Super bad ass extra special deluxe edition of Purple Rain

**GuitarGeek** · 06-27-2017

Well, the new super bad ass deluxe edition of Purple Rain arrived today. Disc 1 is the original album, disc 2 is a disc full of rarrities, disc 3 is all the single edits and B-sides (including 12' versions), and disc four is a DVD of the old Prince And The Revolution Live video that came out on VHS back in the Stone Age (shot at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse). I'm in the middle of watching the DVD now. I'd forgotten how most of the concert is a continuous suite, with nearly every song seguing into the next. Can't wait to finish, then move onto the CD's.

**Progbear** · 06-27-2017

Originally Posted by GuitarGeek

I'd forgotten how most of the concert is a continuous suite, with nearly every song seguing into the next.

That seemed to be what Prince was into for a while, culminating in Lovesexy, which was originally released as a single 46 minute track on CD.

**GuitarGeek** · 06-28-2017

Originally Posted by Progbear

That seemed to be what Prince was into for a while, culminating in Lovesexy, which was originally released as a single 46 minute track on CD.

Yeah, I remember that, I seem to recall there was a big outcry about that first CD pressing of Lovesexy. I think though, the continuous mega-mix style of setlist is commonplace in R&B music. I believe P-Funk does the same thing, for instance, when they take it to the stage (see what I did there?).

There's actually a lot of segues in Prince's music, at least on the albums I have, like the way 1999 segues into Little Red Corvette on the original album, and Computer Blue/Darling Nikki and I Would Die 4 U/Baby I'm A Star on Purple Rain. And later in the 90's, you had the still unreleased Undertaker, on which several songs segue together.

I'm curious to find out which version of Computer Blue is on disc two. It's identified as the "hallway speech version", but I can't remember if that's the 7 minute version, or the 13 minute one. A lot of the other tracks, I don't recognize the titles, so I'm not sure what they are. I know Father's Song is the piece that Clarence Williams III mimes in the film (on an upright piano, though we're obviously hearing a CP-70 on the audio), which really was written by Prince's father and which Prince incorporated into Computer Blue.

And apart from Erotic City and God, I don't really know the single B-sides, so those will be new to me too.

The only bummer is, I just bought the regular version of the CD about two years ago (I've had it on LP since the 80's). Seems like that alwyas happens to me: as soon as I finally buy the old version of an album, they suddenly put out some super deluxe version, and you know me, I have to have everything!

One thing that's interesting, coming back to the DVD, is the version of Take Me With U. I remember MTV and VH-1 playing a live video of that song, which I always thought was from the Syracuse concert (and I could have sworn it was there when I rented this on VHS way back in 198-whatever-it-was), but it isn't. The version MTV and VH-1 played had a guitar solo in it, whereas on the Syracuse show, when that part of the song comes up, the band just riffs around while Prince runs around the stage and engages in some schtick. So the $40,000 Question is, what show is the version I remember MTV and VH-1 showing from, and when do we get to see that on DVD?

**GuitarGeek** · 06-28-2017

Awright!!!! They used the 12 minute version of Computer Blue on rarities disc!!! This is AWESOME!!!!! I've been waiting to hear a decent copy of this for ages!!!!

**Gruno** · 06-28-2017

This is such a great deluxe re-release! With every cent!

**battema** · 06-28-2017

Yep...got it, still digging into it, loving what I hear so far. He was a remarkably talented musician and entertainer.

Lisa Coleman was an early crush of mine...seeing her up onstage on the DVD....*swoooon*

**100423** · 06-28-2017

Originally Posted by GuitarGeek

Awright!!!! They used the 12 minute version of Computer Blue on rarities disc!!! This is AWESOME!!!!! I've been waiting to hear a decent copy of this for ages!!!!

Wow! I need to get this!

**GuitarGeek** · 06-28-2017

Originally Posted by battema

Yep...got it, still digging into it, loving what I hear so far. He was a remarkably talented musician and entertainer.

Lisa Coleman was an early crush of mine...seeing her up onstage on the DVD....*swoooon*

For me, it was Wendy Melvoin. I remember thinking she looked so hot playing that souped up purple Rickenbacker 330. But I know what you mean.

Of course, 25 years later, I found out Wendy and Lisa were actually a couple. In fact, I read an interview wehre one of them, I forget which said that when they were doing the photo shoot for the poster which came with the LP (which I never had, since I bought my copy out of the used at a local record store, a year or so after all the hoopla had died down), there was a point where Prince had Lisa put her arm around Wendy, because he apparently wanted "that" to be part of the group identity. I don't know if there were rumors at the time, but it seems maybe Prince was hoping to generate some sort of subtle innuendo with that maneuver.

I wonder if he wasn't trying to up the ante on Sly And THe Family Stone. I always reckoned he must have patterned The Revolution on The Family Stone, in so much as having a band that was integrated, but racially and gender-wise. So what can you do to top that?! Having a couple gay people in the group, I guess, though he didn't exactly make it as blatantly obvious as might be done today.

BTW, the other songs on the rarities disc are pretty cool. It's mind boggling to me that Prince could have such a level of consistency with his songwriting that he could not only write an album (or in the case 1999, a double album) mostly by himself (though I believe there was at least a little collaboration going on when he decided a given song needed the full band on it), still have songs left over for a bunch of non album B-sides, and a bunch of leftovers that either got recorded by other people or sit in the vault, unheard by anyone who didn't collect bootlegs. And as far as I can tell, there's no throwaways, any of these songs would be good enough to make it onto an album.

**Gruno** · 06-28-2017

Originally Posted by GuitarGeek

For me, it was Wendy Melvoin. I remember thinking she looked so hot playing that souped up purple Rickenbacker 330.

Interesting. I always thought she looked very manly and rugged. She looked very out of place and uncomfortable in her Purple Rain stage wardrobe.

**GuitarGeek** · 06-28-2017

Originally Posted by Gruno

Interesting. I always thought she looked very manly and rugged. She looked very out of place and uncomfortable in her Purple Rain stage wardrobe.

Interesting, indeed. I never got that vibe at all. Maybe I'm just a sucker for a cute girl who can play guitar (and as Lemmy would say, "She plays better than you, mate!").

(shrug)

Has anyone listened to disc one and/or A/Bed it against the old CD? How's the mastering? I've been so wrapped in the extras (and as I said, I've been listening to the old CD for the last couple years) I haven't checked out the main event, as it were, yet.

If I have any criticism of this set, it's that I wish there was more footage on the DVD. I wish they had included the videos for Take Me With U and I Would Die 4 U/Baby I'm A Star, which were taken from a different show (according to Wikipedia, I Would Die 4 U/Baby I'm A Star are from a show at the Cap Center in Landover, Maryland, not sure if Take Me With U is from that show or not), or some of the other footage that's known to exist. It seems to me like I saw a documentary on Prince back int he late 80's on the Bravo channel (yeah, about a million years before the Stupid Housewives Of... franchise hijacked the network) that showed footage from the August 83 First Avenue show that the last three songs on the album were taken from. Might have been nice to at least include the original version of Purple Rain, with the fourth verse intact.

But I think this is a pretty awesome package.

**mnprogger** · 06-28-2017

I do mean to pick this up, as a friend of mine was suggesting it.

Admittedly, I only own my original cassette back from '84. My wife has a reasonable size Prince Vinyl collection though.