The Purple Rain deluxe and expanded edition surely lives up to the term 'expanded'. Where most artists only add a limited number of tracks left from the original release, here there is a whole (long) cd full of unreleased material. Computer Blue was always one of my favourites, so the long (more than ten minutes) Hallway Speech version I was particularly pleased with. In fact, what's great about many tracks is their length: there are four that pass the 10 minute mark, and a lot of the others are stil 6/7 minutes.
A big surprise to me was We Can F**k, a song already released on Graffiti Bridge as We Can Funk, a duet with George Clinton. I had no idea it already existed this early and thought it was written by the two funk-masters together, since it had the word 'funk' so prominently as with much of Clinton's stuff. (I still think lines like 'I'll gladly pee in anybody's cup. And when your cup overflow I'll pee some more.' must have come from Clinton.)
It's also great to have an instrumental version of God and a (long) studio version of I Would Die 4 U. You could argue including the 7 inch versions of the singles doesn't add much, as it is usually the longer version with an early fade, but I'm glad they included them as they make you appreciate the longer versions that much more. The B-sides like 17 Days and God were always great, but the stand-out was Erotic City of course, which deserved to be on the album. I don't know why it was left out, but it doesn't fit the overall tone of the album - it sounds more like something that could have been on Controversy to me.
FlJoe already informed me about the dvd and I didn't expect too much, but I still found the image disappointing. It's relatively sharp when there is full light on, but obviously to create the mysterious, erotically charged atmosphere of the show there are a lot of darker parts where sometimes it's hard to see what's going on. The sound, while not top, was good enough for me. They don't seem to have done overdubs, it sounds like purely what was played: you can hear the other musicians in The Revolution are not always such great singers - on 1999 for example.
I was surprised at how theatrical the show was, with many spoken word parts in the first half. You think if he hadn't become a musician he might have been a theatrical actor. You can recognise some lyrics that would appear in Temptation, but no complete songs from Around The World in a Day which would be released the month after the show. Towards the end it becomes a total party, with many Prince-related artists like Sheila E. (who wasn't a full member yet) coming on stage. His shows were always impressive, but it seems like he gave it even a little more energy than usual, as you would do with something broadcast live. Also it features the longest version of Purple Rain I know (I think 18 minutes or so).
I like the reflecting, mirror-like sleeve, but it is strange they only included three sleeves, with the fourth disc stuck with the booklet. Prince sleeves have been impractical before though; Musicology can't even house the booklet.
It's nice to read the liner notes as producer/engineer/mixer/audio technician Susan Rogers shares her memories of how no one (except maybe Prince) anticipated the success of the album and film (there was even some doubt when the sleeve arrived). Prince comes across as a non stop workaholic (no surprise given his output), who could be in the studio for 20 hours, or would do a sound check, full show and still work all night in the studio. You wonder if this contributed too to his early death as it just doesn't seem healthy. Also nice is to know how he built up the layers of the tracks and that he didn't sing in a booth as most artists.
Another section is a track-by-track with the Revolution members. Often Prince would bring a new song in its raw form and through rehearsing and working on it, it would take its full shape. Especially Purple Rain is a joint effort to which each brought his/her own part.
It's strange that with all the information in the booklet, the original release date of the album is left out. It is 25 June 1984. But such facts can easily be checked online.
You certainly hope there will be more albums that get an expanded edition like this, but as Purple Rain was the only one announced before his death, it's hard to tell.
(((Dana))) I'm so glad you were able to do this. Thank you for sharing with us. xox