Prince - Lovesexy: Homemade Deluxe Version

So it isn't my favorite Prince album, but there are a lot of people who love it so I figured why not. I love the b-sides, remixes and outtakes more than the album, but Alphabet St. is easily one of Prince's strongest singles, on par with the best songs of his career, and Glam Slam and the title cut are great songs. Actually, Lovesexy, the song, is rather incredible. It's clear how inspired Prince was to put that song together, what with all of the loops and extra voices running throughout it, though I wish the rest of the album sounded as invigorated.

This is my version of what Lovesexy would be if it were a two disc deluxe edition. The album is sourced from a very nice vinyl rip posted by Twofootputt. They had already edited it into nine tracks so you don't have to listen to the whole album continuously, and the only thing I changed was the end and start points for I No and Alphabet St. as well as making it 16/44 for CD. The single tracks are all taken from T's 12" Collection whereas the unreleased tracks are the best versions I could find. I have a version of this in FLAC too, but I figured I'd see if anyone was interested in this enough for me to post that first. Information about the tracks follows below in the track list.

I'm sure some will disagree with me, but who else thinks the cover art for Lovesexy is atrocious? I'm amazed how much creative control Prince got with Warners, yet he still bitched about them not letting him do what he wanted. They destroyed 500,000 plus copies of The Black Album, let him run back and record a new album that didn't seem radio or listener friendly, and then they let him put THAT on the cover! What did he have on them? A VERY informed person once hinted to me that when Prince re-signed with Warners in the early nineties, it wasn't necessarily with the expectation that he would continue to be a huge recording star, supposedly it was for a far more important ulterior motive. Of course I asked what but I never got an answer. Any guesses, cause I still don't have a clue, and all of the obvious things I pointed at they told me were incorrect.


Prince - Lovesexy: Homemade Deluxe Version
UPDATE: This is the old version. A new and MUCH IMPROVED version is online here. I'll leave this up for documentation but get the newer version, it's got a new transfer that sounds much better and additional tweaks have been made.


Disc 1:

01 I No
I know I've said this before, but in case you're not familiar with it, the music for I No was actually recorded for The Ball, an unreleased track from the original Crystal Ball album. The lyrics have been changed and the track seems to have been sped up a bit, but the backing track is still basically the same. The end of the song, with all the voices talking or arguing, was also in The Ball and was part of a segue that lead to the song Joy In Repetition.

02 Alphabet St.
03 Glam Slam
04 Anna Stesia
05 Dance On
06 Lovesexy
07 When 2 R In Love
08 I Wish U Heaven
09 Positivity
10 Escape (Free Yo Mind From This Ratrace)
This is the full length version of this song. It appeared as the b-side to Glam Slam.

11 The Line
An unreleased song from the Lovesexy sessions, Prince apparently thought this was fantastic but everyone else he was working with gave a lukewarm reaction. The lyrics are based on a poem by Ingrid Chavez.

12 Scarlet Pussy (7" Version)
The 7" and 12" versions of Scarlet Pussy are more than edited or extended versions of the song. They are significantly different mixes. Listen to the percussion for an example. This is one of the few songs credited to Camille, despite it not featuring a standard Camille vocal performance. This was the b-side to I Wish U Heaven. On it's label, the background is completely black apart from the peach lettering for the song title and the artist credit, which belonged completely to Camille.

Disc 2:

01 Cross The Line (Live Intro)
I'm not terribly familiar with the Lovesexy tour shows, so I'm assuming this intro was played at the beginning of the shows.

02 Alphabet St. "This Is Not Music, This Is A Trip"
The 12" remix of Alphabet St., this is a mostly instrumental track similar to a dub remix.

03 Glam Slam (Remix)
The 12" remix of Glam Slam.

04 I Wish U Heaven (Part 1, 2 & 3)
The 12" remix of I Wish U Heaven, sometimes this track is referred to as Take This Beat due to the lyrics in Part 3.

05 I No (Remix)
Nothing is really known about this unreleased remix of I No. It may be incomplete, it may even be unfinished. I have a slightly different version of this on a cassette that does not fade in at the beginning, but otherwise it's no different.

06 Alphabet St. "This Is Not Music, This Is A Trip" (Alternate Remix)
This unreleased remix features a lot of new vocals that appear nowhere else. Apparently some promo copies listed an additional remix of Alphabet St. that was about as long as this version, although when those copies are played the standard version of "This Is Not Music, This Is A Trip" appeared. As good as the regular remix is, this is pretty damn fantastic. Really a shame it was never released.

07 I Wish U Heaven (Alternate Version)
08 Positivity (Alternate Version)
Both of these are outtakes from the Lovesexy sessions. They each have differences from the released versions, although Positivity has the most notable difference as Cat performs the Music Is The Key rap she did on Cindy C.

09 Scarlet Pussy (12" Version)
From the 12" version of I Wish U Heaven. During the instrumental break in the middle of the track, if you listen closely you can hear Prince going on about something, but it's buried very deep in the mix. If anyone knows of an easy way to adjust this track so it's out of phase, let me know as that might be a way to figure out what he is saying. Very strange track, and as I mentioned earlier, a different mix from the 7" version.

Prince - The Black Album

I have been so psyched about sharing this, and I couldn't wait until December, so here it is! Consider this a preview of the Christmas Present I keep mentioning. While I've posted Prince's Black Album before, this is a very different occasion, a rather special one as far as I am aware. This version of the album is from an official 1994 German vinyl pressing. The 1994 pressings are understandably more common than original 1987 versions, but it is said that the same masters for the 1987 vinyl and CD pressings of The Black Album were used in 1994, so the quality should be the same. Apart from US promos, Germany was the only country that had vinyl copies of The Black Album issued for retail, so this may be the first time an official retail version of the album on vinyl has been ripped and shared in lossless form online! Now of course I note that this "may be the first time" because it's not like I'm all knowing or something, but I can't find any other record of this having happened before so there is a good chance this might actually be the first. With that said, I've labored over this rip to manually declick it as best as I possibly could, and I think I've done a great job, but I mailed this and some of my My Bloody Valentine vinyl to PBthal so an even better rip might be online in the near future! For now though, here is the 16 Bit version of my rip in FLAC and V0 MP3. Trey will be posting the 24 Bit version on that private site soon.

Just in case you're not familiar with The Black Album, after 1987's Sign O' The Times, Prince wanted to issue another album that same year, and not a side project. This one would have no mention of the artist featured on the sleeve leaving the cover completely black. The record itself only listed the names of the songs, no other info apart from small legal text and a release code. The album itself was mostly recorded during and before the Crystal Ball/Sign O' The Times sessions began apart from a few tracks recorded for Sheila E.'s birthday party. Warner Bros. thought it was a great idea and started pressing copies. All was going according to plan until the week before it's release in December, when Prince was at a club and met Ingrid Chavez. They started talking, felt a connection and went back to Paisley Park where Prince apparently took ecstasy. He must have had a bad trip as claimed he saw the word GOD appear in the stars and was convinced The Black Album was evil. He called Warners in a panic, telling them they had to cancel the album and destroy all the copies, which amazingly enough they did. They did a thorough job but copies got out and The Black Album became one of the most bootlegged albums of all time. Prince swore he would never release the album but in 1994, while trying to negotiate the end of his contract with Warners, an agreement was made that The Black Album would finally see a limited release, supposedly in exchange for a one million dollar check.

The story of The Black Album being pulled from release is what is usually remembered the most, but the music is fascinating too. Some see it as the most negative thing Prince ever did, with songs like Bob George, where he lowered the pitch of his voice to a monsterous growl and threatened to kill a woman, Superfunkycalifragisexy, a funk workout about S&M somehow involving a drink made from squirrel meat, or Cindy C, an ode to the model Cindy Crawford in which Prince tries to get her naked. Others think it's the wildest and most daring thing he ever did, managing to remain funky as hell and intensely shocking at the same time. Some see it as terribly dated, with Dead On It, an anti-rapper scribe, as a sign of Prince's disconnectedness from reality. I just think it's a product of the time and place Prince was in his life, although I also think it's the last consistently good album he ever recorded. The Black Album is strange, funky, catchy and unforgettable. The unforgettable part is important because even if you don't like it you won't forget about it. It's essential Prince and one of the few albums of it's kind, something unafraid to be dark and nasty. It would have shocked many people if it had come out as originally planned, and it would probably be widely acknowledged as dated now, but there is no denying that Prince was in prime form.

If you want more information about the vinyl pressings of The Black Album, TheBlackAlbum.info is a great site with details regarding every official issue of the album and several bootleg versions. The wikipedia reference also has a lot of great information for you to peruse. Finally, the album is most certainly out of print and will probably not see reissue, at least not anytime in the remote future. Warner Bros. supposedly tried to strike a deal to do a deluxe reissue of Prince's catalog which would have featured lots of unreleased material, but the purple one wanted a lot of money. I've heard rumors that the he wanted was around twenty million, which wouldn't surprise me. So it returns to the bootleg nature in which it will forever live in infamy. Infamy is a nice place to rest your laurels, although I certainly don't think Prince would be satisfied with anything other than being number one, and that's just never going to happen again.


Prince - The Black Album (1994 German Vinyl Rip)

Side 1 FLAC

Side 2 FLAC

V0 MP3

01 Le Grind
02 Cindy C
03 Dead On It
04 When 2 R In Love
05 Bob George
06 Superfunkycalifragisexy
07 2 Nigs United 4 West Compton
08 Rock Hard In A Funky Place