Prince's Music Vault

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by zphage, Apr 22, 2016.

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  1. zphage

    zphage genre fluid Thread Starter

    Prince, a Prodigious Musical Talent, Dies »
    Warner Music Group co-owns the rights to all the unreleased music in Prince’s vault that was recorded between 1978 and 1996, when Prince was under contract there, and those songs can’t be released without permission from both the label and whoever takes control of Prince’s estate. It isn’t clear who that will be because Prince wasn’t married, had no children and cycled through many business managers.


    Alan Leeds, who worked for the musician from 1983 until 1992, first as a tour manager and then as president of Paisley Park Records, a joint venture with Warner Bros., Prince’s record label at the time, said the singer’s vaults contain “hundreds, if not thousands, of songs, but I’m not sure how many of them are really finished.”
     
    tmtomh likes this.
  2. JohnnyQuest

    JohnnyQuest Forum Resident

    Location:
    Paradise
    This is bittersweet. I've always wanted Prince to release the songs that were stashed away in his vault but not under these circumstances. :cry: Not like this.
     
    Cassius, Shak Cohen, D-rock and 22 others like this.
  3. FlatulentDonkey

    FlatulentDonkey Forum Resident

    Location:
    Northern Ireland
    And the profiteering is about to start
     
  4. videoman

    videoman Senior Member

    Location:
    Lake Tahoe, NV
    There's a lot of stuff to be sure. Heard a guy on the radio yesterday who said he had been Prince's engineer from 1987 to 1989 that maybe 10% of the stuff he recorded during that period has been released.

    Unclear who would get control unless and until a will is read. He did have a younger sister.
     
    warewolf95 likes this.
  5. gotityet0

    gotityet0 vinyl nut

    Location:
    earth
    :shake::(:cry:
     
    warewolf95 likes this.
  6. Orthogonian Blues

    Orthogonian Blues A man with a fork in a world full of soup.

    Location:
    London, UK
    About 18 months ago, a whole load of vault material started circulating widely on the net - I suppose these songs were hitherto only swapped between elite bootleg traders.

    Naturally, when I found a huge stash of these forbidden songs of mystery, I felt like I'd just been handed a first class flight to Minneapolis and the keys to Paisley Park. Like many people, I'd been dying to hear what he'd been keeping from us. There was supposed to be shelves of unreleased stuff that could stand alongside his best work, or so the mythology goes.

    In reality out of a few hundred tracks, the ones that I actually want to hear again would only fill about two and a half CDs.


    Maybe I am being too harsh - it's hard to do justice to so many songs acquired in such a short time, and the sound quality was far from perfect in most places. And some of the good stuff was very very good - any new Prince track from the top drawer is a blessing, right?

    What I am trying to say is... if the vault tapes are ever given a proper release, I'd advise you all to manage your expectations. And bear in mind that much of the material was just Prince sketching out some ideas.
     
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  7. SinisterGinger

    SinisterGinger Forum Resident

    Location:
    Saltcoats
    I hope that whoever ends up in control of his archive looks after it. There's a tonne of stuff I'd love to see get released (The Second Coming movie from 1981, demos from 1980-1987, Crystal Ball, The Dream Factory and an archive series of live concerts would be amazing). Hope they can hire someone like Questlove to oversee all of it since he seems to know more about Prince's back catalogue than anyone, haha!
     
    Jayseph, Grant, theMess and 8 others like this.
  8. SinisterGinger

    SinisterGinger Forum Resident

    Location:
    Saltcoats
    I agree - not all of the demos and unreleased stuff would be meant for anyone other than Prince. I hope that they don't bring in current artists to finish the songs off like they did with Michael Jackson's last two releases. That would be insulting.
     
    D-rock, theMess, Purple Jim and 6 others like this.
  9. Torontotom

    Torontotom Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    Agreed. As much as I want reissues, demos, live performances, unreleased tracks, I really wanted Prince to live to see how his music would be administered, promoted, released, etc. It was a big part of who he was as a musician and businessman.
     
    warewolf95, Purple Jim, Mr. H and 2 others like this.
  10. The Panda

    The Panda Forum Mutant

    Location:
    Marple, PA, USA
    I have a 2 cd collection with me today of all unreleased stuff. I think I play it more than most of his normal cds that I have.
    Even demos for the songs he gave away are really good--G Spot, High fashion, Uh Huh.

    If you get a chance , try to find the rehearsal of Let's Go Crazy where he changes the opening speech--it's hysterical first time you hear it.
     
    ribonucleic likes this.
  11. WilliamWes

    WilliamWes Likes to sing along but he knows not what it means

    Location:
    New York
    I'm picturing a box set of an actual purple vault with the CD's inside. I bet if the releases start flowing, they'll be stylish and I'm sure there would be some great nuggets in there too.

    I don't think any other musician currently alive has this much unreleased material. Between Jackson and Prince, it's ridiculous. Brian Williams was anchoring and asked who would curate the release. They figured the family would hire some team to release some of it.
     
  12. hbbfam

    hbbfam Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chandler,AZ
    Within about an hour of the news, I had emails from Music Direct, Acoustic Sound, Elusive Disc and even FYE soliciting me to by Prince music. It was amazing how quickly they "seized the moment".
     
    Matthew Tate and tmtomh like this.
  13. videoman

    videoman Senior Member

    Location:
    Lake Tahoe, NV
    A deluxe edition of "Purple Rain" with the full-length versions of every song and all the related b-sides and movie music and some alternate takes would be a nice place to start.....
     
  14. stodgers

    stodgers Forum Resident

    Location:
    Montana
    Well, this seemingly contradicts something I read yesterday that part of his return to Warner was an agreement to revert the rights back to him, and thus his estate would have responsibility. But maybe that was just assuming that Warner would be okay with releasing anything the estate chose to.

    It would be awesome if he had the foresight to establish a foundation of some kind since there is no apparent heir.
     
  15. videoman

    videoman Senior Member

    Location:
    Lake Tahoe, NV
    Hard to believe anyone with that size of an estate would not have some sort of will and legal plans. But you never know.
     
    eyeCalypso likes this.
  16. Jeff Kent

    Jeff Kent Forum Resident

    Location:
    Mt. Kisco, NY
    According to Kebin Smith who spent a day with Prince at Paisley Park, he also has many fully completed concept videos in his vault. Not just thrown together videos, full blown videos with sets, costumes, special effects...
     
    warewolf95 likes this.
  17. stodgers

    stodgers Forum Resident

    Location:
    Montana
    Especially someone who was so passionate about ownership of his work!
     
    Grant and ramdom like this.
  18. videoman

    videoman Senior Member

    Location:
    Lake Tahoe, NV
    Yes. Another possibility is that Prince left instructions that no one touch the vault until 2099 or some such......
     
    stodgers likes this.
  19. deadbirdie

    deadbirdie Senior Member

    Location:
    Chicago, IL
    warewolf95 likes this.
  20. full moon

    full moon Forum Resident

    I imagine it will be a cluster and nothing will be put out for a long long time.
     
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  21. Olompali

    Olompali Forum Resident

    One man's "sketches" are another man's view into the Akashic Record:righton::cool:;)
     
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  22. stodgers

    stodgers Forum Resident

    Location:
    Montana
    "...jams with Miles Davis."

    Sigh...
     
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  23. petem1966

    petem1966 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Katy TX
    Who are these shadowy people? I've come across this sort of description a lot in Beatle threads. Are they music biz insiders with access? Rich people with unlimited music budgets? Is it like trading in antiquities?
    I'm not being glib, just curious, it's a world I can't seem to get a handle on.
     
    warewolf95 likes this.
  24. WilliamWes

    WilliamWes Likes to sing along but he knows not what it means

    Location:
    New York
    Oh absolutely would be great if they grouped all the outtakes based on album sessions, but I have a bad feeling like many posthumous releases, they may like to promo vault material as "brand new Prince album" and then you'll get a song from 1983 and one from 2006 like the "Michael" release.

    There's so much material, every album could be a box set.
     
  25. Jeff Kent

    Jeff Kent Forum Resident

    Location:
    Mt. Kisco, NY
    Kevin Smith on Prince

     
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