Prince (1958-2016)

[zedz]

I’ve got it, but only because I got it from the BluRay of the film. It certainly hasn’t been officially released anywhere else.

[ando]

I’ve got it, but only because I got it from the BluRay of the film. It certainly hasn’t been officially released anywhere else.

Ah, thanks. Glaring omission from the deluxe set.

[zedz]

Considering how knotty the rights for the movie (and its soundtrack) are, they may have had their hands tied.

[hearthesilence]

I’ve got it, but only because I got it from the BluRay of the film. It certainly hasn’t been officially released anywhere else.

Ah, thanks. Glaring omission from the deluxe set.

Howe actually addressed this - they tried, but rights are a complete mess.

A head's up, word's going round that a handful of tracks (maybe more?) were sourced from "lossy" sources, possibly even mp3's.

Also, they apparently transferred the master tapes for the Dutch slow at the wrong pitch and speed - it's 2% too slow. (Some musicians who know Prince's music and tried to play along caught this.)

[ando]

A head's up, word's going round that a handful of tracks (maybe more?) were sourced from "lossy" sources, possibly even mp3's.

Also, they apparently transferred the master tapes for the Dutch slow at the wrong pitch and speed - it's 2% too slow. (Some musicians who know Prince's music and tried to play along caught this.)

Yes, many of the live tracks clearly aren’t up to par with the remastered studio material.

[hearthesilence]

Not entirely sure if this piece of trivia is true, but apparently the first time more than one African-American won an Academy Award in the same year was in 1984, when it was Stevie Wonder and Prince. (That year was also the only time every Best Song nominee hit #1 on Billboard's main chart.)

[flyonthewall2983]

That'll never happen again (the nominee/Billboard ratio that is)

[L.A.]

Divinity, one of the original white doves owned by the late musician, has died at the old age of 28.

[hearthesilence]

The Sign "☮︎" the Times 'concert' film (which is GREAT) is not only getting a Japanese BD release, there's also a UHD too. Both are scheduled for the end of July.

[zedz]

The Japanese BluRay has been out for years and is very good. Do be warned - and I assume that this will apply to the UHD edition as well - that the 'U Got the Look' video in the middle is sourced from video and looks like shit compared to the rest of the film.

[hearthesilence]

The Japanese BluRay has been out for years and is very good. Do be warned - and I assume that this will apply to the UHD edition as well - that the 'U Got the Look' video in the middle is sourced from video and looks like shit compared to the rest of the film.

Yeah, I've given up hope that they'll go back to the original film negative for that video (and re-create the opticals in the process). It's basically the official music video for that single, which probably exists only as a broadcast or SD video master rather than a film element, and they clearly took that video master and blew it up on 35mm, cropping it in the process. An easy but shitty way of inserting it into the film.

[Lemmy Caution]

In recent years, Clyde Stubblefield dealt with numerous health issues: In 2002, he had a kidney removed, and he suffered from end-stage renal disease in the last decade.

While Stubblefield did not have health insurance, in April 2016, Stubblefield revealed that Prince secretly paid the $90,000 in medical bills the drummer accumulated while undergoing chemotherapy for bladder cancer. Prince considered Stubblefield one of his “drumming idols,” Stubblefield told Billboard following Prince’s death.

Very nice gesture from Prince. Stubblefield died in 2017 the year after Prince. Stubblefield also lived in the Midwest, making his home in Madison WI.

[hearthesilence]

Local CBS News affiliate WCCO in Minneapolis finds archival footage of an 11-year-old Prince.

[ando]

Cool. Wonder how that strike turned out.

[hearthesilence]

I wish I could say "and they never had to strike again"...ah to dream.

[Rayon Vert]

Nice. Thanks for sharing.

[ando]

The Criterion Channel's kept it on the low but tubi, PlutoTV, Roku and peacocktv all have it currently streaming, too. Even with an adblocker the experience is best on CC.

[Rayon Vert]

Diamonds and Pearls from 1991 is getting a remastered, deluxe and super deluxe release in October.

7 CDs (!) is probably too much for me given it's not my favorite album. Not crazy about this and Graffiti Bridge, but the love symbol album in 1992 saw him get his groove back, to an extent, and I love/really like the rest of what he put out in the mid-to-late 90s, before the release of the 1999 comeback album which was anything but. D&P is somewhat similar as a calculated commercial pleaser, missing inspiration.

[beamish14]

I bought the 10-vinyl Sign O’ the Times deluxe edition, so I’m sure I’ll get the 12-vinyl set

[FrauBlucher]

Track listings and other info here

[beamish14]

Track listings and other info here

THREE hours of unreleased studio tracks. Incredible. And only on the Super Deluxe

[zedz]

Diamonds and Pearls from 1991 is getting a remastered, deluxe and super deluxe release in October.

7 CDs (!) is probably too much for me given it's not my favorite album. Not crazy about this and Graffiti Bridge, but the love symbol album in 1992 saw him get his groove back, to an extent, and I love/really like the rest of what he put out in the mid-to-late 90s, before the release of the 1999 comeback album which was anything but. D&P is somewhat similar as a calculated commercial pleaser, missing inspiration.

Maybe his worst album up to that point (and certainly since the self-titled one), but I'm sure there's at least one masterpiece album hidden among the offcuts.

[beamish14]

Diamonds and Pearls from 1991 is getting a remastered, deluxe and super deluxe release in October.

7 CDs (!) is probably too much for me given it's not my favorite album. Not crazy about this and Graffiti Bridge, but the love symbol album in 1992 saw him get his groove back, to an extent, and I love/really like the rest of what he put out in the mid-to-late 90s, before the release of the 1999 comeback album which was anything but. D&P is somewhat similar as a calculated commercial pleaser, missing inspiration.

Maybe his worst album up to that point (and certainly since the self-titled one), but I'm sure there's at least one masterpiece album hidden among the offcuts.

Worse than Batman or his first two records?

[Rayon Vert]

For me it is worse than Batman, and the first two have a lot of charm. Batman is flawed but it's Prince alone in the studio like most of his 80s stuff - when he started the live band sound it wasn't as good, especially with the rap-heavy stuff in 1991. Just the sound has a kind of metallic glossy sheen that's a putoff. The love symbol album is made in the same way but the songs are better and the ambition pulls it through.

[Rayon Vert]

I followed him starting from 1983 (1999) and got the records as they were released. Lovesexy was a disappointment compared to Sign o' the Times (he had a string of unequaled brilliance among his peers there for the previous however many albums), although still excellent. Batman was a definite step down from that, and Graffiti Bridge a step down further (a tremendous one for me, moving the arrow to strong dislike). To the point that I didn't buy D&P until years later, even though I saw the videos like everyone else. I did get the 92 album (released with little fanfare) and it knocked my socks off that he could get at least as good as that again, I really thought he'd lost it. But for some reason I only got back on the bandwagon with the release of Crystal Ball in 1998 (?), and then turned around and acquired the mid-90s catalogue, all of which I liked (including much of Emancipation). Never really followed him after that though, even though I gave some of the albums a cursory listen.

Edit: Back to the sound on D&P, what's unattractive to my ears beyond the uninspired and been-there-done-that quality of the songwriting, is how echo-y and reverb-y the live band stuff is. Whereas I think a lot of what's distinctive in his 80s stuff is the spareness. Take a song like New Position from 1986. Nobody else sounded like this at the time. It makes his 80s stuff completely still listenable, despite the presence of electronic drums, compared to the production techniques that ruin a lot of the records of the era.