Prince - Purple Rain Deluxe Edition 2017

Yep. They did broadcast The Belle Of St. Mark, but that was the regular video clip, not something from Syracuse.

 

Hey thanks for all the info.

 

Interesting to note. I was checking out the old vhs packaging online and unless it's a typo, the US got an edited concert. It's missing International lover. Europe however got the whole thing. Laserdisc was the same story.

 

Hey thanks Kid.

 

I would be surprised if "International Lover" was actually missing from the US VHS, since it's only the first line of the song and just about one minute long. It's probably just not listed as a separate song on the track list.

 

Right. It's probably not listed on the packaging as it wasn't considered the full length song.

 

I always thought it was a bit of a cheek listing some of those tunes on the box when he only sang one line. Just sing the whole song! That VHS put me off going to see prince for a while for that very reason.

 

Man this box set is just a disaster, the first CD is a dynamic mess, just brickwalled to hell and back. The other CD's have better (not perfect) dynamic mastering but there's right channel crackling in some songs, another song has this ridiculous... left?? channel drop out..... some of the songs sound low quality and muddy. do these bozo's not play back the stuff they master?

Anyway I can see why it was given to me for free, straight into the trash.

 

I still have mine for the bonus disc even though the quality is crappy. Warner should be ashamed they put this out.

 

The mastering is so bad. Not just the bonus disc. The album itself is fatiguing to listen to. I know everyone says "But it's Bernie Grundman!" - it sounds awful and the beginning chime of "Erotic City" where it sounds warbled? Unacceptable.
Wish they could hire someone like Bob Ludwig to remaster it.

 

I don't think the execs are audiophiles ... they look at it as "product" with a "sure thing" sales base to push it to, like obscenely-cut cocaine to junkies.

 

Yes, mastering sucks....but Prince supervised the album remaster.

 

No, it's not Bernie Grundman. The album Purple Rain itself was mastered by Joshua Welton (IIRC) under supervision from Prince. Prince probably also provided the songs for the bonus discs, likely not in the best condition. It was only with the 1999 super deluxe set that the Estate had full control of the vault and were able to select the best sources available from The Vault (as far as located at that time) to use on a deluxe set.

 

I could be wrong, but I thought that WB used their old tapes for the vault tracks. Prince regularly gave songs to WB to let them know what he was doing in the studio. For the Deluxe Edition Prince just gave them the remaster (in 2015), not the additional songs. That’s why they sound kinda crappy with parts missing (Dance Electric for example).

It’s the same situation for Moonbeam Levels. On 4Ever they used a tape copy. For the 1999 SDE they had access to the vault and were able to release a proper version.

 

There's a discussion somewhere in this thread, IIRC, that talks about the sources for the Vault material. At least some tracks are straight off bootleg releases and are from mp3/lossy sources. I was able to confirm at least one or two personally by performing a null test between the deluxe CD and the bootleg file, and they cancelled each other out. I doubt WB had access to any Vault tapes, and in the rush to put out the disc, they simply used whatever sources they had access to.