R.I.P Prince

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fljoe0

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The dvd in the 1999 set is disappointing. I'm quite sure I hadn't seen this concert yet, but quality is a big step down from the Purple Rain live dvd. For one, the concert is short, as his concerts usually were I think before the Purple Rain tour. 1 hour and 8 minutes.
Also the aspect ratio is small. Don't know what you call this particular aspect ratio, but it uses just the middle of the screen, with bars on all sides.
It is fairly poor videoquality, although it is well visible what's happening on stage. On occasion this kind of videoquality does make for fun, likely unintentional visuals though.
Audio is not great either, but fairly okay.
It's not unwatchable, but considering the price of the set disappointing. There probably just wasn't anything better from that era. And he plays songs from the 1999 album he wouldn't play often later anymore. And once again, like with the Purple Rain dvd, there don't seem overdubs: you get it exactly as it was if you were there. And of course, as he always seems to have been, especially early in his career, he is in top form and the rest of the band too.
I will try it on my surround later. I think it has a zoom function, so maybe I can enhance the image.


There's nothing wrong with the show but the video quality is not very good. I wonder if this was a tv broadcast or an old vhs? It looks like it was professionally filmed but was put away on a shelf for 37 years. The hour long show makes me wonder if it was for tv.
 

Gerald

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There's nothing wrong with the show but the video quality is not very good. I wonder if this was a tv broadcast or an old vhs? It looks like it was professionally filmed but was put away on a shelf for 37 years. The hour long show makes me wonder if it was for tv.

The Purple Rain deluxe set dvd concert was for tv, but it was put out on VHS at the time too I think.

The 1999 dvd doesn't even have a menu (the Purple Rain one did), which always feels cheap to me. I'm not sure for what medium it was filmed, but I think his shows just were generally that length before the Purple Rain tour. There is a concert from the Dirty Mind tour on Youtube (black & white I think) and it is short too.
On the other hand, by the time of 1999 (a double album) he had enough material to fill two hours.
 

Gerald

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I forgot to check that. I'll will put that on my to-do list.

Don't forget! :)

There are some scratches on the dvd too, but it still played. My physical store is very easy at replacing though. I already told them the problem, and they still had loads of them on the shelves. But if all have the same problem there is little use in replacing.
It's not one of the important tracks, but I'm just really precise in general.
 

Gerald

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You see this one here everywhere in stores right now:


I think it's an expansion of an earlier release. I listened to a bit of it, but it didn't sound too great to me. It sounds like it's recorded slightly too loud and distorted as a result.
 

fljoe0

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The Purple Rain deluxe set dvd concert was for tv, but it was put out on VHS at the time too I think.

The 1999 dvd doesn't even have a menu (the Purple Rain one did), which always feels cheap to me. I'm not sure for what medium it was filmed, but I think his shows just were generally that length before the Purple Rain tour. There is a concert from the Dirty Mind tour on Youtube (black & white I think) and it is short too.
On the other hand, by the time of 1999 (a double album) he had enough material to fill two hours.


I looked at the Wikipedia page and this is what there was about the dvd:

and a DVD with another complete, previously unreleased concert from the 1999 tour, recorded in multi-cam live at the Houston Summit on December 29, 1982


Since this was at the Summit, It's possible this was recorded to be displayed on a video screen in the arena. They do that all the time now but I don't remember that being done much in 1982 but that is a possibility.
 

Gerald

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It turns out quite positive that my new headphones increase the volume a lot. I watch films on my Playstation 4, and even with the volume full sometimes films and audiocommentaries have rather low sound. For example, It Chapter 2 does, because there is no regular stereo track, only Atmos and surround. With my headphones you very much get that powerful sound you get on a surround set. And audiocommentaries are much louder too.

Maybe you just need a whole range of headphones, like rockstars have loads of guitars. A headphone for each occasion and purpose.
It's hard to choose them though, because you can tell little from the specifications. You really need to hear them.
 

Gerald

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I just listened to it. Nothing wrong with mine.

Thanks. It's just a small thing, but I might replace it. Also since there are scratches on the dvd - it still played, but you don't know if it will play on more sensitive players.

It's funny in the handwritten lyrics you can see he spelled 'Irrisistible' wrong. He writes 'Irrisistable'. The latter makes more sense in a way, for it is also 'unbreakable'. Why is the 'a' an 'i' in irrisistible. I often stuggle with these kind of words too.

He seems to have had different kinds of handwriting, as it's not always the same, even when he's working on the same song. Actually I have always had this too: writing sometimes in blockletters and sometimes scriptletters. I've always liked the first more, since I felt they were more clear, and comics use them too. And just like in comics I write them in all uppercase.

The original first line of 1999 was 'I was trippin' when I wrote this', but he changed this (maybe because of the drug connotation) to 'dreaming'.
And I always thought it was 'Tryin' to run from THEIR destruction', but it rather is 'Tryin' to run from THE destruction'.
It's fun to see the lyrics in their original rough form.
 

kingricefan

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Thanks. It's just a small thing, but I might replace it. Also since there are scratches on the dvd - it still played, but you don't know if it will play on more sensitive players.

It's funny in the handwritten lyrics you can see he spelled 'Irrisistible' wrong. He writes 'Irrisistable'. The latter makes more sense in a way, for it is also 'unbreakable'. Why is the 'a' an 'i' in irrisistible. I often stuggle with these kind of words too.

He seems to have had different kinds of handwriting, as it's not always the same, even when he's working on the same song. Actually I have always had this too: writing sometimes in blockletters and sometimes scriptletters. I've always liked the first more, since I felt they were more clear, and comics use them too. And just like in comics I write them in all uppercase.

The original first line of 1999 was 'I was trippin' when I wrote this', but he changed this (maybe because of the drug connotation) to 'dreaming'.
And I always thought it was 'Tryin' to run from THEIR destruction', but it rather is 'Tryin' to run from THE destruction'.
It's fun to see the lyrics in their original rough form.
I can hardly make out the lyrics on the tiny pages of the cd's. I don't own a magnifying glass either so there are some that I can't even make sense of.
 

Gerald

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I can hardly make out the lyrics on the tiny pages of the cd's. I don't own a magnifying glass either so there are some that I can't even make sense of.

I have a magnifying glass, an heirloom from my grandfather, but you can borrow it. You have to come get it, I'm not gonna send it because it might break. :D It's actually really oldfashioned and made of very thick glass.

I can actually read most of it quite well and I have poor eyesight. With the vinyl set it's probably much better though.
 

kingricefan

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I have a magnifying glass, an heirloom from my grandfather, but you can borrow it. You have to come get it, I'm not gonna send it because it might break. :D It's actually really oldfashioned and made of very thick glass.

I can actually read most of it quite well and I have poor eyesight. With the vinyl set it's probably much better though.
I'll just get one at Target as it would be quite a trip to go to your house as you're on another continent. :p
 

Gerald

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I'll just get one at Target as it would be quite a trip to go to your house as you're on another continent. :p

Still, to read ORIGINAL handwritten Prince lyrics, it might be worth it!

Some of the handwritten lyrics were here too at the My Name is Prince exhibition. Without the special fonts that are used on the sleeves of the albums, they looked so ordinary! He also, especially early on, used to write them on a typewriter. It's so hard to imagine Prince behind a typewriter, somehow that image is not cool!
 

Gerald

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I listened to another copy of the second disc of the 1999 set at my record store and it had the same mistake. So most likely it is on all of them if two random ones have it, or at least on a lot.
I don't have things like this on many cd's, but it does happen from time to time. Sometimes replacing helps, sometimes it's on all of them.
The guy from the record store said he heard about it more often lately. And also the two other cd's I have something similar on I have bought lately. He said the mastering is not always done that well.
 

Gerald

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I don't think it has to do with the mastering though, because that's done in the studio and the engineer will surely pick out mistakes like that. I suspect somewhere in the factory where they transfer the master to the individual cd's it goes wrong.

I worked for Sony (whose music label was Epic) packing cassettes and a friend of mine had to listen to the start of cassettes to hear if it sounded good. But they only checked the start of them. He said he got so tired of hearing the same bit over and over.

I recall one of the first cd's I bought, Out of the Blue by Electric Light Orchestra (one of my absolute faves, which had two new albums out in recent years after a long time), had a similar mistake in the second song, It's Over. They listened along with me to it in the record store and agreed. They ordered a new one and even though you could still slightly hear it, it was less.

In recent time I've had it with Pino Donaggio's soundtrack for Dario Argento's Trauma. I got a new one and it was the same mistake.
And I've had it with The Time's first album, at the end of the song Cool, although it could be intended there, because The Time's albums are sometimes mixed with some instruments going quickly from one speaker to the other. It's a bit hard to tell, but I suspect it's a mistake too.
Apart from those I don't recall I've ever had it, apart from maybe these sort of shady, unofficial kind of cd's that are still sold everywhere, which as a rule never sound all that well. Like the Naked in the Summertime I mentioned, which is a radiobroadcast.
 

Gerald

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Sometimes I don't get why they master an album a certain way. For example, the last Electric Light Orchestra album (basically they're now Jeff Lynne solo albums), From Out of Nowhere, was mastered with a rather flat sound. It completely lacks that more spacious, dynamic sound that most albums have now. The older ELO albums don't have that at all - they sound great. I don't get why Lynne chooses for this sound now.

Actually ELO/Lynne had made a comeback before, with Zoom (released in 2001), which was a way better album than his last two - one of his very best in fact, the songwriting is fantastic. But at the time it didn't do well, while in recent time ELO gained a lot of new popularity.
What I've always loved about ELO is that you don't just get great popsongs, but you get these lush orchestral arrangements.
 

Gerald

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Sign o/t Times was on the Arte channel yesterday. It looks like it was totally restored (I only watched the start so far), it looked very good. I bought it when it came out on DVD here - the sound was good, but the image was quite poor.
It was programmed in a time slot that is longer than the film - it's only 85 minutes . So I wonder if there's something extra - I doubt it though.
 

Gerald

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No, there was nothing extra. I always have the idea it's even shorter than 85 minutes, although that seems the generally accepted time. For a concert it's just really short, but I suppose he only wanted to use the very best and maybe that's why it's so strong as a movie.
It's always amazing when a movie is totally restored that even when you've seen it many times, it feels totally new. The short segments in between the songs can be easily forgotten and feel new too. Only U Got the Look has the typical look of an older music video. Also the soundmix is very good and I noticed many details.
For a long time it was thought it was from the actual shows he did in Ahoy, Rotterdam. But it never feels like Ahoy to me, and the audience close-ups consist of actors/extras, imo. The audience have the same look as in Purple Rain or a music video, so that was most likely done in a studio, Paisley Park most likely.
 

Gerald

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I noticed the unusual aspect ratio on the 1999 set dvd on another release too. All you have to do is switch from 'normal' to 'full', not 'zoom', and you get it as a regular aspect ratio. I'm not sure why they do this and what they call this aspect ratio.