In his too-brief life and vastly influential music career, Prince was known for every trait associated with genius: eclectic, kinetic musical ideas; a restless creative spirit; and of course, a mercurial side - known to change his own mind or direction at the slightest whims.
In the eight years since his untimely passing, it seems the custodians of his affairs have got the mercurial part right, and that sometimes seems about it. A series of surprising successes and near-misses today in reissue production culminates in one of the biggest banana peels surrounding his most iconic album - a squeaky balloon fart of an announcement with bad timing, as fans literally congregate to celebrate their fallen hero as you read this.
A lot has happened since that dark day in 2016 when the world came together to mourn the Minneapolis pop/rock/soul legend. Having died without a will, a lengthy process of settling his estate began among six claimants: the singer's sister Tyka and five half-siblings. In the six years before everything was finally settled, a surprising amount happened with his catalogue on physical and digital media: after the compilation 4Ever and a planned expansion of Purple Rain in 2017, a talented, ragtag team of archivists, business associates and music moguls made lots of moves.
A deal was put in place with Universal Music Group to distribute Prince's post-Warner Bros. catalog (the masters of which had finally been granted to him before his death and in turn licensed back to Warner to mind); when that suddenly fell through, Sony Music Entertainment took the reins and spent time getting the big releases from that era back on CD and vinyl. On the Warner side, Rhino issued deluxe editions of 1999 and Sign O' the Times as well as the unreleased curiosities Piano & A Microphone 1983 (a loose, pre-Purple Rain rehearsal tape) and Originals (a collection of his versions of songs he wrote for other artists). Eventually, Sony's Legacy Recordings got into the archival game, dropping the unreleased 2010 album Welcome 2 America and a restoration of a Purple Rain-era live show from 1985. (That release also heralded a new status quo: control of most of the Warner-licensed albums, save the soundtracks to Purple Rain, Under the Cherry Moon, Batman and Graffiti Bridge, would now be controlled by Sony in North America, with Warner retaining rest-of-world rights.)
By this point, in 2022, the six heirs seemed to have resolved their business: three sold their shares to well-known publishing/estate management company Primary Wave, while another three kept control, forming a limited liability company with advisors L. Londell McMillan and Charles Spicer. McMillan, Prince's lawyer during the time when he was known as an unpronounceable symbol, was also part of the UMG deal that fell apart, so it was slightly surprising to see his name back in the mix. Things only got weirder from there: post-COVID supply chain issues notwithstanding, it seemed like the next deluxe album would be 1991's Diamonds and Pearls, for its 30th anniversary in 2021. That didn't happen until 2023, by which point a lot of the estate's time seemed to be devoted to merchandising more than archival music. When two outtakes were given to attendees of the annual Celebration at Paisley Park, they were on USB flash drives in 128 kbps MP3 quality (and only belatedly released to the rest of the public with ghastly A.I.-augmented cover art). The eventual release of the Diamonds and Pearls box came with bizarre social media messages about the patience in waiting for material to sell fans - a tone that's also affected the sale of tickets to this year's Celebration.
What has been released this year - mostly rare B-sides to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Musicology and a hardly-promoted vinyl release of 1999's The Vault...Old Friends 4 Sale - has been augmented by a leak of a 4LP expanded vinyl version of 1992's The Love Symbol that arbitrarily ended up in collectors' hands, or perhaps the quickly-quashed legal upheaval involving some of the heirs, McMillan and Spicer. Now, with Celebration in full swing in Chanhassen (something you'd never know from Paisley Park's social media), it's been announced that Purple Rain - Prince's signature album and a surefire candidate for a new deluxe edition from an extremely busy Rhino - will celebrate its 40th anniversary with...an Atmos mix. It's available on Apple Music now and will be on Blu-ray at an unconfirmed date. No more outtakes, like the demos of "Let's Go Crazy" and "Purple Rain" fans reportedly heard at Celebration. No official release of the long-desired First Avenue show from 1983, the first Prince and The Revolution gig and the source for what became the album versions of several songs on the album, including the legendary title track. Hell, even the sole album by Apollonia 6 remains unavailable physically or digitally, along with more than two dozen titles produced and written by Prince or released by his Paisley Park or NPG labels.
It feels like there's not much else to say at this point. But honestly: how did we get here? How did a company known for music estate money moves and a high-powered entertainment lawyer get their creative lunch eaten by the version of the estate temporarily run by a bank and the team managing Graceland? In an age where Taylor Swift releases music at the speed Prince would have wanted to in the '90s (while owning her own masters, even), why have things slowed to such a trickle? And is this driving "fams" and catalog collectors as crazy as it's kind of driving us at Second Disc HQ?
One thing's for sure: in 1985, Prince sang "everybody's looking 4 the ladder" - and we hope all interested parties can find it and climb on as soon as they can, lest they stay grounded forever.
Release Round-Up: Week of November 15
The Weekend Stream: October 26, 2024
Joy in Repetition: Cherry Red's 'Dearly Beloved' Pays Tribute to Prince, the Songwriter
Two Sides of Cornbread: New Compilation Plays Tribute to Unsung Minneapolis Legend
Just got a July 24 releasedate for the Blu-ray (in Europe)
Prince was a terrible businessman and frequently lacked discipline and foresight. The state of his affairs in death is as it was in life.
This is sadly true but as fans we were so fortunate to have been blessed with the music his talent brought.
U are terribly incorrect!
That's not true he was a very smart man when it came to his money and his music and his God.
I'd like to think this is true, but it's demonstrably false. Prince did not have a will.
For anyone with millions of dollars in assets over the age of 45-50, that is rather irresponsible. And if you engage in dangerous activities (such as drugs), then it's an even worse oversight. Prince was a genius musically. But it's like he attended the James Brown financial management 101 class.
Lesson learned: write a will, otherwise who will tell your story?
What a mess, what a mess....
Slight correction which only adds to the mess: Sony only has the rights to the classic Prince albums in the United States, not North America. In Canada they remain with Warner.
While I agree with you, I honestly think that Michael Jackson's estate has badly screwed up his catalog reissues as well, and Madonna's have been non-existent in physical media.
It's almost like they forgot how to make money.
Fairly accurate, albeit a smidgen salty take on the Prince reissue mess lol. Love the reference to the one album we all desperately want treated to a proper deluxe edition: Around The World In A Day.
*Olivia and Dhani Harrison have entered the chat*
Hilarious because it's true!
With so many players & angles, I've steered clear of trying to sort through all the greed & botched deals of this saga. However, after reading this article I think it all finally makes sense. Brilliant job with articulating directions from there to here! In the meantime, though, I'm just waiting somewhat patiently for deluxes of the remaining WB albums...
Exactly. How hard can it be to put out remastered editions of ALL of his albums on vinyl and CD. I would love vinyl of the Hit 'N' Run 1 and Hit 'n' Run 2 albums he released in the last year before he died
The Prince estate and Whitney Houston estate are poorly managed. Granted Whitney didn't write her music and there's not a lot in the vault. However Primary Wave is more interested in T-shirts, mugs, key chains and Funky figures than giving the fans what they truly want - MUSIC, unreleased concert videos (Whitney did 2 HBO specials). I know Prince's Lovesexy tour was filmed, pull that out of the vault and release it. Maybe Mariah Carey's team can manage these estates as well. Mariah has released so much music from the archives in the last few years that it will take a few years to listen to all of it. Heck, even Tina Turner's team has released far more from the vaults. Sadly, we true fans are never going to see any of this and just have to live with the memories of those times instead of listening to them or viewing them.
Lovesexy tour was filmed and shown on German TV, filmed at Westfalenhalle, Dortmund. I attended the show in Stadium environment (Frankfurt) and it was all over the place, lacking Focus compared to the tightly managed Sign O the Times tour. Pretty much like the record itself, patchworky and songs not as good as Crystal Ball, Camille and SOTT eventually.
I'm gonna disagree. I went to 3 Lovesexy shows including the one filmed for the then VHS videocassette release at Dortmund. I thought the show was absolutely mind blowing!! Admittedly i was my 1st Prince shows so i had nothing to compare it with. But i was so taken with the show i went on to see him 195 more times over the next two and a half decades.
Wow. 195 times. That must have cost a fortune eventually.
Wow... I guess I haven't been paying close enough attention because I had no idea about the Love Symbol vinyl leak. Methinks there are too many damned cooks in Prince's kitchen!
Maybe holding back Love Symbol is for the best. I took a look at the pics online and I was disappointed to see that "The Flow" and "7" are still separated between sides. I have the original EU vinyl, and it just sounds absurd having "The Flow" fade out at the end of side 3. I was hoping a future reissue would preserve the segue between "The Flow" and "7" by placing "7" at the end of side 3. At least now there's an opportunity to get it right, assuming all parties can agree.
Joe, you know I love you, and I'm one of your biggest fans, but I have to respectfully disagree. Since Prince's death, the estate has released the following:
2017: Purple Rain Deluxe 3CD 1DVD
2018: Piano And A Microphone 1CD
2019: 1999 Super Deluxe 5CD 1 DVD
2019: Originals 1CD
2019 Ultimate Rave 2CD 1DVD
2020 Up All Night With Prince 4CD 1DVD
2020 Sign 'O The Times Super Deluxe 8CD 1 DVD
2021 Welcome 2 America 1CD 1 Blu-ray
2022: Prince And The Revolution Live 2CD 1DVD
2023: Diamonds And Pearls SuperDeluxe 7CD 1 Blu-Ray
In addition to all those great releases above, that many also included beautiful books and liner notes, posters, etc, we got two great singles boxes for Sign and Diamonds, some cool one-off 45's available through the online store, reissues on both CD and vinyl of most of his catalog and some digital releases that to tell you the truth, I don't really give a shit about (not a fan of digital only releases, physical media only, here) I would not say this is bad. Myself, like every other fan, I'm sure would LOVE to have 3-4 releases a year, but to tell you the truth, I'm more than happy with what we've gotten so far and look forward to what's coming in the future.
You can disagree with me! I wrote this.
lol, then I will disagree with you, Mike. It was a well researched article, and it definitely laid out a lot of the frustrations within the Prince fandom. I find that the Prince fans (and I'm one of them) sometimes have unrealistic expectations of the estate. I will concede though, that Comerica, along with archivist Michael Howe did a fantastic job with the SOTT and 1999 super deluxes. But I also think that the recent Diamonds And Pearls box was PHENOMENAL. Personally, I like being given a year between big box releases to digest the material (the Beatles boxes have been timed perfectly). The Michael Jackson estate has been just pathetic (the Thriller 40th Anniversary release was an absolute joke). So we Prince fans need to open our eyes and look at how much worse it could be and how fortunate we are. It could be better, but it could be a whole hell of a lot worse!
The following have nothing to do in your list (they were previously released):
2019 Ultimate Rave 2CD 1DVD
2020 Up All Night With Prince 4CD 1DVD
They were both re-released with additional material.
I agree with you, we are very fortunate to get what we’ve gotten. The problem is we know there is much more and the rate it is being released is a slow drip. Keep giving us SDE’s, but also start a live series, rehearsal series and continue associated artist, Originals, series.
Regardless to what anybody says or thing Prince will be compared forever to geniuses like Mozart he was an amazing artist this gifted genius should always be remembered for his uncomparable genius and talent that will possibly never be equal by any artist
Hate to be the Grinch here but I honestly think Prince knew exactly what he was doing and released what he knew was his best work. All the stuff, aside from a handful of tracks, that has been released since his death has been average at best. I mean, if he had great tracks in the much ballyhooed vault don't you think he would have put them (or at least finished them) on the lesser post-80s albums? After all the outtakes albums he did put out in his lifetime (Come, Crystal Ball, Old Friends) aren't exactly 1999, Purple Rain and Around the World.
As a Prince follower since his first album I am disappointed in all the reissues and releases of music we have already heard and purchased. There is enough material in the vault to give us something new. Most of the musicians he worked with are still around and it would be great to have them take on the production and finish or polish material in the vault. Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, The Revolution, Andre Cymone, Jessie Johnson, St. Paul Peterson.
One of my issues is that most of the catalogue that moved over to Sony in the USA was not given any sonic upgrades, to the best of my knowledge. I would be very happy with straight reissues of the individual albums with the sound quality of the Rhino “1999” and “SOOT” sets
Many thanks for clarifying this messy situation, a true shame and a lesson for all artists. Btw all I want is a 5.1 mix of "Parade!"
Is it better to fantasize about what might be in the Vault rather than actually get it? The anticipation burns, and then it's finally released, we rejoice, we enjoy it, and then it becomes familiar and we once again yearn for new stuff. I'm not saying the Prince Estate shouldn't release new, unheard music (instead of bed sheets and coffee mugs and similar bullshit), but sometimes the anticipation beats the reality... most of the Vault material on the D&P Super Deluxe was pedestrian and totally forgettable. Prince locked some of his music away for good reason.
I climbed up on Prince's Purple Rock when Controversy was released and have been a FAM member since. Prince never failed to intrigue me with what he released. Some releases were amazing, others not so much, but he was always interesting. As for what's happening with the vault music- it's really a shame that the Estate can't get it together and do what Prince's true FAMs want which is the MUSIC! We don't want bed sheets, scarves, mugs, umbrellas, etc. The Estate needs to do another Music Club, upload the songs and let the FAMs pay for downloads because it looks like going the route of SDEs is going to take two or three lifetimes to get the music from the vault at the rate it's being released now. It's ridiculous in this tech age that this cannot be accomplished. FREE THE MUSIC!!
No Purple Rain SDE, apparently.
I feel very strongly he's watching all of this with a displeased pout.
I'm not interested in Prince's solo work, but I'm definitely interested in some of the music he produced for other artists, which all the labels controlling his catalogue seem to have ignored.
The Family and Vanity 6 albums need to be re-released on CD, they both fetch crazy money (and V6 needs the "Vibrator" added - insanely catchy and could've been a hit if it wasn't unreleased and didn't have such suggestive lyrics....though tame by today's standards)
Sheila E also deserves a compilation rounding up her singles in their unique single edits