are the Prince remasters coming?

[Dean Winchester]

On a whim earlier, I was looking at reviews on Amazon and decided to type in Prince. Outside of the two most recent collections and a few of the poorer catalog sellers (like Come and Symbol), the entire Warner Prince catalog is currently available only via used CD's, even the bigger titles like 1999 and Purple Rain that would never go out of print.

Makes me wonder if this means Warner is planning on releasing remaster editions of his 1978-1994 catalog in the new year. 2008 would make sense since it not only marks Prince's 50th birthday but also 30 years from the release of "For You", his debut. Does anyone know if they are working on these or if it's just a mere coincidence and the majority of his albums all sold out at once?

If this is the case, what a nice Christmas present from Warner.

[Shine]

I wish I could get a hold of some of the albums that Prince made during the 90's like The Gold Experience and Emancipation. It doesn't seem like any store carries these albums. I still have a couple of the Warner albums like Dirty Mind and Lovesexy to add to my collection as well.

[Dean Winchester]

Gold Experience costs a pretty penny, but without a doubt it is the best work he released in the 1990's. I am curious if Warner will remaster that or not, since the whole rights issue with that is messed up. It was one of the albums Prince delivered to Warner but they withheld it's release for well over a year, but yet "The Most Beautiful Girl In The World" didn't make either Very Best Of Prince or Ultimate Prince. Emancipation, you can find really cheap on ebay, it's so-so. When it comes to deluxe 90's Prince packages, the true gem to go for is Crystal Ball, a collection of vaulted material spanning 1982-1997, and there's some really good tracks on there.

Hopefully Warner is remastering the catalog since the entire 80's (and late 70's too) catalog are still in the pressings from 20 years ago on CD, no remastering or anything. Albums like Around The World In A Day and Parade would sound absolutely amazing with present-day mastering instead of the old 1986-manufactured discs. Sign O' The Times and Dirty Mind have the worst sounding CD's IMO and both would benefit from a nice remaster.

Dirty Mind is a fantastic, but really short album. That album has his version of "When You Were Mine", which Cyndi Lauper covered on She's So Unusual. Lovesexy is great too, but I'd definately hold out for the potential remaster there since the cd is one continuous 45 minute track.

[Shine]

Gold Experience costs a pretty penny, but without a doubt it is the best work he released in the 1990's. I am curious if Warner will remaster that or not, since the whole rights issue with that is messed up. It was one of the albums Prince delivered to Warner but they withheld it's release for well over a year, but yet "The Most Beautiful Girl In The World" didn't make either Very Best Of Prince or Ultimate Prince. Emancipation, you can find really cheap on ebay, it's so-so. When it comes to deluxe 90's Prince packages, the true gem to go for is Crystal Ball, a collection of vaulted material spanning 1982-1997, and there's some really good tracks on there.

Hopefully Warner is remastering the catalog since the entire 80's (and late 70's too) catalog are still in the pressings from 20 years ago on CD, no remastering or anything. Albums like Around The World In A Day and Parade would sound absolutely amazing with present-day mastering instead of the old 1986-manufactured discs. Sign O' The Times and Dirty Mind have the worst sounding CD's IMO and both would benefit from a nice remaster.

Dirty Mind is a fantastic, but really short album. That album has his version of "When You Were Mine", which Cyndi Lauper covered on She's So Unusual. Lovesexy is great too, but I'd definately hold out for the potential remaster there since the cd is one continuous 45 minute track.


I know a guy at work who is a really big Prince fan who is going to let be borrow The Gold Experience and Emancipation. Recently I read a really good book called Purple Reign: The Artist Formerly Known As Prince by Liz Jones (published in 1998) and in the book Jones said that Emancipation is the longest pop album ever recorded. So there must be quite a bit of music on it.

It's funny that you should mention Around The World In A Day. That is probably the only Prince album that I've bought that I ended up disappointed in. The only two songs on it that I like are "Raspberry Beret" and "Paisley Park". I think that it is a really poor follow up to Rurple Rain. I do like the cover art though.

Getting away from Prince for a minute, I wanted to tell you that I've watched some of the Dannii Minogue clips that you PMed me the links to. When I have watched them all, I'll tell you what I think. So far though I've liked the songs I've heard. I really liked "All I Wanna Do". That is a really catchy pop song.

[Dean Winchester]

I know a guy at work who is a really big Prince fan who is going to let be borrow The Gold Experience and Emancipation. Recently I read a really good book called Purple Reign: The Artist Formerly Known As Prince by Liz Jones (published in 1998) and in the book Jones said that Emancipation is the longest pop album ever recorded. So there must be quite a bit of music on it.

It's funny that you should mention Around The World In A Day. That is probably the only Prince album that I've bought that I ended up disappointed in. The only two songs on it that I like are "Raspberry Beret" and "Paisley Park". I think that it is a really poor follow up to Rurple Rain. I do like the cover art though.

Getting away from Prince for a minute, I wanted to tell you that I've watched some of the Dannii Minogue clips that you PMed me the links to. When I have watched them all, I'll tell you what I think. So far though I've liked the songs I've heard. I really liked "All I Wanna Do". That is a really catchy pop song.

yep, Emancipation is three discs long, 180 mins total. So yep, there's a whole lotta filler on there, especially considering he'd just released Chaos And Disorder four months earlier :lol:

What do you think of Parade? In a way, I think that album and ATWIAD go hand-in-hand (much like Dirty Mind/Controversy and arguably 1999/Purple Rain and Sign O' The Times/Lovesexy). I think a lot of people were alienated by the whole psychedelica influence there, but I do think both albums are great, but they are much more of acquired tastes than Purple Rain, especially considering Raspberry Beret and Kiss were such huge hits and aren't truly representative of their respective albums. "Condition Of The Heart" off ATWIAD and "Sometimes It Snows In April" off Parade are two of my absolute favorite Prince ballads.