1999 Part 1: Old Friends 4 Sale
Sometimes I wonder if artists worry about moments like Prince faced in 1999. When he sat down to write a song called “1999” back in 1982, he had to know that if there was any kind of interest in the song at that time, seventeen years later that interest would be renewed in some form. People would expect you to trot out that song again, one way or another, and Prince was not an artist who was very good at looking backward. Even in a live setting, while he was never hesitant to play his older material, the arrangements were always radically different, as opposed to Michael Jackson’s shows, which were slavishly devoted to reproducing his records and music videos as accurately as possible.
In a situation like this one, however, the demand would be very specific. The public would want the original song. Prince would not be enthusiastic about doing that, for various reasons, not the least of which would be that Warner Bros. owned the master recording of the original song, and would therefore make the lion’s share of any profits from a reissue. For the very same reasons, however, Warner Bros. would and did reissue the single of “1999” backed with “How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore?”. In a few markets, there were 12-inch vinyl singles that also included “D.M.S.R.” which was also in line with what was released in 1982.
Image: Warner Bros.
In Celebration Of Taylor Swift
Prince, meanwhile, had other plans. He went into the studio and re-recorded “1999,” and in an effort to undercut Warner’s re-issue, he put out 1999: The New Master, an EP of the new recording, as well as a few remixes. The idea was to reclaim ownership of the song, and Prince claimed that he had done the same for many of his former songs, with plans to do so for each and every song in his catalog as a means for having ownership of all his masters. It’s unknown if he ever followed through on this, because no other releases like this one ever materialized.
Taylor Swift, on the other hand, is in a similar situation and seems to be following through 100% on this very same threat. She has released two re-recorded albums so far for the same reasons. I have made much of artists like Janelle Monae and Lizzo being Prince’s artistic descendants, and I absolutely believe that they are. On the other hand, Taylor Swift is no slouch in that regard as far as her music goes but is probably the closest thing to his heir on the business side. Her record of challenging the people who presume to hold the power of the purse over her is impressive to say the least. In fact, she is the one and only artist I can think of who has gone beyond Prince’s initial battles, and I’m impressed with her levels of success in those efforts. Her campaign of re-releases in order to “re-claim” her masters is exactly what Prince threatened to do but never did.
Seriously. Go Taylor. Once you get those new albums out, flay Scooter in the streets til you get your tapes back.
Seriously, no weasley bastard named Scooter is going to last long against her. Image: TAS Rights Management
TRACKLIST
1999 (The New Master)
This re-recording is more of a curiosity than a replacement of the original. It was supposed to feel more “tribal,” but again, the original not only had nothing wrong with it, it was Prince’s first stone cold classic track. It was the first time Prince achieved the crossover success that defined his career. Of all his songs, this one maybe needed to be updated the least.
In comedy writing, there is an old cliché called “Putting a hat on a hat.” If you’ve never heard of it, it means taking a joke that was already doing its job just fine and adding to it. At best you’ve added nothing to the effectiveness of the first hat, but more likely just makes the whole thing awkward. Which is a good description of “1999 (The New Master).”
For the most part (The New Master) is the same as the old master, but with several extra hats. First of all, the majority of the original track is still there. The original drum tracks, bass, guitar, keyboards and even the co-lead vocals from Lisa Coleman, Jill Jones, Dez Dickerson and Jesse Johnson are all there. There are a few extra levels of production, slightly altered drums, and the mix was obviously undertaken with a very different approach, but then there are the blatant additions, which is where the song really starts to take the corners at dangerous speeds. Larry Graham contributes some background vocals as does the always-welcome Rosie Gaines, but what hurts this track is the presence of a rap verse by Doug E. Fresh.
To be clear, I’m not trying to trash Doug E. Fresh generally. He is a hip-hop pioneer, and many of his tracks are foundational to the development of the genre. “La-Di-Da-Di” in particular is absolutely fantastic and still holds up remarkably well. But unless the song has been specifically designed for the rapper, no MC has a chance when faced with the music of Prince and told to rap. In fact, the MC’s chances aren’t great even if Prince has created song specifically for the rapper.
In this case, the rap is meant to function as an auxiliary bridge for the song, which already has a number of different sections and did not need another one. But there is another one. in addition to the new instrumentation and other guest artists, AND the rap verse, now there is also a Latin-esque breakdown at 5:30. Hats on hats on hats.
In spite of all this the damn thing still works. “1999” cannot truly be broken. It’s not as good as the original – especially not as good as the remaster from a few years ago – but it’s not like it doesn’t work. It’s still good, and the advantage of this over the Warner reissue is that it’s not a reissue. But that’s about it.
Rosario 1999
I suppose this is a non-album B-Side? The keyboard lick from “Little Red Corvette” plays while Rosario Dawson gives a kind of William Shatner-esque reading of a poem Prince wrote that is reflective of his increasing fascination with the Jehovah’s Witness faith. As usual with his assertions in this direction, it’s a combination of accuracy and seemingly deliberate distortions of fact. Rosario Dawson is a fine actor and she does the best she can with the material. It’s short, so here are the lyrics:
"Dear Diary, Wednesday, 1999 Night before Thanksgiving: Wondering what the Holy Day… I got a lot to be thankful for While my people’s catchin’ hell in the worst way There’s as many black males and Latinos in jail as there are in the streets, OK? Is it my imagination or is there some deviation from the part that God wanted us to play? First of all, there’s the name “Christmas”: Which means, get this, “Send Christ away” "Mass" from the Latin word "missa" as spoken by the priests of old
We’re saying if the face of the true King was shown today To its foundations would shake the earth And so the reason for the ganda and propa: To distort the king’s color and the date of his birth Open your mind, there’s not much time This is Rosario, 1999"
1999 (The Inevitable Mix)
All of these mixes have a feeling of being a bit obligatory, and this one seems to have it right there in the title. It’s actually sparse, especially for a late-90’s remix, with the instrumentation mostly consisting of percussion, which allows the vocal arrangement to shine, which is good to listen to no matter who is singing it.
1999 (Keep Steppin’)
This track hearkens back to the earlier days of the 90’s when Prince had Tony M. in the NPG. Singles would have what were supposed to be remixes, but would instead be tracks that basically stood on their own and bore virtually no resemblance to the song they were supposedly remixed from and were mostly places to feature Tony. The example that comes most readily to mind is “Gangsta Glam” from the “Gett Off” single. The big difference here is that Doug E. Fresh is simply a better, more seasoned MC than Tony M. The smaller, but also important, difference is that it feels like Doug E. did as much or more of the production than Prince, so he has tailored this track to his talents. As a result, he is put to much better use here.
1999 (Rosie & Doug E. in a Deep House)
This remix is clearly meant to feature Rosie Gaines. Most of it is a kind of basic late-90’s house groove with Prince noodling on the keyboard while Rosie improvises. About two-thirds of the way through, Doug E. Fresh takes over, and again it’s a much better rap than on the title track.
1999 (The New Master Radio Edit)
Basic radio edit with truncated intro and fade out before Latin section.
1999 (acapella)
All of Prince’s EP releases with acapella tracks give interesting insights into his production methods. This one omits the 1982 vocals which are clearly present on the rest of the EP in favor of the stuff recorded for the new tracks. There are vocal lines abruptly cut off that would be inexcusable in other contexts because Prince was trusting the backing tracks to cover a multitude of sins. Which, to be fair, they absolutely did.
Flash. Backward. Nineteen Ninety-Six
Image: NPG Records
In the early 2000’s Prince kept an official discography on his website that definitely had an “official propaganda” edge to it, and several albums were listed with a large “CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATION” banner across them, and this was one of them. In fact, this was probably the one that earned it more than any other. The Vault…Old Friends 4 Sale was the final price Prince paid to get away from Warner Bros. Records, and in a way they made him pay it twice.
Back in 1996, Prince finally got Warner Bros.’ hooks out of him, but there was one last hoop through which he was required to jump. He had to hand over an album, fully produced and mastered, complete with album art, ready for release whenever Warner Bros. felt the time was right. This was an offer Prince made almost immediately three years before when the conflict started, but Warner balked. I can find no credible reason why they wanted to turn down this offer. I suppose they didn’t realize how bad the situation with Prince would get. Now they were fully aware and just in case they were wrong again, they were steering for the nearest exit ramp.
Or, rather, they were steering for the nearest exit ramp that didn’t involve simply releasing Prince. That was still never going to happen. It’s understandable, really. Say what you will about his methods or whether it was justified in the first place – Prince had caused his record label a great deal of trouble and embarrassment, and he had deliberately done so as publicly and loudly as possible. He had pissed off a lot of people at the top of Warner Bros. Records, and they wanted to do what they could to get some of their own back. So they made him give him an album and go away. Which doesn’t sound like much. He did make sure they could not change the material on the album or the packaging in any way, nor could they alter the sound quality, etc. All they had control of was the timing of release. So the Warner Bros. executives sat on the album. And waited.
In Pursuit Of A Hit
Emancipation came out and while it wasn’t a huge sales success, it was a critical success and the tour did extremely well. But then things started to slide a little for Prince. The Crystal Ball launch was a total mess and left Prince looking like he didn’t know how to handle the business side of his empire. Newpower Soul came out, and because it was an indie release with a small distributor it didn’t sell terribly well. The albums for Chaka Khan and Larry Graham were basically the same story, and the tours in support were short.
None of this actually hurt Prince’s bottom line, but the image rehabilitation that began with Emancipation had suffered in the last three years. Prince needed a big hit, and he was gearing up for that with a new album called Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic. A huge media campaign was also gearing up to promote the album, with TV appearances and a cable special. So Warner Bros. decided to get in on the action by releasing The Vault two and half months before that.
This may seem like a bit of a petty move on the part of Warner Bros. Records, as if they were trying to deliberately muddy the waters by releasing a “Prince” album in such close proximity to a 0(+> album, especially when they were promoting the material on The Vault as being “classic” Prince material as opposed to whatever stuff was being churned out at Paisley Park these days. Like they were trying to deliberately tank the sales of both albums for some reason.
It'll seem even more petty and vindictive when I remind you that this interval of release is almost exactly what Prince himself wanted to do with the “Prince” album Come and the “0(+>” album The Gold Experience in 1994, but WB put the kibosh on it because they were afraid it would tank the sales of both albums.
And those, I’m fairly certain, were the final shots fired in the war between Warner Bros. Records and Prince Rogers Nelson. What at one point was a conflict so unprecedented, so groundbreaking and hard-fought that it is still referred to in serious discussions about artists’ rights and the role of major labels in the recording industry had finally descended to this. From “What right does any corporation have to own the master recordings to my life’s work?” all the way down to “See? Told you two albums couldn’t sell when you release them so close together, idiot.”
Odds And Ends And A Photoshop 1.0 Album Cover
The music on The Vault is not what I would call a cohesive album, but that shouldn’t turn you off. The album title is fairly accurate, in the sense that Prince seems to have reached into the vault and grabbed some stuff that he thought fit the criteria of an album and came in just over the minimum time limit and called it good, or at least good enough.
The album cover is an image taken from the book “Neo Manifesto” which is a small, 36-page volume of photos taken on the Act II tour in 1993 by French photographer Claude Gassian and digitally altered by Charles Hermes. The photo used for this album cover was taken just before an aftershow.
Again, all of this is low-effort, and consists of stuff that was just lying around. What has always interested me about The Vault is that none of it is bad stuff, it’s just stuff that doesn’t really go together. The art doesn’t match any of the music, the music itself doesn’t have much flow to it. When I bought it as a CD when it came out in 1999, I definitely felt that “Contractual Obligation” sticker. Twenty-odd years later, it doesn’t have the same cobbled together texture, though. Or if it does, perhaps that doesn’t feel like a bad thing anymore. The album format has become so much less essential that I don’t really care that this is not a cohesive album, so when I relistened for this essay, it was easier for me to just hear a bunch of individual tracks – a playlist as opposed to an album, and in that respect, this collection holds up a little better.
As a bunch of tracks that Prince threw into a bucket and handed off to Warner Bros. on his way out the door, a list of songs that he always meant to find some space for on albums for them, but never got around to, The Vault is more palatable. Maybe it’s best to think of this album as an album of b-sides for singles that never got released.
Tracklist
The Rest of My Life
Recorded at Platinum Studios in Melbourne, Australia during the Diamonds And Pearls tour, this was one of an album’s worth of songs originally intended for the James L. Brooks film “I’ll Do Anything.” One of the big selling points of this album for me is that a handful of songs from the film make it onto The Vault.
Image: Columbia Pictures
I’ve talked about the film before, but as a brief refresher: “I’ll Do Anything” was supposed to be Brooks’ attempt to revive the classic movie musical. Prince was brought on to write songs and record backing tracks (which included guide vocals to be re-recorded by the actors later) for the film. The whole film was completed as Brooks envisioned. All the actors, which included Nick Nolte, Tracey Ullman, Anne Heche and Ian McKellan, among others, had all recorded their parts and huge production numbers were filmed. However, when the film went to test audiences, they hated it. The studio got nervous and had Brooks turn the film from a musical into a regular film. At huge expense, and with a lot of reshooting and editing, Brooks complied. The film flopped and the songs all went into the vault at Paisley Park, while the musical version of “I’ll Do Anything” presumably is in a similar vault somewhere in Hollywood.
This particular song is an oddity even among the “I’ll Do Anything” songs because even though it was recorded for the project it was cut before being included. It’s an outtake of an outtake. Nevertheless, it’s a nice little ninety second opener for what Prince obviously considered to be his final kiss-off for WB.
It’s About That Walk
Like most of the tracks on the album, this one has a nice little strut provided by the 1993 NPG brass section, but this one makes it a little more explicit from the title. The song was written and recorded in September of 1993 during sessions for the French singer Ophelie Winter at Studio Guillaume Tell in Suresnes.
The song is credited to “Prince” even though he had changed his name in June of 1993, but those distinctions were always a little fluid and based more on convenience than anything else.
She Spoke 2 Me (Extended Remix)
The title is a misnomer. There was a version of this song on the Girl 6 OST, but that was an edited version of this track. This is the original, full length version.
The song was recorded at Paisley Park some time in October of 1991 during sessions that would produce 0(+>. I’m uncertain whether or not this was ever intended for that album, but I’m inclined to doubt it. All the elements are basically there, including the early 90’s NPG horn section, but the vibe is all wrong for that album. 0(+> uses all these same elements to create a more driven “Earth, Wind and Fire” or even “Fishbone” kind of feeling, whereas this is basically jazz-inflected pop. Which isn’t me knocking it. It’s a fantastic song, and I’m glad the full length version made it out there.
5 Women
This is a minor key blues in the style of “The Thrill is Gone” that Prince handed off to Joe Cocker, who recorded it for his 1991 album Night Calls.
Prince’s version was recorded at Paisley Park in late summer of 1990 during a set of sessions that laid the foundations for what would become Diamonds and Pearls. It has some of his more delicate lead guitar playing of that period on it and is worth a listen, but it’s not the sort of thing I would have expected him to put on an album of his own except in a context such as this.
When The Lights Go Down
I like this song a lot, and I wish I could tell you more about it. Unfortunately, almost everything I can tell you is guesswork and triangulation. It is believed that the song could have been recorded at some point during 1991 or 1992. It sounds like the early 90’s NPG is on the track, so it’s believed Michael B. is on the drum kit, Sonny T. is on bass and Levi Seacer, Jr. is on second guitar. Sheila E. is credited as appearing on the album and is not confirmed elsewhere on the album, so if she actually does appear on the album at all, she is most likely playing percussion here. Otherwise, the percussion is probably Kirk Johnson.
Again, wish I could tell you more about this moody track with its rolling beat and funky bass line…but I can’t. It’s a mystery.
My Little Pill
Another “I’ll Do Anything” song, this one was written for, and at one point recorded by, Julie Kavner. Yup, the voice of Marge Simpson, and Patty and Selma. This is one of the darkest songs Prince ever wrote, and he knew the actor he was writing it for, which makes it even a little creepier because he knew what she would be able to with it by adding a touch of humor.
There Is Lonely
This song was intended as Albert Brooks’ big song from “I’ll Do Anything.” It’s a huge, sweeping power ballad, and hearing Prince’s version you just have to wonder what it sounded like when Albert Brooks sang it.
Old Friends 4 Sale
This is the oldest song on the album, it was originally recorded in 1985, and was apparently unusually personal from a lyrical standpoint. In 1991, Prince revisited the lyrics and reworked them into a less personal form and re-recorded the song, reusing only the orchestration, which is the version here.
Sarah
This is a song from the final sessions to feature Michael B., Sonny T. and Tommy Barbarella in Prince’s band. It was recorded during sessions that led to the album Emancipation, but is still credited to “Prince” on this album. I have a feeling this was just thrown in to have a nice upbeat number before the end of the album, which is fine. I don’t skip it, but it’s a bit of a throwaway.
Extraordinary
This is the Side 2 ballad, and if Prince had felt like promoting this album, he probably would have tried to make this one a hit. It’s a quality song, and he performed it semi-regularly in concert. It was originally intended for a Rosie Gaines solo album, but when plans for that fell through, it sat in the vault until 1996 and Prince needed a ballad for Side 2 of The Vault. The rest is history.
NEXT WEEK: Prince straps on the waxen wings and flaps for the commercial heights once more with Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic!
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