures prince, or even a style of prince in any kind of completely satisfying way. but its the only thing that kinda works. a 'guitar' cd, or a 'live-guitar' cd. or a npg 'johnny' kind of cd, or a camille cd, or the more overtly 'spiritual'
cd. for myself its not so hard,- i have a dozen of them. but to make a cd for a friend- whose not totally on the 'in' -forget about it. give em some undertaker, some small club, a fancy 12in of a familar song (i.e. mountains)some mid-80's demos,a wacked track from xpectation or news, one piano track from ona cd -and then you got to lettitgo.
but this is just one man speakin' and the frustration just reminds that there are bigger fish to fry, and larger battles to wage.

s/he who has ears, let 'em hear!

bananacologne said:

I think someone is projecting, and you know what that means, don't you? That's right: STINKIN' THINKIN'.

Now, why don't you set aside some journalling time this weekend and sort out your thoughts before you find yourself smack dab in the middle of a big ol' nasty shame spiral?

I think we've all grown a little today. Yeah. And it's okay to learn. Give yourself permission to grow. It's okay.

I can relate! My biggest problem is with the sound quality and mix levels, I know there's software out there that can enhance the levels, but I haven't found the time to investigate. I'm usually reminded I need this, whenever, I feel the urge to burn a comp. Personally, I usually go with a vibe, whatever track I start the set of with usually sets the mood. Whether it's, nasty, spiritual, upbeat, downbeat, guitar or synth dominated or if it's pre 1989.

sinisterpentatonic said:

yeah, i think it's easier to go with mood than it is to go chronological or anything remotely linear...

Anxiety said:

'STOP PICKING ON ME! I DONT HAVE THE DEFENSIVE MECHANISIMS YOU HAVE!'

Did I ever tell you denial is a big turn-on for me?

Yeah, I recently made a 4CD (1978-93) set, kind of like what I would like the Hits/B-sides to be, and I still had problems fitting everything on I would have liked.

It varies greatly depending on whether you're trying to make it for a newbie, a good friend, a hardcore fan or for yourself. For a newbie, it's good to compile all the single edits on a 4 disc set. For a good friend, give 'em your personal favorites and the ones you think suit them. For a hardcore fan, they're usually asking for something specific. But for yourself...that's the tricky part. It can take weeks and a lot of wasted cd's to please yourself.

TRON said:

I'm making it for myself. GAH!

Get over it. Buy an iPod.

This would be an impossible task imho. It all depends what mood you are in as to what works for you and what doesn't. There are some songs that I simply cannot listen to sometimes and then there are times where I just simply have to get a fix of a certain song.

Good luck buddy!

SpcMs said:

Talking about compilations for friends and such.

Personally, I have everything converted to mp3 so I don't even have to mess with the CDs, I can listen to everything whilst at work I don't even have to leave my seat



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[This message was edited Sun Nov 2 2:04:47 PST 2003 by Romance1600]

I tried making a girl i was fucking a prince compilation cd once. It ended up sprawling over 3cds (unreleased tracks and all!). 3cd's! fuck, it felt like an npgmc release.

This dilemma is common with any artist with a deep catalog.
Main reason why I don't like "GREATES HITS" anthologies.


Sometimes it's best to just stack up the orignal CDs and just skip over/pull out the crappy trax, but that that takes too much time.

Welp, I dug into my collection and it turned out I was craving a mid-to-late '90s compilation...everything on it is from Come to NPS...I've always undervalued this phase (with a few exceptions here and there), and so I threw a compiliation together to get to know some of the stuff I've never listened to that much but kinda dig...problem solved, and without an iPod!