The album has 16 tracks. I am hearing you want to discard 8 of them. Which tracks would you keep? You profile is not viewable so I can't get a sense of the type of music you're into.
8 Tracks, I'd go 9 minimum to get it to around 45 minutes in total. Sign o' the Times" 5:02 "Play in the Sunshine" 5:05 "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker" 4:04 "It" 5:10 "Slow Love" (Prince, Carole Davis) 4:18 "Hot Thing" 5:39 "If I Was Your Girlfriend" 4:54 "Strange Relationship" 4:04 "Adore" 6:29 It's tough to get it into a flowing sequence though. I'm fine with it being a double!
Well here we go sgsin. I'd like the artifacts from the physical product (thr book and DVD), but this time I'm definitely headed for the doenload, which prince.com says will be a thing (spsrt from the streaming offering). I had to take a good long look st how many times I sctually watched many of my music DVDs, and the numbers aren't great.(My "1999" CD box is still in shrinkwrap.) Also had to examine my reflexive consumer impulses..And on top of it also, more "stuff" in the house. No. .The interview with Mr. Vault at SDE said they provided Grundmsn with 24/192 of the original album flat transfer. That doesn't mean anything like it will reach the shelves of "HDTracks", but I'm not sitting out the chance to vote with my dollars for the downloads to basically say to the Esaste, "Thenk you, sir. May I have another?" Srsly, this is one extraordinary release- the stuff dreams are made of. Can't wait.
I was thinking either that, or they wanted to leave tracks that had a digital version available already off of the set - similar to the CB '98 tracks not being there which seems to be a decision based on repetition rather than legal issues - basing this off of this answer Michael gave in that interview posted a few pages back: [Yes], primarily due to repetition, but also because the beauty of the streaming world allows you to do that yourself. So from a standpoint of trying to be as comprehensive – but not repetitive – as possible, we decided to include all the tracks that are otherwise unavailable. You know, there’s not a dedicated Camille album in this larger body of work [i.e. the Sign O’ The Times super deluxe sets] – it seemed like it would be redundant to do that. So to me my theory is that they didn't include Feel U Up (Long Stroke) since it was available on a CD maxi single for Partyman. Although that would still bring inconsistency because they did include the edit of Shockadelica that was on "The Hits/B-Sides" already available, which an edit of Feel U Up was included on as well
It could also be a "diplomatic" answer, since he may not want to get into the legality issues between WB and Sony, for fear of stirring up unnecessary bad blood. It still could be a rights issue. We can't really know for sure. But I've already got "Feel U Up," and I've got the Crystal Ball box. So, even though volume matching will be a slight issue, at least I can have (most) of the Camille / Dream Factory tracks on a single playlist. So, I'll just be content with that.
The Long Stroke of Feel U Up was only ever available on CD as a mini CD single (3”) instead of the standard 5” CD single.
Oof, this is a big disagree My single SOTT Sign O The Times Housequake Dorothy Parker Starfish and Coffee Slow Love If I Was Your Girlfriend Strange Relationship ICNTTPOYM The Cross I'm not even Christian, it's just a good song
funny how you both include "'Slow Love" a track most Prince fans would choose first to leave off the 2lp, maybe after It's Gonna B A Beautiful Night
That seems to be their way of working though - to include the singles by their release date rather than their recording date (despite the Vault discs being chronological!) So She's Always In My Hair wasn't on the Purple Rain deluxe (even though it was recorded on the same day as Erotic City, which was) and Girl didn't go onto 1999. No doubt Scarlet ***** would be missing from Lovesexy too ...
Those two tracks would be near the top of my list for inclusion. The only two I don’t care for are starfish and coffee and It. I took part in a SOTT weakest link thread on this forum a while back and was appalled to see Slow Love get voted off so soon. Equally perplexing was how long Starfish and Coffee lasted.
A truly greatest single-disc Sign O' the Times would use the live at Paisley Park versions of the title track (with military drums), Forever In My Life (with Bonnie going crazy), and It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night (which SMOKES the album version both in sound quality and performance). It would also include the band version of "Now's the Time."
Personally I always thought that the final tracklisting of Sign was perfect as it was in its 2 disk configuration. I wouldn't be able to think of any to cut down honestly lol Even to me as much as the Crystal Ball concept has some of my all time favorite Prince moments ever (Crystal Ball, Rebirth of the Flesh, etc.) I think that Prince hit perfection by omitting some of them in favor of creating the two disks that had tracks that complimented each other seamlessly
Wait, there are people who don't like 'Slow Love'? The thing with all of these attempts to whittle down classic double albums into a single album is that no one can agree with what to leave off.
Me. There are others, like If Eye Was Your Girlfriend, Strange Relationship, and Adore that pretty much bore me, too. In a Large Room With No Light, Crystal Ball, and Power Fantastic were needed on this album. Then it would have truly been his masterstroke. As it is, I think it falls a little short.
"Large Room" and "Crystal Ball" are two of my favorite Prince songs of all time, specifically CB - but I actually think that if the rest of the album is kept as is, they wouldn't necessarily fit the vibe that SOTT lays out. In my own opinion of course Prince, when pairing down the album got rid of the more quirky, funky odd tunes such as Rebirth of The Flesh, The Ball, Shockadelica, Feel U Up, etc. which to me is the exact vibe that "Crystal Ball" feeds off of. And "Large Room" is this cool jazzy salsa-esque jam that while amazing, I don't know would quite accompany the vibe of the group of songs SOTT is based off of I remember an interview with Susan Rogers where she mentioned that Prince didn't necessarily create tracklists based on what individual tracks he thought were the best as standalone compositions, but what group of songs went best together so portray his vision/message - and I think that this album is a fantastic example of that cohesion
If I Was Ur Girlfriend is in my all time top 2 Prince songs, some days it might even beat The Beautiful Ones
