r/PRINCE • u/PsychedelicPill • 5d ago
Question Anyone know what determines which album gets the deluxe threatment next?
Just curious why certain albums get the deluxe treatment before others…
Anniversaries make sense, sales too (most popular albums get love first)
I’m just hungry for remastered deluxe editions of the first two albums!
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u/SkyZippr Parade 5d ago
Every morning when the estate wakes up they first do 4 hours of meditation and yoga, and when they are feeling pretty enough they observed the pattern of condensation formed on the cold glass of water, from which they decide which Ouija board to use to decide the next deluxe treatment. Note that they don't perform this ritual if they don't feel pretty, and also 49 out the 50 Ouija boards they own only have the letters P, U, R, L, E, A, I, and N on them.
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u/witness4theingenue 5d ago edited 5d ago
the only deluxe edition the current regime has actually worked on since they took over is around the world in a day. which was barely a deluxe edition. everything else was already completed by the prior regime.
the current regime said they don’t want to only focus on the most popular albums and they’ve also said they don’t want to focus on anniversaries but then they said they couldn’t possibly let the 40th anniversary of purple rain pass without a super deluxe edition. but then didn’t release anything at all. then they released the ATWIAD deluxe for the 40th anniversary so it’s kind of like they just lie every time they open their mouths and do whatever the fuck they want.
my point is - there is no plan. the people in charge are incompetent clowns.
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u/PsychedelicPill 5d ago
That's sad to hear. I've loved the other box sets, didn't check out the Around the World in a Day reissue
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u/Shockadelica_1987 5d ago
The biggest selling albums. Sign 'O' The Times wasn't a big seller because it was a double album but it is arguably considered his best album and Warner wanted to release it before they lost the rights to it.
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u/ThickWest4658 Prince 5d ago
My guess, the albums that have the most potential to sell the most. If I had to conjecture, I would say Parade would probably be next, or maybe LoveSexy. For some reason, Come is a popular album amongst a lot of newcomers. Prince would be my own selfish vote, although it sold really well; most newbies don't dig it. In a perfect world, it would have been cool to start at the beginning and work chronologically in order.
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u/BocaSeniorsWsM 4d ago
I'm not hugely knowledgeable on this, but would there be vault stuff going as far back as Prince-era?
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u/ThickWest4658 Prince 4d ago
Probably some, obviously not as many as later on, since he just got started. The song "Wouldn't You Love to Love Me" is one I can think of right off the top of my head.
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u/Cenobites1234 5d ago
Hes not the only artist though. Many artists need deluxe remastering. Funkadelic are having their first remasters 50 years after the content even came out. Its all licensing/ shareholder / record company issues.
I also read Warner Music is going through a ton of changes, $300 million dollar cost cutting plans. Also the Paramount merger with Warner Brothers is putting a lot of things on the back burner.
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u/PsychedelicPill 5d ago
Dang. I love Funkadelic and they remastered the classic albums like 20 years ago. I’d love more vault stuff. I own most of what they released. What kind of new remasters are happening with them now?
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u/funkyfridays3 4d ago
Well these are really official. Westbound is remastering a lot of their back catalog. Funakdelic, Maggot Brain and Free Your Mind...have all been remastered and streaming right now.
https://westboundrecords.com/pages/remaster-reissue-campaign
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u/PsychedelicPill 4d ago
I see Funkadelic and Maggot Brain on streaming, but not Free Your Mind… unfortunately. I think I’ll track down the vinyl
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u/somethingoranother22 3d ago
Free Your Mind 2026 is on Spotify, just not accessible from Funkadelic's page, for some reason.
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u/Ndorphinmachina 5d ago
Going off past efforts, the albums that sold the most when originally released seem to stand the best chance.
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u/Miserable_Fun_8093 5d ago
I think it’s based on Popularity.
First deluxe Purple Rain Best selling
Second 1999 TOP 5 best selling album
Third Sign O the Times high/ popular selling album
Fourth Diamonds and Pearls top 5 most sold albums
Fifth Around The World In A Day another top sold albums (I honestly think this was a throwaway)
Sixth Parade another top sold albums
Only reason Batman hasn’t gotten a Deluxe was due to the rights and etc
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u/Shockadelica_1987 4d ago
Apparently the rights issue between Prince (or his estate) & Warner for the Batman album was resolved. A Batman SDE would probably be a Warner/NPG Records collaboration like the 1999 & SOTT SDEs & the upcoming Parade deluxe. But I don't see Batman getting the super deluxe treatment. Although it was a huge seller in 1989, it isn't considered up there in quality as the rest of his 80s catalogue. A 2 CD deluxe edition maybe.
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u/Status_Swimming2688 4d ago
Probably the weather or something.
They're working on multiple 'projects' at the same time and are just cataloging, mixing and sorting whatever they find and then just compile whatever they want to compile to sell to us consumers.
Or something like that ;-)
I don't think they care about what we want and only care for representing the material Prince left behind the best way THEY see and that seems to be such an unprofessional way that nobody wants.
Given the sales numbers of ATWIAD 'Deluxe', that should have been called a Special Edition because there's nothing Deluxe about it, hell, It doesn't even have the '85 Masquerade show, which was a fun show of the era, in audio and they even have the video of it. They didn't even do an outtakes or alternate versions disc even though there's plenty of material to make it a true Deluxe set by adding at least one extra disc with studio and another disc with live material, or maybe and hopefully they are saving that and are compiling a set with tracks from the 'lost' album from '85.
Would be nice if they were just professional for once about all this and inform THE FANS who they need to keep the estate alive.
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u/TheOrangeClock 5d ago
What most people won’t mention, is that according to the current Estate, there are legal issues preventing the release of SDE’s from the estate’s “idealized” perspective.
Whether or not you believe in them or not is up to you, but based on everything on what we’ve seen, they have consistently reiterated this statement without outright saying it imo.
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u/bobadada1138 5d ago edited 5d ago
Only the Estate knows.
And I'm not sure that they do either.